The healing of Naaman in 2 Kings 5 is one of my favourite stories in the Bible, for this is the text that I have engaged the most and have reflected on it together with various settings across the contexts. What fascinates me about this text is that every time I have engaged with this text, I was always touched by something new that keeps coming out of it. When I read this text from the perspective of the little girl, I reflected on the theme of “uprooted yet sprouted” as I read the life of the girl in the text as a war child captive. My recent reflection on this text is about “the politics of access,” where I reflected on where Naaman experienced a ‘de-access’ moment in his life when the prophet Elisha did not even come out to meet him or touch him for healing, rather, asking him to dip seven times in river Jordan. 

However, as I read this text today in the present context of anti-immigrant rhetoric at its peak, particularly with the recent “unite the kingdom” protest march with about 100,000 +  people gathering in London, UK on the 13th of September 2025, I observe how God (particularly the ‘Christian’ God) has been colonised and (mis)used to spread hatred against the other, which is against the very understanding of the divine that I have experienced in Jesus Christ. What saddened me and even angered me was to notice how the far-right has hijacked Christianity to meet their own whims and fancies, spreading venom against the migrants, non-Christians, refugees and the ‘other.’ Perhaps the call for the followers of Jesus Christ is to share love to all for the God whom we know in Jesus is for all, challenging us to stand and live for love, transcending all barriers of identities. When we do anything in the name of Jesus there is no place for hatred or hostility, for that’s the baseline for how Christian faith works and finds its relevance. 

Naaman has just received his healing as he dipped seven times in the river Jordan as suggested by the prophet Elisha. He dipped into this insignificant river angrily, for it was recorded that Naaman complained that he had greater and bigger rivers in his country. He was also upset that Elisha did not even see him in person or touch him to heal him. Yet, on receiving his healing, Naaman along with his entire team returned to Elisha to give a testimony about God and to offer the prophet a gift offering. Even though Naaman tries to persuade Elisha to take his gifts, Elisha refused them. When his gifts were refused by Elisha, Naaman makes a request to take two mule loads of earth/dirt along with him so that he can make burnt offerings to Yahweh in his native land. The reason for those burnt offerings to Yahweh is to receive forgiveness as he joins his king in the worship of Rimmon, who is the god of Syria. To such requests, Elisha blesses Naaman to ‘go in peace.’ This conversation between Naaman and Elisha brings out three dimensions of decolonising the divine. 

Before I explain the contours of decolonising the divine from this text, let’s get certain things into a decolonial perspective. These Biblical texts that contain stories of Israel and Syria must be read with caution, for a Zionised reading of the Bible simply and uncritically draws parallels of the biblical Israel to the current political state of Israel. Such Zionised readings of the Bible are a blatant trait of a colonial project of Biblical hermeneutics and epistemology. In our pursuit of decolonising the Bible, one must employ a de-Zionised reading of the biblical text as our commitment toward the God of justice and the God of the Bible. Therefore, the biblical Israel that is mentioned in Naaman’s story in 2 Kings 5 and today’s political state of Israel, which was only formed in 1948, are not one and the same, for they are two different entities located in two different contexts. Such a distinction must be told time and again and has to be mentioned in any contextual liberative Biblical interpretation, particularly in the context of the ongoing war of Israel on Palestine and on the people of Gaza. 

Naaman on receiving his healing need not have returned to Elisha. However, to show his sense of gratitude he returns to thank Elisha and offers a testimony and an offering to Elisha. Naaman says, “Now I know that there is no God but the God of Israel, so please sir, accept my gift.” One of the colonial traps of God-talk is speaking about God in a transcendental way, as a God who is above and beyond human experiences. The first dimension of decolonising the divine is demonstrated in this text when Naaman speaks about God out of his own experience of receiving healing in the river Jordan. In his testimony the emphasis is “now I know,” for Naaman did not know God because of what the little unnamed girl said about the prophet for healing, nor did he know about Yahweh by reading the Jewish scriptures, nor did he know because of Elisha’s teachings. He has known Yahweh out of his own subjective experience of receiving healing here and there at that moment by the banks of river Jordan. 

Having recognised Yahweh, the God of healing in his life, Naaman’s response was to present a material gift to the prophet, as his sign of gratitude. This is the second dimension of decolonising the divine, as is understood in the text by expressing gratitude to the divine by offering gratitude through materiality to the prophet who paved the way for his healing. In the colonial project, gratitude to the divine is understood in mystical and meta-physical ways of worship with no relation to the ground realities around the context. 

When Elisha refuses the gifts, Naaman requests for two mule loads of earth from the banks of river Jordan so that he can take it back home and build an altar to offer his burnt offering there. The third dimension of decolonising the divine is in locating the divine in the holy place of the earth/dirt at the banks of Jordan, which can be transported to his home locality. The colonial project emphasises that the divine is in fixed locations, in the holy temples, particularly in the then-Jerusalem where the temple dwelt. People gathering in those holy temples for worship and to celebrate their festivals was the norm of coloniality. However, Naaman’s proposal of carrying the earth/dirt has an ecological dimension of locating the divine in the Adamah in the earthlings for the dirt is sacred and holy. Holiness is in the dirt and is mobile, for it goes with Naaman to his home ground where offerings can be made. Once again, the sign of divinity is expressed through material earth/dirt and not on the high towers of the temples. 

