Tag / christianity

by daviddawson462742281

The Biblical Vision of One New Man Versus Secular Colorblindness

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) 

References

Bamji, A., Janssen, G. H., & Laven, M. (2013). The Ashgate Research Companion to the Counter-Reformation. Taylor & Francis Group. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/biola-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5207533

Benitez, I. (2015). A Critique of Critical Legal Studies’ Claim of Legal Indeterminacy. Lambert Academic Publishing.

Bernier, François (1684). “A New Division of the Earth” from Journal des Scavans, 24 April 1684. Translated by T. Bendyshe in Memoirs Read Before the Anthropological Society of London, vol. 1, 1863–64, pp. 360–64.

Critical race theory (CRT) | Definition, Principles, & Facts | Britannica. (2024, November 15). https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-race-theory

Critical race theory in the academy / edited by Vernon Lee Farmer, Evelyn Shepherd W. Farmer. (2020). Biola Library ebooks.

Cunningham, P. A. (2017). The Sources behind “The Gifts and the Calling of God Are Irrevocable” (Rom 11:29): A Reflection on Theological Questions Pertaining to Catholic-Jewish Relations on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Nostra Aetate (No. 4). Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, 12(1), 1–39, 12-13

Delgado, R. (2012). Critical race theory: An introduction / Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic ; foreword by Angela Harris. Biola Library ebooks, 3, 5, 5, 3-5

Farmer, Vernon L. & Farmer, Evelyn S. (2020). Critical race theory in the academy / edited by Biola Library ebooks. https://research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=6ff1bdc8-1406-30a2-a78d-ea3f135d2afa, 21, 20, 20, 20, 21, 21, 21, 21, 21, 24, 20, 21, 21

Feros, Antonio (2017). Speaking of Spain: The Evolution of Race and Nation in the Hispanic World. Harvard University Press; eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost), 1, 1-2, 2, 2-4, 6, 6-7, 9, 9, 280, 281-2, 282, 283-4, 2, 9, 280-1, 283

Garros, Joel Z. (January 9, 2006). “A brave old world: an analysis of scientific racism and BiDil”. McGill Journal of Medicine. 9 (1): 54–60.

Golden, Timothy J. (2022). Racism and Resistance: Essays on Derrick Bell’s Racial Realism. SUNY Press; eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost), 32, 32, 33, 33-4, 34, 36, 195, 207-8, 32, 32, 34

Jennings, W. J. (2010). The Christian imagination: Theology and the origins of race / Willie James Jennings. Biola Library ebooks, 33, 33, 31, 32, 33, 33, 36, 60, 60, 61, 62, 63, 63, 63, 65, 97, 97-98, 61

Jewish Relations on the Occasion of the 50th Anniversary of Nostra Aetate (No. 4). Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations, 12(1), 1–39.

Kalmar, I. (2022). White But Not Quite (1st ed.). Bristol University Press; JSTOR. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2fjwpz8

Levaeau, Rémy, Mohsen-Finan, Khadija & Wihtol de Wenden, Catherine, (2002). Introduction, in NEW EUROPEAN IDENTITY AND CITIZENSHIP ix (R~my Levaeau, Khadija Mohsen-Finan & Catherine Wihtol de Wenden eds. 2002).

Lindsay, J. A. (1917). “The passing of the great race, or the racial basis of european history”. The Eugenics Review. 9 (2): 139–141.

McDermott, Gerald. (2023). Is Supersessionism the Source of Race? Challenging a Popular Paradigm. In J. Kaplan, J. M. Rosner, and D.J. Rudolph (Eds.), Covenant and the People of God: Essays in Honor of Mark S. Kinzer (Pages 144-55). Pickwick, 2023.

Morley, S. P. (2022). Connecting Race and Empire: What Critical Race Theory Offers outside the U.S. Legal Context. UCLA Law Review Discourse, 69(1), 100–117. HeinOnline, 101, 101, 102, 102, 104, 104-8, 101, 102-8

Moschel, M. (2007). Color Blindness or Total Blindness—The Absence of Critical Race Theory in Europe. Rutgers Race & the Law Review, 9(1), 57–128. HeinOnline, 65, 66-9, 70, 72, 72, 72-5, 80, 80-95, 100, 100-115, 124, 124, 65, 66-8, 72, 72-5, 80, 81-4

Rubin, Edward L. (1999) Book Review:Jews, Truth, and CriticalRace Theory, 93 Nw. U. L. Rev, 525, 531, 525, 531

Scholar, R. (2006). Divided Cities: The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 2003. Oxford University Press, 52, 53, 53, 53-4, 55, 55, 52, 53, 55, 55

by daviddawson462742281

Mission as Intercultural Reconciliation in Europe

Theory of Race and Iberian Christendom, part 5

As stated in the introduction, the focus of my service in Europe/Iberia is advocating for what I call mission as intercultural reconciliation (MIR). This is a post-supersessionist vision of Christian mission based on the one new man motif. In this section I will elaborate some practical suggestions for MIR gleaned from my analysis of CRT and ORS (supersession as origin of race). 

MIR as Means for Addressing Cultural Imperialism in Europe/Iberia

The idea of white supremacy explored by thinkers like Du Bois, Bell, and Jennings could be rearticulated in the Iberian context with emphasis on the European appropriation of the gospel as an exclusive possession of its own culture. The black-white binary common to US-American racial theory has incompatible aspects regarding Europe. However, other historical struggles between peoples and acts of collective oppression abound in European history. Most significantly in relation to racism today, the Christian message of intercultural reconciliation was substituted with one of cultural imperialism. The legacy of this cultural imperialism is one of the greatest barriers in Europe towards accepting the gospel. During the 30 Years War Catholics and Protestants struggled for supremacy only to achieve a stalemate like the status quo at the beginning of the conflict. This paved the way for Enlightenment relegation of religion to the sphere of the individual’s private convictions. The result has been a European spiritual climate where religion is associated with despotism and power struggles. 

Morley’s (2022) analysis of CRT in a European application gives credence to the notion that Europeans are attracted to postcolonial ideologies. There is a desire to work for justice with the recognition of how the legacies of race and empire must be addressed. Morley’s analysis of the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement globally shows that US-American research and activism related to racism is still influential. Her research indicates the wider perspective of organizations such as TWAIL which US-American race theory can learn from. The examples of how global political struggles use racial categorization to justify war and exploitation help convince Europeans of the need for racial reconciliation. This paves the way for a new vision of the gospel as a means for intercultural healing (Morley, 2022). 

Moschel’s (2007) research also points to the felt need of Europeans for answers to their own problems of racial violence. Portugal and Spain have become immigrant nations recently and thus feel the strains of racial integration. The influx of Eastern Europeans since the collapse of communism has brought intergroup discrimination and xenophobia that is not based on skin color but is no less serious (Moshel, 2007). 

With the understanding that racism in Europe is based on fault lines historically defined in religious terms (Rubin, 1999) indicates the need for a different approach than in the US-American context. A post-supersessionist missiology of reconciliation in Europe must focus on the perversion of the gospel that occurred in the European project of uniting the church and political power. The Holocaust and antisemitism are the most vibrant images in European memory related to racial violence (Moschel, 2007). And the rejection of scientific racism in Europe in the 1950s and 1960s which changed the discourse to one of prejudice, intolerance, and xenophobia means reconciliation must be framed in those terms rather than with a black-white binary. The Slavic peoples of the East have been despised in Western Europe for millennia, and this is a need for reconciliation that doesn’t involve groups of different skin color. Again, in the European context the need for reconciliation center pm cultural differences not biological ones (Moschel, 2007). 

