Christology and Whiteness: What Would Jesus Do?

241 Pages·2012·1.788 MB·English

by  George Yancy

CHRISTOLOGY AND WHITENESS
ThisbookexploresChristologythroughthelensofwhiteness,addressingwhitenessas
asiteofprivilegeandpowerwithinthespecificcontextofChristology.Itaskswhether
or not Jesus’ life and work offers theological, religious and ethical resources that can
address the question of contemporary forms of white privilege. The text seeks to
encourage ways of thinking about whiteness theologically through the mission of
Jesus.Inthissense,whiteChristiansareencouragedtoreflectonhowtheirwhiteness
is a site of tension in relation to their theological and religious framework. A dis-
tinguished team of contributors explore key topics including the Christology of
domination, different images of Jesus and the question of identification with Jesus,
and the Black Jesus in the inner city.
George Yancy is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University, USA.
HisbooksincludeBlackBodies,WhiteGazes:TheContinuingSignificanceofRace(2008)
and Look, a White! Philosophical Essays on Whiteness (2012).

CHRISTOLOGY AND
WHITENESS
What Would Jesus Do?
Edited by
George Yancy
Firstpublishedin2012
byRoutledge
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ChristologyandWhiteness:whatwouldJesusdo?/editedbyGeorgeYancy.
p.cm.
Includesindex.
1.JesusChrist–Personandoffices.2.Whites–Raceidentity.3.Raceawareness.
4.Race–Philosophy.5.Racerelations–Religiousaspects–Christianity.6.
Racism–Religiousaspects–Christianity.I.Yancy,George.
BT205.C532012
232.089'09–dc23
2012003056
ISBN:978-0-415-69997-6(hbk)
ISBN:978-0-415-69998-3(pbk)
ISBN:978-0-203-10612-9(ebk)
TypesetinBembo
byTaylor&FrancisBooks
“The one who showed him mercy.”
Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”
CONTENTS
Notes on contributors viii
Acknowledgments xii
Foreword xiv
Kelly Brown Douglas
Introduction: framing the problem 1
George Yancy
1 What Jesus wouldn’t do: a white theologian engages whiteness 19
Karen Teel
2 Grotesque un/knowing of suffering: a white Christian
response 36
Laurie M. Cassidy
3 Jesus must needs go through Samaria: disestablishing the
mountains of race and the hegemony of whiteness 59
Cheryl Townsend Gilkes
4 The Black Church and whiteness: looking for Jesus in
strange places 75
Moni McIntyre
5 What would Zacchaeus do? The case for disidentifying
with Jesus 84
Jennifer Harvey
Contents vii
6 Is Christ white? Racism and Christology 101
Rosemary Radford Ruether
7 When a white man-god is the truth and the way for black
Christians 114
Traci C. West
8 Who belongs to Christ? 128
Josiah U. Young III
9 Upstart Messiahs, renegade Samaritans, and temple
exorcisms: What can Jesus’ peasant resistance movement
in first-century Palestine teach us about confronting
“color-blind” whiteness today? 136
James W. Perkinson
10 Jesus, whiteness, and the disinherited 156
William David Hart
11 Looking like me?: Jesus images, Christology, and the
limitations of theological blackness 169
Anthony B. Pinn
12 The (black) Jesus of Detroit: reflections on black power
and the (white) American Christ 180
M. Shawn Copeland
13 The mimesis of salvation and dissimilitude in the
scandalous gospel of Jesus 196
Victor Anderson
Index 212
CONTRIBUTORS
Victor Anderson is Oberlin Graduate Professor of Ethics and Society at the Divinity
SchoolofVanderbiltUniversity;ProfessorofAfricanAmericanStudiesandReligious
Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. He holds a BA from Trinity Christian
College,anMDivandThMfromCalvinTheologicalSeminaryandanMAandPhD
in Religion, Ethics and Politics from Princeton University. Anderson is author of
Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay in African American Religious and Cultural Criticism
([1995] 1999), Pragmatic Theology: Negotiating the Intersection of an American Philosophy
of Religion and Public Theology (1999), and Creative Exchange: A Constructive Theology of
African American Experience (2008).
Laurie M. Cassidy is currently Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Mary-
wood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Her most recent book is a co-edited
volumeentitledInterruptingWhitePrivilege:CatholicTheologiansBreaktheSilence,which
