The Academy's Blind Spot

Thomas Albert (Tal) Howard on the Limits of "Post-Colonialism"

The attacks this past Easter against Christians in Sri Lanka were horrific in themselves, but the horror deepens when we realize that they fit a broader pattern of global persecution. Unfortunately, in the West, certain sensibilities and assumptions hinder us from perceiving the magnitude of the problem.

For this reason, several months ago, the British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, made known an independent review into how the British government responds to worldwide persecution. A feeling of post-colonial guilt, he assayed, has hindered people's ability to grasp the enormous scale of the issue, as Christianity is often associated with "white privilege" and missionaries are regarded contemptuously as agents of imperialism.

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Thomas Albert Howard is professor of humanities and holder of the Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University. He is the editor of The Idea of Tradition in the Late Modern World (Cascade, 2020).

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