A post-supersessionist missiology of cultural reconciliation in Europe must consider that these cultural conflicts are harder to pinpoint than US-American racial conflicts (Moschel, 2007). And in Europe the tendency has been to try to deal with cultural conflicts through large organizations such as the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the European Union. The fact that each nation member of the European Union has its own provisions prohibiting racism and discrimination means that individual nations will need to be addressed rather than developing blanket approaches to the European continent (Moschel, 2007). 

MIR as Answer to Contemporary Spanish Desire for Pluralist Society

My reading in contemporary Spanish race relations indicates the relative lack of research in comparison to other parts of Europe such as Germany, France, and the United Kingdom (Feros, 2017). The fact that it was under Roman control of Iberia that a unified Christian Hispania emerged lasting for six centuries shows the importance of the church to Spanish identity (“HISPANIA ROMANA,” n.d.). It was during this time that Latin replaced the indigenous languages and polytheistic religion was replaced by Christianity during Emperor Theodisius’ reign in the 4th century. The Romans also established the concept of the state, introduced laws, organized the land into provinces, and laid the foundations for urban civilization (“HISPANIA ROMANA,” n.d.). Hispania became one of the most Romanized provinces of the Empire, from where many great figures in Roman history emerged (“HISPANIA ROMANA,” n.d.). 

A post-supersessionism missiology of cultural reconciliation must be aware of the deep connection between Catholic faith and whiteness to Spanish identity. Spanish Catholics must be made aware of the formation of their identity as the ideal nation or race preserved across time (Feros, 2017). A Christian identity juxtaposed to the rest of Europe but most significantly Jews, Arabs, American natives, And Africans from Spanish colonies (Feros, 2017) must be rejected to restore the biblical vision of one new humanity. The construction of Spanish Catholic identity must be recognized as not resulting from a pious or evangelistic instinct but from the collusion of elites to form a religious identity that united the various kingdoms and provinces. The reemergence of tensions between Catalan, Castilian, and Basque identities in the late 20th century, helps shed light on the failure of Christian white supremacy to establish an all-encompassing Spanish identity and harmonious flourishing of a united population (Ferros, 2017). 

Attempts in Spain at the beginning of the 21st century to establish a religiously and racially universalist national identity can be seen as a point of consensus with the biblical vision of one new humanity. The vision of Ephesians 2 does not set itself against other visions of human reconciliation and harmony. On the contrary, restoration of the one new humanity vision as the clearest representation of Christianity offers a more attractive and relevant vision of the church. 

References

by daviddawson462742281

How Critical Race Theory is Received in Europe

Theory of Race and Iberian Christendom, part 4

Lessons From CRT

Du Bois’ gift theory emphasizes the special contributions each race can give to human culture (Farmer & Farmer, 2020). In contrast, Jennings’ depiction of race doesn’t seem open to such a positive potential. Du Bois attributes these gifts to the common experiences of a race of people, which generate characteristics that can be life-giving to global humanity. Jennings’ ORS theory doesn’t seem open to this type of redemptive vision because the modern concept of race is essentially flawed and harmful.

Du Bois’ description of white supremacy as positing that whites are not negatively affected by race in comparison to other races (Farmer & Farmer, 2020) is intriguing. If the white race is burdened with the task of leading the lost non-white cultures of the world to the “lily-white ‘heaven’ of humanity” (Farmer & Farmer, 2020), this is a deeply negative view of human cultures. It is as if the cultures of Europe up to the 3rd century were wiped away as they were baptized into the gospel. This means that whites should reject any part of their culture before the dawn of Christendom. This seems like a good starting point for convincing white European Christians of the terrible implications of white supremacy. 

Bell’s concept of an “idolatrous faith” that sees whiteness as a “property right” to protect is a powerful concept (Golden, 2022). The primordial human instinct of protecting one’s individual and collective status is something hard to deny. Bell describes Christianity as becoming “divorced from its implementation” through this idolatrous faith (Golden, 2022). This is a helpful description of what happened with the advent of supersessionism in Europe which led to the co-opting of the gospel as a pretext for racial domination. 

Bell’s concept of the enduring challenge of racism seems to agree with Jenning’s (2010) notion of the white-black binary. It can be debated whether the white-black binary applies across all cultures in today’s globalized world. But it seems reasonable that the white-black binary is a harmful reality existing in some parts of the world and influencing others. The black-white binary should be recognized if not necessarily eradicated, a la Bell’s racial realism. Bell’s concept of idolatrous faith depicts the “deep cognitive structure” of racism. And his critique of Enlightenment approaches to eradicate racism through reason is compelling (Golden, 2022). Bell’s commentary on the relation between racism and religious structure can convince Christians already wary of the evils of institutionalized religion. 

Williams’ argues convincingly that white US-Americans hold a deep fear of blacks, but the same fear cannot be expected globally to wherever whites and blacks coexist (Scholar, 2006). That said, Willams’ motif of racial fear can be used as a point of reference in dialogues about xenophobic and discriminatory phenomena in other cultures. Her argument for the greater influence of structural factors rather than personal factors as explanation for crime has merit. But caution is needed to avoid using such a notion to relieve individuals of their personal responsibility (Scholar, 2006).

Williams seems more hopeful than Bell in the possibility of real racial justice in the US-American context. She accepts that the color-blind society desired by liberals is impossible without addressing racism (Scholar, 2006). While color-blindness may be a vision to inspire us, in the present Williams argues for putting away fear, seeking accountability, and creatively finding solutions to racial injustice (Scholar, 2006). 

Evaluation of CRT Applied to European Context

Morley (2022) analyzed applications and reactions to CRT in global contexts related to issues such as migration and the environment. She states that “global crises such as migration and climate change are laying bare the persistent impacts of structural racism and colonial subordination around the world”. She sees CRT as offering valuable insights for people involved practically and academically on human rights issues that cross borders. Morley contends that “racial and colonial logics (…) pervade international law and its application”. She sees much benefit in practitioners and scholars working on human rights “centering race, and its connection with empire, in their work” (Morley, 2022). 

Indeed, recent protests of anti-black racism and police brutality in the U.S. have reverberated across the globe. Many groups around the world, including US-Americans, turned to the United Nations Human Rights Council and other international bodies to “seek justice and hold the state accountable for racial justice” (Morley, 2022). The US-American leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement aligned themselves with other “racialized and marginalized” groups around the world, such as Palestinians. Black migrants stranded in Tijuana trying to cross over into the U.S. adopted the phrase “No puedo respirar” (“I can’t breathe”) associating themselves with the “racial logics oppressing black Americans” (Morley, 2022). 

Morley (2020) uses the example of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) which convened in 2019 and 2020 to uncover, “‘how international law originated in and still perpetuates empire,’ a term that encompasses the European colonial powers of the past and the settler- and neo-colonialism of the present day”. The impetus for TWAIL was the Asian-African Bandung Conference convened in 1955 to address “the role of the Third World in the Cold War, economic development, and decolonization”. Questions addressed included: 

whether the decolonization period, and the international law and institutions that have arisen from it, has actually led to the sovereign equality of formerly-colonized states within the international system.! Or is the sovereignty of these Third World states contingent on whether it serves the interests of First World nation-states?. 

