Experimental Theology: Soulful Resistance

June 21, 2014

And yet, when you sing “I’ll Fly Away” inside a prison you come to understand that the song is, to use Andrew’s words, an act of “soulful resistance.” When the body has become trapped and is no longer under your control your only way to resist is to retreat into interiority and spirituality. The spiritual must resist the oppression and dehumanization of material existence where life has become, as Andrew describes it, a “living death.” Oppressed persons have long known this, and it goes a long way toward explaining why dualistic and charismatic spirituality flourishes in oppressed contexts.