This article argues that Indigenous theology represents not merely a contextual expression of Christian faith but a fundamental reorientation of Christian thought at the level of cosmology and ontology. Indigenous theology here is understood as a broadly deployed term encompassing both lived theological practices and textual articulations emerging from Indigenous Christian communities. Drawing from ethnographic research among Naga Tribal communities of North-east India, Asian discourse on indigeneity, and the theological works of Randy Woodley, George E. Tink Tinker and Tore Johnsen, the article articulates three interrelated commitments: an ontology of creatureliness (being), a realism of interrelatedness (relations), and an ongoing dynamic of renewal. Using the metaphor of ‘walking’ as participatory engagement with land and community, it proposes that Indigenous theology foregrounds an interconnected vision of Christian life lived out within creaturely entanglement. Attending particularly to Asian experiences, the article highlights how theological reflection emerging from marginalised and ecologically rooted lifeworlds sharpens and expands theological understanding. The apparent indeterminacy of these theological expressions – often misinterpreted as conceptual weakness – reflects instead a dissonance with dominant Western theological categories and cosmological assumptions. In this way, Indigenous theology embodies a decolonial challenge to prevailing theological frameworks while resisting the instrumentalisation of traditional knowledge for ecological or pragmatic ends. By attending to its cosmological depth and relational ontology, the article situates Indigenous theology as a generative and renewing interlocutor within global Christian thought and World Christianity.
Rathiulung Elias KC (Fri,) studied this question.