One powerful example is as follows: 

The international community legitimized foreign intervention into Libya in part because the Arab League had endorsed it. Yet, the African Union, with which Libya aligned itself, had been advocating for a non-military solution instead of intervention. By reframing Libya as Arab and not African, the international community was able to characterize its intervention as legitimate. Subsequently, when the European Union’s focus shifted to preventing unauthorized African migration, the narrative was again racialized. The migrants were framed as Black Africans moving through Libya, an Arab transit country, to reach Europe. In this context, Europe now sought to partner with Libya to ensure that it enforced its borders and prevented Africans from transiting through the country. (Morley, 2020)  

Moschel (2007) states that CRT has had little attention in the continental European legal world, which up till the early 1990s was under the illusion that racism “belonged to history”. But starting in the 1990s racist or xenophobic events began to occur almost daily in every state within the European Union. Spain and Portugal, not considered to that time as “immigrant nations” were not an exception. This new phenomenon has been termed “new racism”, coinciding with the collapse of Communism and the influx of immigrants from Eastern Europe. The end of communism also meant that liberal, deregulated market economics now spread across the globe initiating the era of globalization. As a result, poorer countries’ economies and societal structures were disrupted leading to increased immigration to Europe. The European nations as well were thrown into a crisis stemming from the breakdown of traditional societal and political structures” which led to insuring and isolation which “transformed into scapegoating of ‘other’ groups” (Moschel, 2007). 

But analysts have posited that Europe and US-America have a measure of difference related to perceptions and histories of race and racism (Moschel, 2007). The concept of racism consisting of a dominant majority that targets other minority groups as being biologically inferior and consolidating this posture into social and political structures is common to both Europe and US-America. Some research posits that racism in the United States is based on the historical construction of discrimination based on skin color in hostility towards Africans, Native Americans, and Asians, applied in the modes of slavery, segregation, and miscegenation (Moschel, 2007).

In Europe, on the other hand, “social fault lines and mechanisms of oppression were often defined in religious terms” (Rubin, 1999). The history of Europe is full of religious holy wars, pogroms, and persecution in which Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Muslims and other religious “others” were discriminated against (Moschel, 2007). In other words, while in US-America color of skin was primordial to racism, in Europe it was mainly connected to the Holocaust and antisemitism. The rejection in Europe of scientific racism during the 1950s and 1960s explains in part why the discourse on racism preferred terms such as “prejudice, intolerance, antisemitism, of xenophobia”. From this perspective, the grounds for explaining racism are cultural differences instead of biological ones (Moschel, 2007). 

In addition to this, Europeans tend to “distance themselves from laws concerning slavery, segregation, miscegenation and the related one-drop of blood rule” (Moschel, 2007). The rationale is that particularly after World War II such racial laws were abolished in Europe, if they ever existed at all. As such, the problems that American racial laws address don’t apply in Europe. As a result, it has been argued that dealing with racism in Europe is harder because there is no “clear legal symbol to fight against”. On the international level, three institutions address legal approaches to racism in Europe: the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the European Union. Then each individual member nation has its own provisions prohibiting racial discrimination in their constitutions. As is the case with many critical legal movements, CRT is focused on national systems resulting in a predominantly internal domestic critique (Moschel, 2007). 

The rigid structure of the law studies in Universities in Europe also represents an obstacle to CRT development (Moschel, 2007). The system is more rigid under strict government control, therefore changes in curriculum and introduction of new courses is much more difficult. Affirmative action in Europe is very underdeveloped, only France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands have significant projects aimed at certain categories of immigrants. Affirmative action is often seen as “positive discrimination” which would violate the principle of equality (Moschel, 2007). 

In Europe, topics of nationality and citizenship generally dominate discussions on race, ethnicity, and immigration because of the European Union (Moschel, 2007). At the core of the vision of the European Union is the notion of equality between citizens of member states. Therefore, what emerges is a bifurcated system with two separate groups with different status based on citizenship within the European Union. Ironically this means that the EU fosters racism in some ways even as it seeks to combat it. One group can travel and work freely while the other need entry and residence visas (Moschel 2007, Levaeau, 2002). 

Analysis of the Spanish Development of Concept of Race

While my context of service is the Iberian diaspora, I will limit a specific national inquiry in this paper to Spain. The combination of political unification and imperial expansion in the 15th century under the patronage of the Catholic Spanish obligated the peoples of Iberia and to face “troubling and enduring questions about national and racial identity” (Feros, 2017). From that time until now, the unification of Spain continues to be provisional with Catalonia still seeking to reaffirm its sovereignty. Therefore, debates about the meaning of the Spanish nation and the identity of its citizens remain constant in the early 21st century, exacerbated by the presence of “foreign” populations such as Jews, Muslims, and Latin Americans. Research into Spanish race relations emphasizes the need to understand how Spanish identity emerged as well as notions of human and cultural diversity in what came to be Spain (Feros, 2017). 

Historically, it has been generally established that Spain was first settled by peoples from the Mediterranean, North Africa, and later by Northern European Celts (Feros, 2017). The impetus for unification came from foreign arrivals – Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, and Visigoths – drawn by the peninsula’s maritime ports, resources, and climate. As the first to gain control of the entire peninsula, the Romans left a profound mark on what they termed “Hispania” – in the form of language, culture, and politics. The invasions of Moors in the early 8th century began a Muslim presence of almost 800 years in Iberia and one ended in 1492 with the complete conquest of Granada by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabela. The result was the imposition of Catholicism as the single religion on the entire Iberian Peninsula, seen as the “bond that would force all its inhabitants to see themselves as members of one community” (Feros, 2017).

Nevertheless, for all the history of the Iberian Peninsula, there has been a “prolonged contest between distinct visions of the nation and the patria” (Feros, 2017). In Spain, the controversy was whether the monarch’s subjects should view it as their fatherland or Catalonia, Valencia, or Castile. This contestation was contested during the entire early modern period and into the nineteenth century. However, whereas in Britain and much of the rest of Europe the dispute was over different forms of Christianity, in Spain Catholicism reigned supreme, politics and culture being the point of contestation there (Feros, 2017). 

Some Spanish historians agree with the ORS hypothesis that the definition of race emerged through the invention of the Spain as the “ideal nation or race, with laudable origins and exemplary physical and mental characteristics, preserved immaculately across time and space” (Feros, 2017). Spanish-ness was composed of traits and qualities that separated the Spanish from other nations – Europeans but most of all Jews, Arabs, American natives, and Africans who lived in Spain’s colonies (Feros, 2017). 

Sociological research into Spanish identity today points to the fact that all the identities or nations of the Iberian Peninsula were invented – Catalan, Castilian, Basque, and Portuguese. The construction of the Spanish nation was based on the “collaboration between the elites and peoples of the various kingdoms and provinces, a shared quest for those elements that unified rather than differentiated” (Feros, 2017). It was this conception that motivated the constitution of Cádiz in 1812, where all regional differences were subsumed in an “all-encompassing Spanish identity and nation”. But today this idea is questioned with the rise in the 1990s of xenophobic attacks against immigrants of Arab and Latin American origin. Whereas until the 1980s Spain was more an exporter than recipient of immigrants, thereafter it came to have similar numbers to that of France, Italy, and the United Kingdom, all countries with larger overall populations (Feros, 2017). 

