Re-membering the Reign of God: The Decolonial Witness of El Salvador’s Church of the Poor

What does it mean for an historically colonial church to become the church of the poor in a world marked by pervasive and persistent coloniality? Re-membering the Reign of God addresses this question through historical and theological reflection on the evolution of El Salvador’s ecclesial base communities as decolonial protagonists of the church of the poor in their own particular context of coloniality and prophetic hope. In the first part of the book, the authors present sacred narratives of ‘Salvadoran Salvation History,’ including histories, songs, and testimonies of ecclesial base communities themselves. In the second part of the book, the authors reflect theologically on these narratives, arguing that these communities embody a decolonial sacrament of the reign of God in and through their ecclesial, social, and cultural reclamation of knowledge, being, and power in the church and the world. These communities therefore represent a particularly rich locus for decolonizing theology and challenging the church in the Global North to join the church of the poor in its prophetic praxis of decolonial solidarity.