Decolonising pundits are all over the place – often crawling out of colonial woodwork to re-invent themselves and their ware in new clothing. Sooner rather than later though, the colonial hold on some pundits would be exposed. Such is the stark reminder of the provisonality of any decolonising undertaking and especially in our deploying of language – the words we deploy and our stock vocabulary.

Recently I have had cause to contemplate why theological institutions and educators keep referring to a group of new students as ‘cohort’. It brought back memories of me objecting to its use at a staff meeting at what was then considered a radical/progressive theological institution. The descriptor of ‘cohort’ remains in place. Though some ecclesial bodies struggle to find ministerial students they continue to deploy ‘cohort’ as the descriptor to welcome the new intake (irrespective of the numbers). The theological institution I once taught at (already referred to) with all their decolonial and inclusive positioning continue to reel out the descriptor.

We would be aware that ideas and assumptions journey through language, both explicitly and implicitly. A decolonial habit/method especially in theological houses must mind their use of language to avoid perpetuating harmful colonial habits.

So how is ‘cohort’ problematic? After all, it is merely a term to locate the ‘new’ collective of arrivals who have given their lives to that maverick Galilean (Palestinian if you wish) teacher and rebel. At this point we may do well to recall that the maverick teacher/rebel was operating on a landscape with a whole collection of occupying Roman boots in his homeland. And he got nailed because of epistemic disobedience. Further excavating would reveal that ‘cohort’ was originally used to define a military unit in ancient Rome. In the Roman Army the term referred to one of the ‘ten divisions’ of a legion of warriors. Yes, over the centuries the term and collective descriptor has been used variously for animals – plants -taxonomy – cultural anthropology etc. But surely, we cannot miss the irony here. Perhaps deep-down, colonial/empire inclinations captured in ‘onward Christian soldiers’ – ‘soldiers of the cross, arise!’ (and more) are too ingrained and too overwhelming.

Language and our descriptors matter. How do we critically contemplate while we communicate so that we can break the cycle of colonial perspectives? So that decolonial becomes habit and method? Besides all the good intentions and some good practices already in place it is time to invest intentionally in decolonising our ‘grammar of faith’ to exorcize our God-talk, writings, and documents of colonial nomenclature.

© caribleaper October 2024