Considering debates regarding racism in Spain, as well as Catalan independence, most scholars and journalists invoke the absence of racialist theories during the early modern period in the country (Feros, 2017). Both Spanish and foreign scholars have sought to reinvent Spain as a “racial paradise for Jews and Muslims, (…) Native Americans and Africans”. This has been the predominant discourse of Spaniards from the 18th to 20th centuries, a national identity as “religiously and racially universalist”. But recent sociological research indicates that such interpretations “go against the weight of historical evidence”, showing the early modern Spaniards did not believe in “the equality of distinct peoples” nor did they defend the need of “uniting all of these peoples through racial mixture”. The ideal of “Convivencia between Christians, Jews, and Moriscos” didn’t exist during the Medieval period nor the early modern. The way forward for racial unity in Spain has been posited as substitution the “imposition of uniformity” with the recognition and acceptance of ethnic and cultural difference” (Feros, 2017). 

References

by daviddawson462742281

Theory of Race and Iberian Christendom, part 3

Supersessionism and Critical Race Theory

Intro to CRT

CRT is predominantly a US-American field of study. It originated in the writings of several American legal scholars, including Derrick Bell, Patricia J. Williams, Alan Freeman, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Richard Delgado, Cheryl Harris, Charles R. Lawrence III, and Mari Matsuda (Critical Race Theory (CRT) | Definition, Principles, & Facts | Britannica, 2024).

According to Richard Delgado (2012), whereas traditional civil rights envision gradual progress, CRT questions this possibility in a society founded on modern liberalism. In examination here are concepts such as equality, legal argument, Enlightenment rationalism, and the neutral precepts of institutional law. Delgado (2012) describes key early developments in the emergence of CRT, beginning with the notion of legal indeterminacy – that most cases can be decided either way according to emphasis of one line of authority versus another (Delgado, 2012). While law has an alleged impartiality, it is used as a tool of privilege and power. In other words, law is politics, merely a tool for oppression (Benitez, 2015). 

CRT also incorporated a “skepticism of triumphalist history”, and the notion that favorable precedent tends to decay through bureaucracy (Delgado, 2012). CRT also built upon feminism’s insights into the relationship between power and the formation of social roles, patriarchy, and other forms of domination. Lastly, from conventional civil rights thinking CRT drew a concern for addressing historical wrongs and the need to seek legal and practical action. Although initially focused on black American issues, other subgroups soon emerged within CRT including Asian, Latinex, and Queer. Writing in 2012, Delgado describes relations between different groups represented within CRT as being mostly good, maintained through regular meetings. Other ethnic groups having joined in smaller numbers include Native American and Middle Eastern (Delgado, 2012). 

CRT drew from the earlier work of W. E. B. Du Bois, who was highly skeptical of supposed scientific or biological bases of race. Scientific racism or biological racism is a pseudoscientific theory systematized in the 19th century. It posits that categories of distinct “races” exist in the human species, and that racial discrimination can be justified by empirical data (Garros, 2006). Early in the Enlightenment, thinkers such as François Bernier had divided humanity into four different races, based simply on his observations as a world traveler (Bernier, 1684). A long canon of Western racial theory developed in Europe and North America, producing such abhorrent theories as Nordicism, promoted by American eugenicist Madison Grant and used to justify immigration restrictions (Lindsay, 1917).

Du Bois coupled his suspicion of scientific racism with radical political views and critical social theory (Farmer & Farmer, 2020). Rather than searching for a scientific definition of race, as a black man Du Bois sought to find or create a means for the social, political, and cultural survival of his people. Being rooted in Du Bois’ work, initially CRT was almost wholly directed towards African American studies (Farmer & Farmer, 2020). 

Du Bois developed gift theory which emphasized that “each race has specific and special ‘gifts’ to contribute to national and international culture and civilization” (Farmer & Farmer, 2020). The concepts of race proposed by Du Bois were not biologically determined, but “predicated on historical, cultural, social, and political ‘common’ characteristics and ‘common’ experiences shared by continental and diasporan Africans”. These characteristics represent gifts or “race-specific and culture-specific contributions” to global humanity and the growth of civilization (Farmer & Farmer, 2020). 

Rather than promote one political solution to problems of racism, Du Bois, “empirically developed a discourse on race in order to critique racism and provide a discursive point of departure for African American and Pan-African radical politics and revolutionary social movement” (Farmer & Farmer, 2020). He sought to offer models of discourse that could help critically understand race and mitigate against anti-black racism in contemporary society (Farmer & Farmer, 2020). 

Du Bois was also a precursor for what would come to be known as critical white studies. Skillfully and boldly, he pointed to the essence of whiteness, chronicling its prominence related to understandings of race. To be white was to be raceless, powerful, or at least to have restrictive access to power (Farmer & Farmer, 2020). Du Bois described the colonial logic of the white world as considering race something that stains the social status of “sub-humans”, i.e., non-whites. This logic pollutes the political thinking of whites, thus reducing them to a state of impotence, irrationality, and needing clear paradigms about their identity and the nature of the world. The implication is that since whites are not negatively affected by race, they have been “burdened by God” with the task of leading the “lost, raced ‘natives’, ‘barbarians’, ‘savages’, and sub-humans” to the “lily-white ‘heaven’ of humanity”. And of course, God is also white according to the colonial logic of a “white supremacist world” (Farmer & Farmer, 2020, p. 21).

Du Bois was also an early advocate of the race/class thesis that argued that the class struggle present for centuries in human history had been coupled with the modern concept of race, capitalism, and colonialism with the effect of exacerbating race/class conflicts. For Du Bois, the West’s weapon of choice in its efforts to establish global capitalism were theories of race and racism (Farmer & Farmer, 2020). 

Key Thinkers of CRT

When CRT did emerge in the U.S. in the 1970s, one of its most important proponents was Derrick Bell. Bell was raised as an Evangelical Christian but went on to write critically about the relation between racism and Christianity (Golden, 2022). Bell explored how Christianity was used to inspire racist ideologies, such as the Old Testament curse of Ham as a justification for slavery of blacks and the New Testament acquiescence to slavery as an “earthly institution”. Bell referred to racism as an “idolatrous faith” whose focus moves from worshipping God to worshipping the self. The focus of devotion becomes the “superiority of the white self and white race”. Bell describes the superiority of this faith as connected with the insistence that Whiteness is a “property right”. Whiteness affords whites with a privileged status that they seek to protect. In this idolatrous faith, “the true spirit of Christianity becomes divorced from its implementation” (Golden, 2022). 

Throughout his work, Bell recognized that eliminating racism is an endless challenge (Golden, 2022). For Bell, the religious basis for racism is both a historical and contemporary reality which most racist Christians will not recognize. He observed how racist theology offers a comprehensive system of “meaning, value, and loyalty” providing “stability and reassurance” in a world of economic inequality. This faith perspective can justify the lack of common economic interests across races, with those of lesser means. In conceiving of racism as faith, Bell expresses its “deep cognitive structure”. This is especially important considering Enlightenment approaches to eradicate racism through reason. But the postmodern refutation of the secularist hypothesis demonstrates that racism will have to be dealt with as “enduring and foundational” (Golden, 2022). 

Bell also explored the relation between racism and religious structure, “the transposition between the positive, originating spirit of Christianity and its institutionalization, the difference between a faith and the organizational structure developed to perpetuate it” (Golden, 2022). Towards the end of his life, Bell posited that Jesus recognized that the revolution that was needed was more about spiritual reformation than political change. This task begins with personal responsibility but also leads to instigation of change in others. The crucial discovery is how to create spiritual reformation in others that converts the perspective of a minority into the consensus of the majority. It is impossible to challenge racism without promoting spiritual reformation. At the same time, we must recognize that faith and spirit can also motivate resistance to change related to racism. The mixture of faith and racism prevents some From seeing (Golden, 2022). 

