Theory of Race and Iberian Christendom, conclusion

I began this paper by explaining my advocacy for mission as intercultural reconciliation. MIR is a post-supersessionist of Christian mission that recognizes the nefarious contribution of the church towards modern race theory. If the vision of the one new man (Eph. 2:14-18) is to be taken seriously, addressing racism in an essential aspect of the gospel. For two thousand years of church history, fragmentation and ethnocentrism have distorted the vision of unity that Christ said would identify his followers (Jn. 17:22-23). Instead of embodying intercultural harmony in deference to the special role of the Jews, the white European church assumed the people of God as their exclusive racialized identity. 

But Christianity has become a global religion with deeply indigenized expressions among peoples of every biological variety. Therefore, addressing the legacy of racism in the church requires different approaches for different cultural contexts. The US-American civil rights movement, critical race theory, and Jennings’ ORS theory make valuable contributions to the global fight against racism. But as I serve in Europe and, more specifically the Iberian Peninsula and its colonial diaspora, I perceive different attitudes towards race. In Europe, the place of racial discussions in US-America is occupied by discussions of xenophobia, antisemitism, and islamophobia. There is the ancient thinking of the West as superior to the East, even within Europe itself. West Germans are wary of East Germans as not really of the same culture (Kalmar, 2022). Poles think of themselves as Central Europe, Ukrainians think of the “East” beginning only at the Russian border, and then there is the phenomenon of Russophobia (Kalmar, 2022). All these types of xenophobia are between the white peoples of Europe. 

We have seen the merits and limitations of Jennings thesis that supersessionism is the source of the modern concept of race, i.e., ORS. I have argued that ORS is helpful to my vision of mission as intercultural reconciliation, but it requires adjustment to engage the European/Iberian context. The European appropriation of the gospel as an exclusive possession of its own culture is a distortion that continues to turn its contemporary populations away from the church. The black-white binary common to US-America has incompatibilities applied to Europe, but the latter has plenty of its own intercultural conflicts. These social problems have not been solved by secular strategies of color-blindness, and this proposes an opportunity for MIR. Europeans are attracted to postcolonial ideologies, and post-supersessionism is a rejection of evil distortions of Christian doctrine that provided the underpinnings of colonialism. 

Portugal and Spain have recently become immigrant nations and thus feel the strains of intercultural tension. Jennings’ ORS hypothesis draws attention to aspects of Iberian Christian history that must be addressed to build a harmonious pluralistic society. We have read that the greatest reference for racism in Europe is antisemitism. In this case, ORS is extremely helpful in pointing to the connection between the church’s rejection of Jews and the development of modern race theory. As modern secular Portugal and Spain seek a basis of a more inclusive pluralistic society, MIR is a winsome approach to Christian witness. The one new man vision rejects the ideal of seeking national/religious identity in favor of seeking a land that is “married”:

No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah [my delight is in her], and your land Beulah [married]; for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married. (New International Version, 2011, Is. 62:4) 

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