Editor’s Note: Faith on the Road is a podcast by Scholar Leaders that presents conversations with theological leaders from the Majority World. As a sister ministry of Scholar Leaders, the InSights Journal is publishing a transcript of an excerpt of an episode hosted by Juliany González Nieves and Gene Green in conversation with Jocabed Solano. Originally, the episode aired in Spanish, so we offer this revised English transcript so that more of our global fellowship can learn from Jocabed. Jocabed is working on her PhD on theology done within Indigenous communities across the Americas. She is a daughter of the Guna Nation, Panamanian, and director of Memoria Indígena. The transcript has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Faith on the Road

Indigenous Christian theologies is a broad topic, and we do not want to assume that we are speaking for all Indigenous theologies or all Indigenous communities, so we’d like to begin with the following question: How do you define Indigenous Christian theology? And in what ways does it differ from—or challenge—the dominant theological frameworks shaped by the West?

Jocabed Solano

Indigenous peoples have lived through a process of the revindication of our Indigenous spiritualities. It is precisely in this process that the question has emerged, especially for many people from Christian backgrounds, of what it means to be an Indigenous Christian or a Christian Indigenous person. This question carries many tensions. Personally, I believe that being a follower of Jesus is an invitation to strengthen and deepen our identity—in my case, my identity as a Guna person—and not an invitation to fragment identity. When we talk about Indigenous Christian theology or Christian Indigenous theology, we are asking what this means for the reality of Indigenous peoples in Abya Yala—which is what my people call the continent that most people know as the Americas.

In Indigenous languages, theology as a concept does not really exist. However, there is an approximation in the sense that all peoples, in one way or another, are in search of understanding the divine within their context. So, from there, we can say that while theology may be a borrowed concept from the West, the lived experience of our relationship with the divine is not borrowed. And I think that is important to clarify.

Indigenous peoples understand the divine and understand their relationship with the divine in many ways. As you mentioned, we cannot speak for all peoples, but we can point to some foundational themes. I’m going to give the example of the Gunadule people in order to explain this more concretely. For the Gunadule people, our relationship with the divine is expressed through Nana and Baba—Mother and Father. This is how we refer to the Creator. When you notice this, you begin to recognize an idea of complementarity. This sense of complementarity is not only present among the Guna people, but among many Indigenous peoples throughout Abya Yala—and not only in Abya Yala, but across the world. We cannot understand the divine without a sense of complementarity as a foundational cultural value among Indigenous peoples.

And here we recognize that the way we understand divinity—in this case, Nana and Baba—is shaped by the ways we understand our own cultural reality. So, when we speak about theology, even though it is a borrowed concept from the West, we also acknowledge that our relationship with the divine is shaped through our own ways of understanding and relating.

When we speak about Christian Indigenous theology, we begin asking how this spirituality, this way of thinking, this cosmo-living, dialogues with the Christian faith. When I say cosmo-living, I mean it as an epistemic approximation of the experience of living within the cosmos—not only cosmovision, which is an approximation of how one understands the cosmos intellectually or conceptually. Cosmo-living is different. It is about living relationally within the cosmos. The Gunadule people understand ourselves as having a relationship with the Creator—a Creator who is present throughout all our reality.

From Indigenous Christian faith—in this case, among the Gunadule people—we can understand that all theology is done from a contextual reality. I cannot do theology without context because no human being exists outside of context. So, when we speak about an Indigenous Christian theology, in this case a Guna Indigenous Christian theology, we understand that our spirituality and our context fertilize our way of understanding God through the Christian faith. That creates a possibility for dialogue because if we do theology from our context, then I cannot deny my identity as Gunadule in order to understand Christianity. I understand the Christian faith through the eyes of who I am and who my people are.

Faith on the Road

You mentioned the recognition of contextual realities, and I think this is often much more explicit among theologians from the Majority World than among theologians in the United States or Europe. So there is already a difference in the way theology is approached simply through the recognition that we are embedded in contextual realities. Beyond this acknowledgment of context, in what other ways do Indigenous approaches to Christian theology differ from—or challenge—the theological frameworks we typically call Western?