Bell’s idea of radical racial realism argued that “race is not an anomaly to American structures but constitutive of American sociopolitical life. Racism is a permanent part of the DNA of America” (Golden, 2022). He asserted that black people would never achieve full equality in the U.S. But Bell did not see racial realism as denying hope, rather, he means for it to help readers “rethink our strategies of resistance and languages of hope”. By this perspective, expectations regarding racial justice must be grounded in “transcending racism instead of eradicating racism”. Bell describes this transcending task as defiance, which views victory against racism considering agency. Such advocacy is committed to not letting racism have the last say. He describes this as a defiant hope that helps oppressed racialized communities to reclaim their humanity and agency as they envision better worlds (Golden, 2022)

The second CRT scholar whose thought we will briefly explore is Patricia J. Williams. Williams argues that at the heart of myths and media sensationalism around African Americans in positions of authority and of crimes involving blacks is a “crippling fear of the other which divides societies against themselves, to everyone’s loss and no one’s gain” (Scholar, 2006). She argues that American cities are divided according to race stemming from a settler history where good and evil are perceived battling for control. Thus, while crises of urban crime and poverty are portrayed as rooted in individual causality, the true causes are structural (Scholar, 2006). 

In the case of terrorists, the evildoers among the population are rooted out in a “secularized casting-out-of-demons from the Beloved Community” (Scholar, 2006). But while individual human rights are asserted, they are endangered by the fomentation of fear directed towards certain enemies of the good. Williams writes on America’s history of lynching or scapegoating blacks, Jews, or Catholics where police permitted vigilante justice. She sees a similar paradigm playing out on the global stage since 9/11 that undermines America’s reputation and security (Scholar, 2006). 

Williams proposes that the color-blind society desired by liberals is impossible until the reality of racism is dealt with (Scholar, 2006). Personal experience and actions are related to structural dynamics, and each of us must answer for our actions. Although color-blindness is a legitimate goal at some point in the future, at present we need accountability. To fulfill the vision of human rights in the American Constitution, we must put away fear, seek public and private accountability, and be creative and imaginative in seeking solutions (Scholar, 2006).

References

by daviddawson462742281

Theory of Race and Iberian Christendom, part 2

Brief Presentation of Jennings’ ORS Thesis

The Connection Between Supersessionism and Theory of Race

Let us begin with some key sections of Jennings work on the connection between supersessionsm and theory of race. Jennings (2010) analyzes various Iberian Catholic supersessionist texts from the colonial era, one of which is the writings of Jesuit missionary Alessandro Valignano. Writing in the 16th century, Valignano was concerned with whether colonized peoples’ adoption of Christian practices came from the effects of salvation or was a mere facade to cover either ulterior motives or impregnable ignorance. Not only in question was the natives’ possibility of salvation, but future candidacy for ecclesiastical office. Jennings argues that supersessionism was foundational to such questions related to race in Iberian Catholicism. He sees supersessionsim as “a distortion that was growing in power and extension with each new generation”, but that had reached an inflection point during the early colonial era. Jennings goes as far as to describe supersessionism as “the most decisive and central theological distortion” existing not only in the church of Valignano’s time, but also today (Jennings, 2010).

According to Jennings (2010), during Valignano’s time the predominant theology claimed that for God Israel has been replaced by the church. This meant that Christian identity was encompassed by the white European race. As such, the people of God were wholly removed from Jewish and Muslim identity. In Iberian Catholicism, these were the two deeply suspect groups related to Christian conversion. The converted Muslims were referred to as moriscos (“moorish”) and converted Jews as conversos or marranos (“swine”). But the legitimacy of Jews and Arabs conversion to Christianity was suspect from the time of the Reconquista and the Inquisition. This suspicion was rooted in the theology that had discarded Israel from its constitutive place in Christianity. The result was a vacuum that was filled by the white European. Israel’s election had now been transferred to a new geographic home with its visual contours and symbols. Just as Israel had been chosen as the fulcrum from which Christianity projected, supersessionism established Europe as the fulcrum from which salvation emanated (Jennings, 2010). Jennings states that during the age of discovery and conquest, 

supersessionist thinking burrowed deeply inside the logic of evangelism and emerged joined to whiteness in a new, more sophisticated, concealed form. Indeed, supersessionist thinking is the womb in which whiteness will mature. Any attempt to address supersessionism must carefully attend to the formation of the racial scale and the advent of a new vision of Christian social space (Jennings, 2010)

The Emergence of a White-Black Binary

During the colonial era, Iberian Catholicism’s self-perception was as the agent of redemptive, divine change ordained by God. The churches of Spain and Portugal saw their position as those who condition the world rather than those who are conditioned by it. And in this way Iberian Catholicism mirrored the role and action of God in creation (Jennings, 2010). Jennings argues that the decisive point here regarding the origins of Western race theory is that “creative authority, a creative regime” was “channeled through white presence”. And all peoples involved in the colonial project were touched by this creative administration. Thus, racial being was conceived of as an act of continuous interaction where becoming is oriented around whiteness. The white colonialists imagined a world of interlocking cultures which they were somehow separate and distinct from (Jennings, 2010). 

Jennings (2010) describes a white-black binary representing opposite ends of a spectrum. Therefore, just as the colonial landscape must be refashioned, ethnic identity must be refashioned as well. The indigenous peoples needed to be brought from “chaos to faith”, just as the colonial territories had to be “cleared, organized, and brought into productive civilization”. The only stable state possible from such a perspective is one of transition founded on racial attribution. Jennings states that “reciprocity of racial being was in play in the formation of the New World racial order, but that reciprocity must never be construed as creative equality”. Racial being existed in its becoming within the dual realities of “conference” and “creativity”. And this becoming is not mere assimilation, but an agency that arises in the racial imagination made possible by whiteness. As I understand him here, Jennings is saying that whereas white race was a fixed reality, all other races developed upon a continuum related to whiteness. And upon this continuum each non-white race upgraded or degraded in relation whiteness (Jennings, 2010). 

Key to understanding the importance of the emergence of Jennings’ (2010) concept of whiteness is the new order let loose by colonialism. The identity that comes from the “life-giving collaboration (…) between place and bodies, people and animals” is lost. Jennings describes this as the “reimagination of bodies”. This does not presuppose that native existence was unchanging prior to colonialism. Jennings describes this loss in the present tense as a consequence that continues till the present. Thus, what is lost is the possibility of identity developing in engagement with new spaces. Indigenous peoples are beckoned towards a progressively narrowing identity and narrative (Jennings, 2010). 

According to Jennings (2010), modern populations ever since have lived in a “dual trajectory of constantly shifting geographic spaces made more mutable by the dictates of capitalistic logic and racial identities that are free-floating and changeable, yet constantly stabilized through the reciprocity of racial being”. Without land as a root of identity, historical racial classifications continue to provide a rationale for collective intervention in the former homelands and traditional cultures of indigenous peoples (Jennings, 2010). 

