Contested Light: Integrity and Power in Eastern Sabah Kadazan Villages

Abstract

Describing Borneo villagers who follow clearly discerned local and Christian paths in opting for multiple religious belonging embedded in their identity as Kadazan Anglicans and in exploring their and others' views, I argue from a sociologically and historically aware approach, noting the power as well as loving kindness in the creation and expansion of Gospel, Faith and Church. This may enable us to approach the subject of multiple belonging and identity with a certain caution. The need for sociological awareness amid the current hopes for and critiques of inculturation are familiar; that for historical awareness of the “return of the same” perhaps less so. While “talking out of time” has its dangers, these are no more than “talking out of place,” and this paper, therefore, also touches on the early church discourses in both Italy and Britain.