On "Kingdom" and "Kindom" The Promise and the Peril Bridgett Green
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any Christians, having prayed “thy kingdom come, thy will be done” for their entire lives, treasure “kingdom” language. Other Christians strongly shy away from language heavily associated with imperialism, colonialism, oppression, and dominance—all antithetical to the liberating message of the gospel. In the 1990s, Cuban-American theologian Ada María Isasi-Díaz responded to these concerns by authoring a ground-breaking essay, “Kin-dom of God: A Mujerista Proposal.”1 Kindom is intended to reflect a modern understanding of God’s activity in and through Christian communities, connoting inclusion, care, mutual support, solidarity, and unity in an ethic that calls us to treat one another as family. By the turn of the millennium, finding that Isasi-Díaz’s neologism best expressed their understanding of Jesus’s preaching and call to discipleship, many Christians began to speak of the “kindom of God.” In this essay I will make clear why “kingdom” is problematic, and I will com-
Bridgett Green is assistant professor of New Testament at Austin
Seminary where she has served on the faculty since 2019. Educated at Davidson College, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Vanderbilt University (MA and PhD), Green will begin a new role as vice president of publishing for Presbyterian Publishing Corporation and editorial director for Westminster John Knox Press in January 2022. 3