The Disappearance of the Gentile

Jennings (2010) also explores the writing of Jesuit missionary to South America José da Acosta Porres. Acosta thought of himself as representing the Old Testament people of God adhering to covenant and teaching true worship from false. Israel had received the revelation of the one true God. Acosta saw Iberian Catholicism as replacing Israel and assuming the role of denouncing all non-Christian religious practice as idolatrous. As such, Acosta is unable to remember both himself and the Spanish people as Gentiles that were once in the same position as the indigenous Americans. To remember oneself as a former Gentile ignorant of the gospel does not imply acceptance of idolatry and denial of demonic presence in indigenous religion. But remembering his own Gentile origins could have made Acosta open to points of contact between indigenous religion and Christianity. Supersessionism, therefore, blocked Acosta from seeing the possibility of new expressions of Christian life emerging in the Americas. Such expressions could have introduced the gospel while accepting compatible contributions from indigenous culture. According to Jennings, 

What triggers this demonic imagination and conceals redemptive cultural analogies is Acosta’s vision of native intellectual and cultural inferiority. The symbolic Christian imaginary within which Acosta functioned believed Indians lacked intelligence because they lacked European languages and especially their signifiers for God. (Jennings, 2010, p. 97-8)

I end this section on Jennings’ ORS theory transitioning to its contextualization within academia and racial activism. Not only because Jennings is a black US-American theologian speaking against racism, but because of antecedent ideas he draws upon, I propose seeing ORS within the lineage of US-American civil rights theory and praxis. 

References

by daviddawson462742281

Vertical, Horizontal, and Circular Reconciliation

Major Ideas of Al Tizon’s Whole and Reconciled and Application to Ecumenism

Tizon (2018) proposes that in our diverse, fragmented, and globalized world the ministry of reconciliation is central to a current concept and practice of mission (p. xvi). The church’s mission must be holistic in a way that goes beyond uniting word and deed, but that puts the world back together (p. xvi). As a work of missiology, Tizon defines the term as the investigation of the point of contact between faith and culture which informs those who promote the fruitfulness of this interaction (p. 1). 

A globalized world needs to experience the love of God in the small actions of individual believers (p. 19). This world can be described as post-Christendom as the faith has lost coherence in societies significatively founded upon its influence. On the bright side, this reality makes the need for a mission of reconciliation a clear priority. Current post-colonial ideology poses a challenge to the church as it rightfully disassociates itself from shameful distortions of mission while seeking to restore the true biblical vision. The practice of collective repentance is proposed as a legitimate practice accompanied by practical restitution wherever possible. False and half gospels of bigotry, prosperity, apathy, and social liberation lead millions of sincere seekers astray from the essence of the biblical vision (p. 63). A kingdom vision can be summarized as manifest where God’s reign exists, resulting in reconciliation with God, with fellow humans, and with creation – vertical, horizontal and circular (p. 28-86). 

The biblical vision of human being is integral, consisting of body and soul as inseparable, ideally in communion with God, others, and creation (p. 98). The trinity is the foundation for the church’s mission as an expression of God’s nature, in wholeness, community, diversity, and reconciliation. As the church has spread across the globe this reconciling mission places it in a prime position to spread this intergroup healing wherever conflict exists. This mission is only possible through the power of the Holy Spirit, sustaining joy in suffering and bringing holistic transformation. But such spirituality does not ignore the historic and present injustices that exist between human individuals and groups. Although the non-holistic concept of mission is largely a Western one, it has been largely exported to the church of the Global South, and therefore must be addressed across the globe. A complete vision of mission has developed through emphases such as societal transformation, signs and wonders, ecumenism, and social justice. This vision can be seen ultimately in Revelation 7 in what can be termed the Great Reconciliation (p. 112-168). 

Holistic mission cannot be reduced to a reconciliation of streams in Christianity that argue for the supremacy of evangelism versus social concern, beyond a balance between word and deed (p. 173). Again, the vision of integral mission must be vertical, horizontal, and circular – moving from a concept of Great Commission to Whole Commission. In conclusion, in a world of fragmented groups that shock against each other in a sea that all share, the church cannot ignore the mission of reconciliation. This must be done on the individual, intimate level of human relationships, not on big picture notions of ideological unity. This will require humility, vulnerability, confession, forgiveness, lament, and continuous steps towards justice. And all these efforts must be done in the fellowship of Christ’s body, not realized bey separate groups self-satisfied with their good works independent of their global brethren (p. 176-205). 

Questions After Reading

During the reading, I wondered about how the author’s experience has been different than my own as a person of color. As an immigrant to the U.S. from the Philippines, Tizon has experienced alienation and marginalization that a while male like me has not. Reading this book caused me to question how much I am aware of my privilege in US-American society, even as a missionary overseas for most of my life. Tizon does not shy from critical analysis of many aspects of Western Christianity, particularly US-American Evangelicalism. Tizon explores the extension of Western Evangelical doctrinal and practical phenomenon to missions. As a product of US-American missions I was stung by some of Tizon’s denunciations and wondered if he ran the risk of dishonoring a valuable legacy.

I wondered if certain aspects of Western Christianity that can be seen in the Global South – such as megachurches, individualism, and disembodied rationality – should be seen as the product of collaboration and synergy. Someone like Tizon and myself who have been steeped in the experience of US-American Christian institutions may erroneously diminish the agency of Global South Christianity as it has developed. Care should be taken against this type of reductive analysis even when the church of the Global South shares similarities to Western Christianity in several key areas. 

Implications for My Research on Iberian Postcolonial Ecumenism

I have been engaged in the Iberian diaspora world of Spanish and Portuguese speaking post-colonial nations from childhood through my career as a missionary. My research includes addressing questions of race and identity among descendants of both the colonizers and colonized in the Spanish and Portuguese speaking world. This is a vast demographic, but they are linked in ways that are particularly important for theories of race that still divide the world and the body of Christ. As I travel between Ibera and Latin America, I seek to bring awareness to the distortion in church history that resulted from the treaty of Tordesillas that gave the Spanish and Portuguese empires a colonizing mission directly from the Vatican. Tizon’s work is relevant to the question of the identity of the people of God as it was conceived by the Spanish and Portuguese colonizers. These sailors, traders, and missionaries received an identification that abolished the notion of Jew and Gentile described by Paul in Ephesians 2:12-17 as the new man. Instead of the body of Messiah being seen as the reconciliation of two formerly exclusive and adverse groups, the first division in the history of the church occurred. 

As I advocate at ecumenical gatherings of Catholics, Orthodox, Protestant, Messianic Jewish, and Pentecostal believers in Christ, the motif of mission as reconciliation is central. Tizon’s vision goes to the heart of what the ecumenical projects I serve in Europe and the Americas seek to address. However, I feel a sense of caution when critiquing the foundation of modern missions which I inherited. I consider myself to be someone standing on the shoulders of missionary giants who went before me. I am aware of the liability that the color of my skin and eyes, my language and my sex, all of these represent those of the Western Christian colonizer in all its ambiguity. Tizon’s work encourages me to seek constant awareness of the privilege I enjoy – even as to say these seems today like a politically correct troupe of self-abasement. However, Tizon’s contribution, in comparison to much postcolonial writing, is highly practical and specific. Therefore, this work provides me with not mere guilt and speculation of the sickness and wounds that are present in the global church today. Tizon provides a roadmap towards healing that Christians from many streams of the faith can follow. 

References

Tizon, Al (2018). Whole and Reconciled: Gospel, Church, and Mission in a Fractured World. Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

by daviddawson462742281

Lessons from Latin America on Secularism and Religious Pluralism

Towards an Ecumenical Vision?

