Dr. Judith Gruber, Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at Loyola University New Orleans, will present a paper at the convention of the Catholic Theological Society of America (June 2013) entitled "Postcolonial Conversions. Displacement as a Theological Locus." 

Dr. Gruber explains, “Conversions imply a displacement, a turning towards … towards what, exactly, however, has become more and more difficult for theology to grasp: for the last few decades, Christian identity has become an increasingly problematic category. In particular, postcolonial readings of church history have uncovered a multitude of disparate Christianities. At first sight, this seems to undermine traditional and normative ways of talking about the Church (as the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church.)"

Dr. Gruber, however, argues that postcolonial deconstructions can be turned into a theological resource in order to make visible that conversions – displacements – are the fundamental pattern of shaping the identity of the church: it never had a single, unproblematic origin or stable identity, she asserts, but has always had to redefine and renegotiate its identity in new and different contexts.