Why does Naaman want to make burnt offering to Yahweh through the earth/dirt of Jordan? He says to find forgiveness as he accompanies his king to worship Rimmon, the God of Syria. What we can infer from this affirmation is that God of the Bible certainly offers forgiveness to anyone and everyone irrespective of who we are and what we do. How we understand Naaman’s multiple religious belonging is noticed here, for he on the one hand says he wants to make burnt offerings to Yahweh, and to accompany his king and worship his king’s God. In a pluralistic society, it is easy to pass judgements on people with multiple-religious belonging, however at his request, we see Elisha sending Naaman to go with peace, which is again to recognise the decolonial aspect of the divine. For in the presence of God, all are loved and all are cared for, as God’s love envelops the entire world and histories.

The misuse of Christian language and symbolism by the far-right groups in the UK inciting violence and racism during these marches is not only inhumane, but also irresponsible and unspiritual. Where is God in all of this? The far-right extremists justify themselves that they are defending “Christian Britain” and therefore take the divine on their side. Does God side with those inciting violence and spitting hatred and fear against the ‘other?’ 

Before I engage on where is the divine in all of this, allow me to interrogate who is this divine that the “unite the kingdom” marchers ascribe to be on their side? For me, it is the colonial image of God that they subscribe to, and are projecting this ‘hate-filled’ idea of God to the world through their hatred and deeds of violence. Such an understanding of God emerges from these far-right people’s experience of privilege and power, for coloniality thrived on the principle of ‘divide and rule,’ which forms a bedrock to their selfish (mis)understanding of God. Demonising the ‘other,’ in this case the immigrants and the ethnic minority groups, demonstrates their rage about diversity and intolerance toward inclusivity, which influences their idea of God, who is a colonial, regimental, dictatorial and divisive. Such an identity of God is a disgrace to the name of the divine, for God in the public sphere is known otherwise in the names of love, peace, and justice. 

Coming back to my primary query, where is the divine in all of this? From my own immigrant perspective, when we and our communities have experienced fear and felt threatened at what has been happening across the country, I have enquired each day, where is the divine in all these riots? Is it the will of God that people who look different to the majority of people are hated? The kind of God that I have experienced from my Dalit Christian roots can never align nor locate themselves on the side of the far-right extremists. For God so loved the world, that any act that destroys, deviates, and disturbs the vision of God for the world, which is ‘the new heaven and new earth’ where love, peace and justice flourishes, is against the will of God, and the far-right acts of violence, riots, thuggery, criminality, and hatred are acts of un-divine, against God and are not of God. 

A decolonial understanding of God as love is my key in locating the divine in this context. God in Jesus, whom I have experienced as a crucified-risen saviour provides me the lens in understanding God bottom-up. When I reflect on God in Jesus as the bread of life, I understood the being of the divine as consisting of various ingredients of life, well kneaded like in a bread, involving a process of fermentation in love, and cooked on the fire of compassion. God for me is a composition God, where the ingredients of life like love, peace, and justice, are kneaded and made to be the bread of life. During the far-right protests, these ingredients of life are destroyed, which thereby distorts the very being of God. 

As also mentioned in the Christian scriptures “whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (I John 4:8v). Who are those who do not love and therefore do not know God, who is love? Or why is it that there are some who do not love and why are there some who are never loved? This is where we recognise and explain that due to power imbalances that exist in the society on several counts like class, gender, race, colour, caste, religion, region, language etc there are some people who do not love or there are some who are never loved. 

In other words, due to the existing imbalance of power dynamics within the society, fairness is affected, which we call injustice, bringing in a divide, some as powerful and others as powerless. Injustice is what causes some to not love, for they do not know God who is love. Structures and systems of injustice have taken deep roots in our society and that allows the powerful to oppress and discriminate against the powerless, giving room to lovelessness and ultimately leading to the ‘un-God(ly)’, which for me is ‘un-love.’ Far-right people’s protests are an expression of ‘un-love’ today and thereby are un-God too.  

It is here we need to name the negative impact of Brexit and of people like Robinson, Farage, Musk and such other people who have been creating a toxic atmosphere where the division of ‘us’ and ‘them’ has ever widened. These people have misused their power and allowed their public spaces to be fertile grounds in promoting vileness against the other. Prestige, positions, prejudice, privilege have crept into the society as ramifications of power, causing some not to love others, for they do not know God who is love. In other words, wherever and whenever injustice thrives, hate and hatred is spread against the ‘other,’ fear is sown through violence, and life is threatened.  It is un-divine, not of God, for there is no place for love there. 

