A Puerto Rican Decolonial Theology ─ Prophesy Freedom

This book explores the themes of identity, suffering, and hope in the stories of Puerto Rican people to surface the anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology of a Puerto Rican decolonial theology. Using an interdisciplinary methodology of dialogue between literature and theology, this study reveals the oppression, resistance, and theological vision of the Puerto Rican community. It demonstrates how Puerto Rican literature and Puerto Rican theology are prophetic voices calling out for the liberation of a suffering people, on the island and in the Puerto Rican Diaspora, while employing personal Puerto Rican family/community stories as an authoritative contextual reference point. This work stands within the continuum of contextual theology and diasporic studies of religion in the United States, as well as research in the interdisciplinary field of decolonial and post-colonial studies.

Teresa Delgado is Director of the Peace and Justice Studies Program and Associate Professor and Department Chairperson of Religious Studies at Iona College. Her more recent publications include Augustine and Social Justice, co-edited with John Doody and Kim Paffenroth (2015), and contributions to Queer Christianities: Lived Religion in Transgressive Forms (2014), Reinterpreting Virtues and Values in the U.S. Public Sphere (2013), and More Than a Monologue: Sexual Diversity and the Catholic Church, Volume 1 (2013). Delgado serves on the Board of Directors for WESPAC Foundation (Westchester Peace Action Coalition) and lives in Mount Vernon, NY with her husband and their four children.