Escobar (2012) describes the Crisis of Christendom in Latin America during the 20th century in which “vigorous minorities committed to evangelize” have challenged the Catholic status quo (p. 175). Dillon (2015) describes a similar situation in the U.S., where religious affiliation in the U.S. has declined in its “social desirability, or, and, in the actual relevance of religious affiliation” (p. 346). Although the historical foundations of US-America and Latin America are different, they share the common experience of a decline in Christendom. The first wave of challenge to Catholic supremacy in Latin America came with elites who favored the influence of Protestant missionaries as a means of promoting democracy and pluralism (Escobar, 2012, p. 176). The second challenge to the Christian status quo in Latin America came through the growth of Pentecostals, especially among the poor. Escobar (2012) describes Pentecostalism as “a movement coming ‘from below’, with its own religious and social dynamism and great expansive power” (p. 178). The rise from 5% to 15% of the US-American population affirming Pentecostal affiliation (Jacobsen, 2015, p. 208-9) since the 1950s shows the dynamism of this movement in that nation as well. 

The growth of Protestantism in Latin America during the second part of the 20th century was part of the larger phenomenon of a “massive exodus” from the Catholic Church whose centuries old form was “unable to cope with the challenges of the fast pace of social change” (Escobar, 2012, p. 177). And although the Catholic Church tried to these demands, such as with an emphasis on the marginalized poor, the poor themselves opted for Pentecostalism (Escobar, 2012, p. 178). Jacobsen (2015) describes the waves of growing Pentecostalism in US-America as reflecting the “increasing emphasis placed on experience instead of theology in almost all American churches” (p. 209). 

The growth of Pentecostalism in Latin America and the Catholic church’s response indicates the nuanced approach needed when Christianity attempts to follow the culture. While some adjustments of theology and practice have been fruitful throughout church history, some have not. Another way to view the matter of adjusting to culture is to be realistic about the results that may come. Whereas some Catholic faithful welcomed the new focus on the poor, others still found it to be too institutionally centered. This is perhaps an example of where a particular church must realize that its attempts at contextualization cannot impede people from opting for another church’s approach. An ecumenical vision that accepts God’s work through the diversity of Christian expression helps the different churches avoid discouragement and competition. 

Lessons from a Marginalized Christianity

The trend in US-America shows a different type of individualism since the 1960s expressed in a “culture of freedom and critique rather than of conformity and deference to external authority” (Dillon, 2015, p. 351). And more recently, the millennial generation has been described as “a generation of tinkerers” that adhere to a “mosaic of diverse beliefs and practices that is characteristic of the religiously affiliated and non-affiliated” (Dillon, 2015, p. 354). Particularly among younger US-Americans, the preference to be called spiritual than religious or to embrace double belonging to multiple religions indicates a “newly diverse and spiritually fuzzy landscape” (Jacobsen, 2015, p. 212). 

The challenge of the Christian status quo is present in Europe, North and South America regarding Catholic and Protestant opposition to same-sex relations (Dillon, 2015, p. 357-8). In contrast, although abortion attitudes vary much within the US-American Christian population, they have proven to be “highly stable over time” showing little variation among generations. Dillon (2015) interprets this phenomenon as indicating that “moral issues raise moral and value questions for individuals irrespective of religious identity and affiliation status” (p. 361). 

It seems that the Latin American Christian situation can inform the similar US-American situation of reduced centrality of Christianity in culture and society (Dillon, 2015, p. 363). There are significant demographic differences, such as the Latin American division between rich and poor versus the US-American fragmentation of diverse ethno-political interests. But the Latin American Catholic church’s two-pronged approach to cultural change is a lesson for US-American Christianity. Latin American Catholicism has attempted to change where necessary at the same time as it retains many foundational doctrines of the Christian faith. The decline of mainline US-American denominations can be interpreted as resting in part from the undermining of biblical authority which gives a sense of security and identity to its members.  

References

Dillon, Michelle. (2015). Christian Affiliation and Disaffiliation in the United States: Generational and Cultural Change. 

Escobar, Samuel. (2012). Christianity in Latin America Changing Churches in a Changing Continent. In C.E. Farhadian (Ed.), Introducing World Christianity (1st Ed., pp. 171-185). Blackwell Publishing. 

Jacobsen, Douglas. (2015). North America. In Global Gospel. 

by daviddawson462742281

Challenges to an African Christianity Today

Caleb Oladipo (2016) describes Africa as a “continent of contrast” where a high percentage of the population is poor even as the continent abounds with natural resources. Africans suffer from socioeconomic inequality, ineffective governments, and armed conflicts. One of the historic challenges of African Christianity has been to resist Western notions of the faith that emphasize “acceptance of the knowledge of God, rather than a meaningful experience of God” (Oladipo, p. 86). 

African “bureaucratic monotheism” proposes that God “empowers other beings to work in collaboration”, associating some providence and evil with lesser deities (Osalador, 1985, p. 25). The benevolent of these deities carry out their responsibilities through ancestors known as the “living-dead” (Oladipo, 2016, p. 90). Jesu Kristi is an understanding of Christ as a radical critic of the version of the gospel presented by Western missionaries (p. 91). Whereas the Western conception of Christianity centered on intellectual knowledge, Jesu Kristi is the “epiphany of God in the Spirit” who embodies the “fluidity between the spiritual and the physical worlds”. The Jesu Kristi teaching also recognizes the action of ancestors who guide their living relatives through visions and dreams serving as intermediaries between the empirical and spiritual worlds. The Scriptures are seen a book of reference but of “power to order human lives”, seen as rekindling the love of God already present in traditional African religion. These and many other phenomena of African Christianity represent sources of fruitful theology and practice as well as potential pitfalls of error. Just with every other area of the global church, the African church is challenged to effectively share and receive counsel in relation to the rest of the body of Christ (Oladipo, 2016, p. 91-93).

In the African revivalist churches which emerged at the end of the 19th century, the dynamism of African Christianity is manifest as well as some questionable developments. On the positive side, many of these churches strive for “institutional and doctrinal independence” from the form of Christianity imported by Western missionaries (Ngalula, 2017, p. 231). This has led to the creation of thriving theology schools, organizations and confederations (p. 231). On the negative side, the “divination of the founding prophets” has been a phenomenon which presents these men as “‘incarnations’ of God” (Ngalula, 2017, p. 231). 

How these Current Challenges Relate to the History of Christianity in Africa

When the Christian faith arrived in Africa through Western missionaries, the converts “Africanized and crafted” the faith into “indigenous idioms” leading to its explosive growth across the sub-Saharan nations (Oladipo, 2016, p. 86). An unintended consequence of the spread of Christianity in Africa was a “recovery of their existing religious heritage” where the values of the new religion were “complementary, if not congruent” with African religions life (p. 87). 

The missionaries left a positive legacy by “imbuing African Christians with dignity by educating them” despite their desire to “undermine indigenous traditions” (Oladipo, 2016, p. 89). The churches in Africa today that were born from Western missions include Catholics, Orthodox, and Mainline Protestants (Ngaulula, 2017, p. 229). Although these churches are predominantly Africanized in membership, leadership, and methodology they continue to be in communion with Western mother churches. The Pentecostal churches descend from US-American missions at the end of the 19th century, maintaining close links with mother churches in doctrine, methodology, as well as funding (Ngalula, 2017, p. 229). 

The denominational fragmentation of African Christianity through the indigenous revivalist churches has created a “religious market” which is detrimental to ecumenism (Ngalula, 2017, p. 239). The response of multitudes of Africans to the gospel can be seen as ambiguous, being born of a “deep desire for God” as well as “extreme poverty” that makes unscrupulous prosperity preaching attractive (Ngalula, 2017, p. 235). 

