Challenging Dualism: Rethinking the World Council of Churches through Anzaldúa's Borderlands

Abstract

precis:

This essay applies Gloria Anzaldúa's theoretical lens of borders and borderlands to the World Council of Churches. Such a lens highlights how the W.C.C. simultaneously expands the borderlands and reinscribes dualisms. I explore the Council's voting procedure and flexible understanding of membership as instances of the W.C.C.'s softening borders. I also present the Council's struggle for representation, specifically with gender and rationalism as instances of the W.C.C.'s supporting dualisms. In response to existing borders within the Council, a mestiza consciousness imagines alternative possibilities. The 11th Assembly's elections offer key insights as a case study of border support and opposition that intersects with consensus, membership, representation, and rationalism. I suggest that Anzaldúa is useful for the W.C.C. and ecumenism overall in identifying and challenging dualisms.