Of Kingdoms and Kin-doms

After a year of Praying With the Sisters nearly every night, there’s one thing that I’ve observed that persons new to our community always seem to notice: the translation used for our Scripture readings.  Specifically, they notice that the word “kingdom” is never used. Instead, we use “kin-dom”. It can be jarring to your ears the first time you hear it, and invariably there are comments in the chatroom – “did you say kin-dom?” and “what version of the Bible are you using?”  (FYI, it’s the Inclusive Bible, an egalitarian translation from Priests for Equality.) Then, there are discussions about what kin-dom means as both a theoretical concept and as something we can live out in our lives.

Kin-dom is not a strange concept to me; I’ve been using that word instead of kingdom in my prayers and preaching since about 1998, when I took an Ethics class with Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz, the scholar that popularized the term (although she credits her friend, Georgene Wilson, O.S.F. for teaching it to her.) As she articulated a mujerista theology, Isasi-Diaz wrote of rejecting kingdom because “it is obviously a sexist word that presumes that God is male. Second, the concept of kingdom in our world today is both hierarchal and elitist”. She writes,

The word kin-dom makes it clear that when the fullness of God becomes a day-to-day reality in the world at large, we will all be sisters and brothers–kin to each other.

Central to the concept of kin-dom is relationship – God’s relationship to us, and our relationships with one another. It is radical and transformative. Consider how kin-dom vs. kingdom reveals the nature of salvation. Salvation is meant to restore our relationship with God, to reconcile ourselves to the Divine. In the most severe traditional interpretations, this reconciliation occurs through the blood sacrifice of Christ’s crucifixion. It is a hierarchical transaction, where God the Father/King requires an offering of appeasement from his subordinates.

In a kin-dom, however, salvation is expressed through the love between God and each human being but also among human beings. As Aruna Gnanadason writes:

This love relationship between us and God, between each other and between us and all of creation, is the goal of all life – it constitutes the fullness of our humanity and of life that salvation points to.

In other words, what is reconciliation to God without reconciliation to one another and all of Creation? What is salvation if it does not inspire us to live our lives in right relationship with one another as Jesus taught us?

For me, using kin-dom was particularly powerful and transformative as I considered how our concepts of kingdom/Kingdom and empire influenced our concept of mission and our colonial endeavors in light of my exploration of postmodern theology. Most familiar to Catholics is Latin American Liberation theology but such postcolonial and constructive theologies exist in nearly every world culture today, as native cultures reject the empire-imposed theologies that decimated their cultures (and lands) and explore how their experience of God and salvation melds with their traditional cultural identities and ideals. The liberating idea of kin-dom extends to subsets of emerging and postmodern theologies such as feminist and queer theologies.

A few weeks ago at the A Nun’s Life Summit, our friend Sabrina gifted us with this beautiful song, part of the “canon” of the San Diego Women’s Chorus. It is called Circle Chant, and as she sang it for us, I thought it was a perfect example of what a kin-dom is. It is not linear, it is spherical. It surrounds us and embraces us. It protects us. It helps to make us whole.

“Circle Chant” by Linda Hirschhorn, sung by the San Diego Women’s Chorus

Circle round for freedom,
Circle round for peace.
For all of us imprisoned,
Circle for release.
Circle for the planet,
Circle for each soul.
For the children of our children,
Keep the circle whole.

For further reading, consider:

• A meditation on kin-dom in the context of Mark 10:13-16 by Aruna Gnanadasson, a former Program Director at the World Council of Churches
• The quotations above from Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz come from her essay “Solidarity: Love of Neighbor in the 1980s,” in Lift Every Voice: Constructing Christian Theologies from the Underside, edited by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite and Mary Potter Engel (San Francisco: Harper, 1990), 31-40, 303-305.
• Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz home page at Drew University
• An excellent essay by Brian McLaren on why conversations about theology with adjectives are important to have