Jocabed Solano

One has to think carefully about the place of mediation—the place from which theology is done and how we understand that place. So, literally, one of the key frameworks is our relationship with the Earth. The Earth is the place from which we theologize. For Indigenous peoples, our collective learning of the memories of our peoples, the ways we have made society, the ways we have built culture, the ways we have walked throughout Abya Yala, have all been deeply connected to observation and to our close relationship with the Earth. And therefore, the Earth as a place of theologizing allows us to think about the Earth not merely as an object but as a subject in relationship with the Creator.

This relationship between the Creator and the Earth allows the Gunadule to learn from the Earth. We also see this in the biblical narrative. We see it in the Psalms. We see it in Job chapter 12, when it says that the Earth will teach us, that the beasts will teach us. So, when I think about this, I think about the Earth as a theologian—not only as a place we inhabit but as a place that reveals from the Creator.

And here there is a difference because we not only learn from the Earth—from animals and plants—but we also learn with the Earth and on the Earth. The Earth teaches us. The Earth becomes a relationship through which we learn who God is. And that gives us a hermeneutical key not only for how we understand God, but also for how we understand life itself.

And I think this is very important because sometimes people hear this and say, “How beautiful.” But within Indigenous philosophy this is a deeply important value when we do theology. Because while Christianity arrived on the continent at a certain moment in history, Indigenous peoples had already been learning through observing birds, plants, and their relationship with the Earth. Through that relationship they understood that there was a superior Being seeking relationship with humanity. So, there was already philosophy there. There was already theology there. There was already a way of understanding how God reveals Godself on the Earth, to the Earth, and from the Earth.

[Today,] cultural dynamics may change significantly, but there are still values that remain alive within what the Gunadule people would call layers of wisdom. For example, I already mentioned complementarity, but there are others.

There is the value of the holistic, [by which I mean that] community is central. This does not mean that the individual disappears within the community, but rather that the individual is formed within community.

There is also a pneumatological dimension, in which the Spirit of Life is present in all the actions and practices of the Gunadule, because the Gunadule are a people who think deeply about how God manifests through all the things people do in daily life. The concrete realities of daily life are just as important [as spiritual activities]: when I pray to the Creator [is as important as] when I go rowing in the sea. I come from a people with six territories. Some of those territories are islands in Panama and Colombia—four hundred islands. And for the grandparents, every time they row (canelean) through the sea, each movement of the paddle becomes a prayer to God, like an exhalation of breath toward the divine. Planting a tree, praying to the Creator, rowing through the sea—all of these actions are interconnected.

Another value that is very important is reciprocity. For Indigenous peoples, reciprocity does not mean giving because we receive. It is not transactional. Rather, it means recognizing that because we depend on the Earth and depend on the Creator, every action has a sense of reciprocity. This perspective allows Indigenous Christian theology to speak into today’s economic reality, where, unfortunately, capitalist systems have generated patterns of excessive consumption and, as a result, environmental crisis. An Indigenous Christian theology grounded in reciprocity allows us to imagine a simpler economy—an economy shaped by good living, not “living well” in the capitalist sense, but good living rooted in right relationships. [All of this] is deeply centered on the relationship we have with the Earth. There is no good life if there is no harmony. Harmony allows us, from an Indigenous Christian theology, to understand that all relationships are important.

All of these relationships imply relationship with the Creator and with the created community—that is, with all living beings, including human beings, who are part of the created order. This includes the Earth itself and even the ancestors. For example, among the Guna people, when a baby is born, we carry out what we call the ceremony of “My First Tree.” The grandmothers take the placenta and the umbilical cord and cultivate them together with a native seed—among the Guna, it may be cacao, banana, or coconut. This ceremony expresses harmony and a deep theology in relation to the Earth. The grandfather or grandmother sings, and what they sing is an expression of worship to the Creator saying, “Today, this baby is born.” When we cultivate the land [like this], we remember that this seed being planted reminds us of our relationship of harmony with the Creator. It also reminds us of our relationship of harmony with the Earth.

