Dr. Bilal Ansari Writes Chapter for Postcolonial Critique of Spiritual Care

Bilal Ansari, Faculty Associate in Muslim Pastoral Theology, has written a chapter for an anthology described as a “postcolonial critique of spiritual care.”

Postcolonial Images of Spiritual Care: Challenges of Care in a Neoliberal Age, published by Pickwick Publications, is about “caring for all persons as a part of the revolutionary struggle against colonialism in its many forms.”

Dr. Ansari describes his chapter on Muslim Pastoral Theology as “a brief introduction to my scholarship and social justice work.”

The book overall looks are the ways “in which different forms of oppression, injustice, and violence in the world today are traceable to the legacy and continuing effects of colonialism.”

Authors of diverse ethnic identities, faiths, cultural traditions, gender, and sexual orientations are represented. As such, it “highlights the plurality of voices and concerns that have been overlooked or obscured because of the politics of race, religion, sexuality, nationalism, and other structures of power that have shaped what discursive spiritual care entails today.”

An editorial review by Phillis Isabella Sheppard, Interim Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Religion, Psychology, and Culture at Vanderbilt Divinity School and Graduate Department of Religion, says:

“Postcolonial Images of Spiritual Care is a volume sorely needed. Spiritual care in the last twenty years has more often than not been commodified as part of the capitalist project. As such, the liberation of humans from systemic suffering has been, at best, peripheral. Postcolonial Images of Spiritual Care redefines the practice of spiritual care by exposing the legacy of colonial aims and offering images of spiritual care wherein person, systems, and communities are inextricably linked and, therefore, the heart of postcolonial care.”

Congratulations, Bilal!