Joash Thomas | Colonized Christianity
From Untidy Faith by Kate Boyd
February 3, 2026 · 50 min · Season 8 · Episode 3
About this episode
Joash Thomas discusses the impact of colonization on Western Christianity and the importance of recovering authentic identities in embodying the gospel of Jesus.
In this episode of the Untidy Faith Podcast, I sit down with Joash Thomas, author of The Justice of Jesus , for a conversation about how colonization shaped Western Christianity to resist justice, and what recovering our authentic identities—indigenous, spiritual, and human—has to do with embodying the gospel Jesus actually preached. The Western church’s complicity in colonization didn’t just harm the Global South, it also robbed Western Christians of their own indigenous practices and created theology that privileges the spiritual over the physical in ways Jesus never did, and how prayer can be the formative work that transforms us into instruments of justice. Topics Covered * Understanding colonization not as a political buzzword but as lived reality: India went from 25% of world GDP in 1700 to 1% in 1947 after British extraction, and the Western church was largely on the side of oppressors, excusing colonial theft in theological language * Why the gospel being “more spiritual than physical” is colonized theology that doesn’t come from Jesus of Nazareth, whose ministry in Luke 4 explicitly defined good news as setting captives free both physically and spiritually * How empires…
People in this episode
Host: Kate Boyd
Guest: Joash Thomas
Topics covered
- colonization
- Western Christianity
- justice
- indigenous identity
- theology
- spirituality
Keywords
- colonization
- Western church
- indigenous practices
- theology
- spirituality
- justice
- identity
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: The Justice of Jesus
Places: India
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