It reminds us that our ancestors have walked through this land. It reminds us of our relationship with the entire community—the cosmic family—plants, animals, all living beings. It reminds us once again that this baby who has been born is welcomed into this community and that only when relationships are harmonious can we live that good living. Biblically, this connects with shalom—the shalom of God for all creation.

This harmony allows us to recognize that every action we take can have both positive and negative consequences for the neighbor. The neighbor is not only the human being but also the Earth. We reflect on what our role as community is in relation to our actions toward creation and toward the Creator. This harmony that emerges from the concept of good living proposes important political approaches that are embodied in concrete daily actions. [In other words,] it allows us to think about cosmic equilibrium. Cosmic equilibrium means having clarity regarding our ethical consciousness—how we behave toward others and how our actions toward others carry very concrete theological implications. What I do—or fail to do—impacts others. And this has economic, social, and political implications within a theology deeply centered on relationships of harmony with all who live on the Earth and also with the Creator.

[To return to one of my points above,] for Indigenous peoples in Abya Yala, and for the Guna people specifically, our relationship with the ancestors is very important. The ancestors are not only a “thought” but a collective memory. Everything we have learned—how to relate to others, how to relate to the Creator, to Nana and Baba, to the Earth—has come through ancestral songs passed down from generation to generation. These songs remain alive in the collective memory of the people but also in the memory of the land, and therefore in the memory of the Creator. So, for us, this relationship with the ancestors is very important because we do not think of the ancestors as absent. They remain present within our collective living.

What does this mean? It means that their memories are so alive that when we listen to songs, the grandparents name these memories. For example, we think of ancestors such as Kikardiyay and Inanadili: Kikardiyay was a woman leader who taught the Gunadule people how to live in community; Inanadili, another Guna ancestor, taught us how to sing (for us, singing means living in relationship of harmony with others, living in community); Ibeorgun is an ancestor who taught us how to live [within] a socio-political construct. I could mention many more. But these ancestors remain very alive and very present—in songs, in stories, in history. We continue narrating this memory for our children because it is not dead memory. It remains present in our daily actions.

[In biblical terms,] for example, when we read the Gospel, particularly the passage on the Mount of Transfiguration, and Moses and Elijah appear, one at [Jesus’s] right and one at his left, many people interpret the text in different ways. But for us as Gunadule people, when we read that text, we understand it as the presence of ancestors at a key moment in the life of Jesus. Jesus is living through a decisive moment because he is approaching the cross. And Moses and Elijah appear—the disciples are there [as well]—affirming his calling and his vocation. From an Indigenous Christian reading, when we encounter this text, it becomes very natural for us to remember once again that the ancestors remain present in daily life and that they affirm our testimony of faith in our path as followers of Jesus.

Faith on the Road

Jocabed, how do you navigate the deep wounds of colonization, especially the role the Church played in the suppression of Indigenous identities and spiritualities?

Jocabed Solano

That is a difficult question because within our Indigenous communities there is still a great deal of pain regarding colonialism, epistemicide, and the supposed superiority of certain peoples who consider themselves superior and dominant over others.

At the same time, through the work of Memoria Indígena, we also recognize that there are people, churches, and missionaries who have done beautiful work within Indigenous communities and who, through the Gospel of Jesus, have truly learned what it means to learn from Indigenous peoples and to be evangelized by Indigenous peoples in relationships of reciprocity.

I must note that there is a great diversity of churches throughout Abya Yala. So, when one speaks with Indigenous communities and with brothers and sisters from [various] churches, one encounters both stories of terror and stories where one can say: this truly reflects the Gospel of Jesus. It is complex. Because, regarding colonial theologies and colonial forms of mission—and I want to be clear that I am speaking specifically about those forms, while also recognizing there have been other positive examples—for me, the process has involved a kind of repair along the journey, especially in my encounters with Indigenous brothers and sisters.

