Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible)

by Willie James Jennings

Diaspora means scattering and fragmentation, exile and loss. It means being displaced and in search of a place that could be made home. For Israel it means life among the Gentiles. Danger and threat surround diaspora life. Diaspora life is life crowded with self-questioning and questions for God concerning the anger, hatred, and violence visited upon a people. We must never confuse voluntary migration with diaspora, because diaspora is a geographic and social world not chosen and a psychic state inescapable. The peoples who inhabit diaspora live with animus and violence filling the air they breathe. They live always on the verge of being classified enemy, always in evaluation of their productivity to the empire, always having an acceptance on loan, ready to be taken away at the first sign of sedition. They live with fear as an ever present partner in their lives, the fear of being turned into a them, a dangerous other, those people among us. They also remember loss—of land and place, of life and hope, and even for some of faith. Yet diaspora is also power, the power of a conviction to survive and the power of a confession to never yield to the forces that would destroy them. Diaspora is life by any means necessary. The condition of diaspora is often bound up with life under empire.