Amid far-right protests, God for me is among those who are working to build peace and standing by those who are intimidated and frightened. God in the public sphere comes alive in acts of love for the other. The meaning of the divine finds its relevance in the acts of community building and peace making. God is located in our being and becoming a nation of sanctuary offering hope, home, and hospitality for all. Where is God pitching God’s sanctuary in this unrest caused by the riots? Among the margins, among the migrants, among the ethnic minority communities, and among the efforts of solidarity and love. God in Jesus is sharing the fears of the frightened communities in the context of the unrest caused by the riots and is working with them in overcoming their fears by building communities of love and trust. 

The context of the far-right marches calls all of us to name and acknowledge our privilege and invites us to be bold in our love for the other, defeating racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, antisemitism, and pseudo-nationalism. God for me has come real to us as we witnessed how prayer served as a counter movement to the far-right marches, for prayer helped us to overcome fear and instilled courage to stand up against all forms of division and hatred. The love of God and the knowledge of God challenges us to disrupt the unloving nature of creatures based on power, and convicts us to work for the justice of God by loving the creation without conditions.

Traditionally God-talk found its fecundity within the paradigms and parameters of transcendentality. God has always been understood as the transcendental other, and Dalit theology in the context of postcoloniality, with its turn towards materialistic episteme shifts toward a ‘de-transcendentalized sacred’ epistemological position. 

With this shift, Dalit theology envisages an immanent God who is intrinsically connected to matter/flesh and into the materialist philosophy like Carvaka. In such a context, theologian Y.T. Vinayaraj argues in his book Intercessions: Theology, Liturgy and Politics that transcendence is not totally rejected, but it is not at all an experience of the ‘beyond.’ In the context of postcoloniality, echoing Nirmal’s understanding of Dalitness as Christianness, for Vinayaraj, God is a Dalit God and such a Dalit God is an enmattered God in which the becoming of the Dalit body is re-envisaged within.

 Dalit God is an enwombed God out of whom the fluidity of life flows out. The dichotomy between transcendence and immanence is denied and tangled toward an open materialism and open immanence. In that immanent turn, alluding to philosopher Giorgio Agamben, Vinayaraj observes that a messianic God is a God who happens in the present unfulfilled promises, and such a God is not a God with a future orientation. He further says,

“For Agamben, the cross of Jesus Christ becomes the fulcrum of theo-politics where we see a weak God who relinquishes sovereignty and power. It is a weak God who embodies the politics of the marginalized and the excluded. It is not an identifying God who comes from beyond and incarnate; rather, it is a God who ‘inter-carnates’ as the inherent potentiality to challenge the practice of exclusion within the political process of becoming” (142-3).

Such a shift toward immanentality in theology would help to decolonise God, who would rapture from within the communities of subaltern communities to challenge domination and hegemony of exclusion in the society. This shift evolves a totally new language for God-talk, situating and locating the divine among and within the margins, the subalterns. 

Bringing on the historical Dalit consciousness as the hermeneutic tool (Aravind P. Nirmal, “Towards a Christian Dalit Theology” 220) and pathos as the epistemological key (Nirmal, “Doing Dalit Theology” 141), theologian Aravind P. Nirmal attempts to interpret the traditional doctrine of God in a Dalit theological way, locating the divine in the context of Dalit realities and identities, circulating oppositional epistemology, a decolonial epistemology in the public sphere. 

According to Nirmal, a non-Dalit deity cannot be the God of Dalits, so the God whom Jesus Christ revealed is a Dalit God. He is a servant God – a God who serves. Service of others has always been the privilege of Dalit communities. The amazing claim of a Christian Dalit theology, according to Nirmal, will be that our God, the self-existent, the svayambhoo does not create others to do servile work but does servile work himself.  Servitude is innate in the God of Dalits.  Nirmal says that our God is a servant God.  He is a waiter, a dhobi (washer man), a bhangi (manual scavenger). To speak of a servant God therefore, is to recognize and identify God in Jesus as a truly Dalit deity (Nirmal, “What Is Dalit Theology?” 81-3). 

Dalit God is well represented in the servant-song of Isaiah as mentioned in his 53rd chapter, and Nirmal says that by taking up traditionally impure jobs Dalits have ‘participated in the servant-God’s ministries’ (“Towards a Christian Dalit Theology” 224). Nirmal locates the servitude among Dalits and among the Godhead as the common denominator in drawing a Dalit God, presenting the very understanding of God in a counter-public decolonial theological way. Dalit God as a servant God, as a suffering God, is a counter-public theological imagery of the Dalit communities, for such an understanding of God relates to their struggles for life and perceives God from ‘bottom-up.’

The dominant public imagery of God has been pure, unpolluted, holy of the holy, top-down, homogenous as ascribed by the council of Nicaea, whereas God as servant and as Dalit is a decolonial counter-public, theological exposition, resisting the colonial episteme of Nicene theology, where our Dalit Christian communities find its relevance.