For me, as a Christian, the first step has been learning to listen without feeling the need to argue in defense of actions that are unjustifiable. The first step has been learning to listen seriously. And listening not merely as the act of hearing but as the act of truly recognizing that if my brother or sister tells me that a community or person has been wounded by a situation, then my responsibility as an Indigenous woman and as a follower of Jesus is to believe them and to respond with sensitivity—not with arguments, because there are no arguments that justify violence. Rather, those actions of violence must be denounced.

Secondly, something that has helped me deeply has been asking what God is saying to me through the wounded Other. From the perspective of colonial theologies, one of the things that has caused the most damage has been discrimination and notions of superiority, which for us are deeply connected to the invasion and colonization carried out by Spain in Abya Yala. For me, this journey has involved growing in solidarity with the realities Indigenous peoples live through.

I can perhaps explain this more concretely through a personal example. I have had many processes of conversion throughout my life, and one of those conversions was related specifically to this issue. I remember attending a large Indigenous consultation gathering when I was around twenty years old. I was there as a university student, very eager to learn. An Aymara woman, around seventy-five years old, stood up and began speaking to all the Indigenous peoples gathered there. She said that we had to be careful with the evangelical church. She said that the evangelical church had become an enemy of Indigenous peoples because it had participated in colonialism, in violence against our peoples, and in the denial of our identities. As a young Christian woman at the time, it felt like a revelation to me because I was Christian in attendance and I did not know how to hide. I remember thinking: this woman is very angry with the church, and I am part of the church. Honestly, I did not even want people to know I was Christian because I thought they might kick me out or see me as an enemy of my own people. But that night I was deeply moved by what she said because I realized I had not fully become aware of the colonialism Indigenous communities had experienced. I remember going back to my room that night and praying. I said to God: “I do not fully understand what is happening here, but I know I need to become aware of something I have not truly seen before.” I remember kneeling there, crying and praying, saying: “I do not know what you are telling me, but I truly want to hear your voice. And if there is another way of walking, I want to walk differently.”

That night became a moment of conversion for me because my eyes were opened to another story—a story I had not heard before and had not lived myself. I remember saying: from today forward, as an Indigenous Guna follower of Jesus, I will stand in solidarity with the struggles of Indigenous peoples. I will not search for arguments to justify violence. Instead, I will listen. I will walk alongside people. I will feel the pain. I will learn. And I will remain with the people. For me, this carried profound meaning because it opened the possibility of new relationships. Perhaps this would not have happened if I had not listened to that seventy-five-year-old Aymara woman speaking to me as a twenty-year-old young woman. That was not the whole story, of course, but I received it as God speaking to me, and I believe that there was a transformation in the way I understood the Other, because although I come from a Guna community, for some reason I had not become fully aware of the colonialism present within churches.

Faith on the Road

What are some of the challenges and opportunities for theological dialogue between Indigenous theologies and global Christianity today?

Jocabed Solano

[First,] I think there is a great opportunity before us today for listening, for learning from one another, for recognizing in the Other the face of Jesus—the face of divinity in the Other.

[Second,] I think it is key for us to think pneumatologically about how we are seeing the Spirit of Life, the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, at work among Indigenous peoples. We should learn from the church of Antioch: when Paul arrives, it is asked whether the Spirit is present there too; when they go back to Jerusalem to give their report, they affirm that yes, the Spirit is also there. So, I think there is a challenge for the Church to recognize and affirm that the Spirit of Life is also moving among the Indigenous peoples of the world.

[For example,] I think the challenge of history is very important. Here I am referring to the ways hegemonic histories have produced colonialism. Therefore, it becomes important to listen to the voices of revindication—in this case, the voices of Indigenous peoples, because we do not need intermediaries to tell our own stories. We ourselves, together with the action of the Spirit working among us, are the ones who must tell the story of what God is doing in our communities. One of the things we do through Memoria Indígena is [just this]: we encourage Indigenous churches, Indigenous brothers and sisters, to tell the stories of what God is doing in their own contexts. I believe that this is a great opportunity to participate in what God is doing in God’s Kingdom and to work together with Indigenous communities so that these voices are truly heard and truly taken seriously within the global Church as expressions of the way the Spirit is acting in these communities.

