Are we addressing the ableism that persists in our churches? Ableism is a sinful structure that is oppressively rooted in colonialism. Ableism is something many of us need to call out, struggle against, and continuously unlearn.

Spanish and American colonizers brought whiteness upon our lands. Today, whiteness lingers as a ghost, and many Filipinos struggle to see beyond it, cursed with an inferiority complex that strives for the white ideal — an ideal that can never truly be achieved.

Today, we are living in the postcolonial moment when sisters and brothers in the Majority World are rediscovering what it means to be baptized into Christ’s body. The lands of the earth are now crying out to God for healing after centuries of colonialism, and God has given the church a new possibility to garden their lands well and cultivate indigenous cultures in a way that worships God liturgically and eschatologically through tribe and tongue.