won Catholic Theology Society’s book of the year in 2007. Her work as 2009 Luce
Faculty Fellow for the Society for the Study of Art in Religion and Theological
Studies is forthcoming in a volume from Liturgical Press co-edited with Maureen
O’Connell entitled She Who Imagines: A Catholic Feminist Aesthetic. Cassidy’s research
draws on the resources of Christian mysticism for individual and social transformation,
particularly in responding to contemporary culture.
M.ShawnCopelandisanAssociateProfessorofTheologyandholdsanappointment
in the interdisciplinary Program in African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston
College. Previously, she has taught at Marquette University and Yale University
Divinity School. Copeland is recognized as one of the most important influences in
North America in drawing attention to issues concerning the experience of African
American Catholics. She has written more than ninety articles, reviews, and book
chapters on such topics as Christology, freedom, gender, and race. Copeland is the
Notesoncontributors ix
author of Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race and Being (2010) and principal editor of
Uncommon Faithfulness: The Black Catholic Experience (2009).
Cheryl Townsend Gilkes is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of
African-American Studies and Sociology and director of the African American
Studies Program at Colby College (Waterville, Maine). Her research, teaching, and
writing have focused on the role of African American women in generating social
change and on the diverse roles of black Christian women in the twentieth century.
SheiscurrentlyatworkonabookentitledThatBlessedBook:TheBibleandtheAfrican
American Cultural Imagination and she is also exploring the impact of African Muslims
on the formation of African American Christianity during slavery. Some of her essays
and articles are gathered in her book If It Wasn’t for the Women: Black Women’s
Experience and Womanist Culture in Church and Community (Maryknoll, New York:
OrbisBooks,2001).Several ofherjournal articleshave beenreprintedin anthologies
such as African American Religious Thought: An Anthology, edited by Cornel West and
Eddie Glaude (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004).
William David Hart is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North
CarolinaGreensboro.Hartdescribeshimselfasacriticaltheoristofreligion.Heisthe
authorofthreebooks:EdwardSaidand theReligiousEffectsofCulture(Cambridge2000)
and Black Religion: Malcolm X, Julius Lester and Jan Willis (Palgrave 2008), and Afro-
Eccentricity: Beyond the Standard Narrative of Black Religion (2011). Hart’s next project
addresses relations among religion, the state, and forms of violence.
Jennifer Harvey is Associate Professor of Religion at Drake University in Des
Moines,Iowa.ShereceivedherPhDinChristianSocialEthicsfromUnionTheological
SeminaryintheCityofNewYork.SheistheauthorofWhitenessandMorality:Pursuing
Racial Justice through Reparations and Sovereignty (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) and a
co-editorofDisruptingWhiteSupremacyfromWithin:WhitePeopleonWhatWeNeedto
Do (Pilgrim Press, 2004). Her recent publications include articles pertaining to the
movement for reparations among US Protestant denominations.
Moni McIntyre is currently Assistant Professor in the Graduate Center for Social
and Public Policy at Duquesne University. Prior to her ordination as an Episcopal
priest in 2000, she had been assistant professor in Duquesne’s Theology Department.
SheistherectoroftheChurchoftheHolyCrossinPittsburgh.SheisaretiredNavy
Captain (0–6) and former Ethics Consultant to the Navy Surgeon General. She tea-
ches bioethics to Navy physicans and dentists in the Advance Medical Department
Officer Course in Bethesda, MD. Her publications include three books and numer-
ous articles. Her research interests are in bioethics, nonviolent social change, com-
munity organizing, and social movements.
James W. Perkinson is a long-time activist and educator from inner-city Detroit,
currently teaching as Professor of Social Ethics at the Ecumenical Theological