[Third,] I think this is an important opportunity for reparation. We speak about salvation, but salvation without repair is not salvation. Here I think about what Jesus teaches us in the Gospel of Luke through Zacchaeus. You know the passage, so I will not retell it fully, but there is reparation there. Salvation comes to the house of Zacchaeus because there is an act of repair when Zacchaeus says, “I will return four times what I have stolen.” Although I think that many times we reduce reparation only to economic terms, [but], yes, the economic dimension matters. But there is also reparation related to memory, reparation related to identity, reparation related to land. This becomes difficult because many times we are very comfortable, and reparation involves cost. But following Jesus also has costs—concrete costs, concrete actions, actions that allow us to think seriously about how we can walk in concrete ways alongside Indigenous communities. Churches around the world can imagine many forms of reparation. I think this would become one of the greatest testimonies of our faith for many Indigenous peoples who do not believe in the Gospel of Jesus because they have encountered it as a colonial act.

[Fourth,] I think theology must reflect seriously on the values of Indigenous peoples, Indigenous epistemologies, and Indigenous ontologies, because this is not merely an academic exercise. It has to do with a deepening understanding that the way we do theology must transform our relationships of power.

It is very important to think carefully about the relationships missionaries establish with Indigenous peoples. The economic dimension matters here too. When missionaries enter Indigenous communities, the question for me is this: are we creating projects because we genuinely care for people? Or because we are interested in numbers, statistics, and “results” that emerge from a Western logic but do not truly allow communities to be empowered to do the work they themselves believe is best for their own people? I believe that many of these relationships—relationships between institutions and organizations that hold resources and Indigenous peoples and Indigenous churches—are not equitable. [But] these relationships need to be permeated by a theology of reciprocity, by mutuality, by forms of relationship fertilized by other ways of relating. When relationships are inequitable, they must be named and denounced because they do not reflect the Gospel of Jesus. I believe that the Gospel itself dismantles those structures that stand against the heart of the Gospel.

Finally, I believe that within these relationships of reciprocity we need far more space to listen to Indigenous voices and Indigenous theologies—to the work Indigenous peoples are already doing. We as the global Church must allow ourselves to be evangelized by Indigenous Christian theologies in ways that shape our mission and transform the way we understand and practice it.

Faith on the Road

What would a theologically just future for Indigenous communities in Abya Yala look like, and what role should seminaries, churches, scholars, and organizations such as Scholar Leaders play?

Jocabed Solano

I think that when we talk about theology, we also need to talk about epistemic injustices within theological spaces. It is very important to recognize that if we truly want a just theology, then Indigenous Christian theologies must be taken seriously and acknowledged with full theological legitimacy. They cannot be treated as a subcategory of theology.

Sometimes hegemonic theologies look at Indigenous theologies almost in a patronizing way: “How beautiful, they also do theology.” But then Indigenous theologies are not considered worthy of genuine dialogue alongside theologies coming from the North—or even alongside non-Indigenous Latin American theologies. Epistemic justice invites us to imagine something different—not only eating together but also cooking together. We cook together. We prepare the table together. We eat together. No theology is superior to another.

[Similarly,] many times when people hear “Indigenous theology,” they immediately think only about creation care. Yes, of course, creation care matters, but Indigenous theologies also speak about soteriology. They speak about pneumatology. They speak about eschatology. Obviously, creation care runs transversally through all of these areas. I am not [denying] it. What I mean is that people often reduce Indigenous theology only to “the Earth.” But we need to understand that these perspectives are transversal to all areas of theology because, in the end, a truly Indigenous Christian theology involves the whole of life. Our faith must be present in every area of life.