The Western missionaries who brought Christianity to Africa sought “immediate and total change rather than a process of transformation that would take a long time” (Ayanga, 2017, p. 301). The women of the emerging churches were the exception, showing mor interest in “discipling and in the gradual but more in-depth transformation” that embodied the Christian vision. As had been in most of the world, African churches were slow to invest in theological training of women. Since the crises in Africa of disease, war, and violence tend to hit women hardest, the churches should recognize that women should be promoted in “finding and formulating appropriate theological responses” to this suffering (Ayanga, 2017, p. 299-301). 

Some possible ways forward

The African church rightly resisted replicating the “Quasi-Scientific worldview” of the Western missionaries by continuing to embrace the “primordial world” of spiritual interventions both good and evil, that of possession, prophecy, healing, and miraculous provision (Oladipo, 2016, p. 88). This intuitive response to and incorporation of Christianity by Africans should be sustained into the future. Oladipo (2016) recommends that missionaries and Africans develop partnerships today of mutual openness that reaffirm each other “in the spiritual world of the primordial universe” (p. 89). The African church can share with Global Christianity the needed reaffirmation of the fact that God is at the center of existence which is manifest in the sphere of mundane life, in addition to the rational and transcendent.

As the African church has come into its own, several areas of fruitful contribution to global Christianity are present. The African church’s strong sense of community expressed in the sentiment that “I am because we are” is helpful in an age that needs greater human interdependency (Oladipo, 2016, p. 95). The view that nature is sacred to the worship of God and connection to the infinite has much to teach a Western world that created the current environmental course of destruction. And the African posture of openness towards other faith traditions can help put the divisive and dogmatic tendencies of Western rationalistic religion in perspective as the global church recognizes the need for interfaith dialogue and partnership for the common good (Oladipo, 2016, p. 96-97). 

Ngalula (2017) argues that the condition of being Christian or a church in the Global South will increasingly affect the church worldwide (p. 229). As African Christians go overseas as students, refugees, or missionaries they bring the dynamism of the African churches to the new countries they meet. Many young Westerners have come to faith in Christ for the first time in churches established by African missionaries in Europe and North America. But the African church risks becoming isolated in its perspective due to the lack of missionary presence since the end of colonialism (Ngala, 2017, p. 237-8, 296). 

References

Ayanga, Hazel O. (2017). Contextual Challenges to African Women in Mission. International Review of Mission, Vol. 106(2)

Osadolor, Imasogie (1985) African Traditional Religion. University Press.

Ngalula, Josée (2017). Some Current Trends of Christianity in Africa. International Review of Mission, Vol. 106(2)

Oladipo, Caleb O. (2016). African Christianity: Its scope in global context. Review and Expositor, Vol. 113(1)

by daviddawson462742281

How Protestant Missions Contributed to Democracy and Education in Africa 

A constructive response to critiques of Colonial Era Missions

Missiologist Robert Woodberry (2004) lists the emergence of religious pluralism, democratic theory, civil society, mass education, the public sphere, economic development, and reduction of corruption as mechanisms that explain Protestantism’s tendency to promote democracy over time (p. 48). These phenomena derive from the foundations in Luther that Protestants are independent from the episcopal ecclesiastical structures of the Catholic and Orthodox churches, the doctrine that a believer receives saving faith through individual appropriation of Scripture, and a tendency towards independence from political authorities (Woodberry, 2004, p. 48). The lack of a method for resolving doctrinal divergencies in Protestantism resulted in a pluralism that fostered the mutual independence of church and state which is essential to democracy (p. 50). Since there can only be one state church, Protestant denominations without political privilege had to struggle to obtain and preserve their rights and encourage voluntarism and giving among the congregants (p. 52). Education flourished under Protestant missions because all believers needed to read the Bible in their native languages (p. 53).

This is still reflected in the educational development of non-Western nations that received Protestant missions (p. 54). In comparison to Catholic missions that were connected to colonial powers, Protestants could more effectively fight for social justice, even if specifically motivated primarily for creating openness to evangelism (p. 56). Newer Protestant groups today are lay supported that tend to “develop and promote organizations, skills, and resources among non-elite citizens” which promotes civil society and leads to “stable democratic government” (p. 59).

Woodberry (2006) also argues politically independent missionaries moderated the harmful effects of colonialism. And positively, their work in the 19th and early-20th centuries still bears positive fruit in “levels of educational enrollment, infant mortality, and political democracy in societies” (p. 3). Although missionaries of the 18th and 19th century reflected to pervasive attitude of Western civilizational superiority, their critique of other societies was “cultural, not racial” (p. 4). They believed that the cultures they went to could be transformed the same way pre-Christian barbarian peoples were (p. 4). In education, missionaries “wrote and translated books, built buildings, and trained teachers, which made future educational expansions easier” having long-term effects (p. 6). Evangelical missionaries fought for religious liberty which ended up being extend to anti-missionary groups who developed “identifiable leaders, newspapers, extensive memberships, and cross-regional networks” which led to indigenous nationalism (p. 6).

It was not Enlightenment intellectuals that reformed colonialism, but field missionaries who had personal knowledge, vested interest, and a broad non-state power base (p. 10). It can effectively be argued that the negative effects of colonialism would have been much greater without the presence and activity of non-state missionaries (p. 11).

Comparisons of British and French colonies in Africa show that the former provided a basis for stable democracies while the latter’s legacy was authoritarian governments and internal strife (Palplant, 2014, p. 36). Extensive statistical analysis has demonstrated that missionaries were central to the development of key aspects of democracy such as inclusive education, printing, and grassroots nationalist mobilization (p. 38). A key indicator of a missionary legacy in postcolonial African nations is the level of involvement in nongovernmental organizations, which is much higher where Protestant missionary activity occurred (p. 39). The Protestant doctrine of the priesthood of all believers motivated literacy projects that brought old hierarchies down and fostered democracy (p. 41). Most of the early African independence movement leaders had been educated in Protestant mission schools (p. 41).

Impact of current research postcolonial critique of Christian Missions

Church history scholar Derek Cooper (2016) analyses the development of the church in Asia and Africa before Western colonialism. Cooper’s research motivates me to spread awareness of Christianity’s Eastern roots. At the same time, the demise of the churches of the East is a cautionary tale against the subtle dangers of political affiliation and the overt dangers of severe persecution. The Western church’s centuries of political privilege over a vast empire caused it to focus on catechization and hierarchy. The Orthodox churches of Europe and the East also affiliated with political powers but eventually in an extremely fragmented way.

Philip Jenkins (2008) effectively argues against a history of Christianity focused on Europe and the Mediterranean, recommending a return to the medieval maps of a Christian world as “three continents as lobes joined together in Jerusalem (…) the center of the world, the natural site for Christ’s act of self-sacrifice and redemption” (p. 13). And … sadly describes the degradation of Christian habitus which was not adopted by Constantine at his conversion. We can only imagine what Western Christianity could have been if he had done so (p. 266).

These observations make me open to new conceptions of Christian mission that display the glory and the shame of its legacy. However, I still believe in the missionary nature of the Christian faith and am hopeful that a motif of intercultural reconciliation can provide a more attractive vision in the 21st century.

References

Cooper, D. (2016). Introduction to World Christian History. IVP Academic.

Jenkins, Philip. (2008). The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand-Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia—And How It Died. Harper Collins.

Palplant D., Andrea (2014). The World the Missionaries Made. Christianity Today.

Woodberry & Shaw (2004). Christianity and Democracy: The Pioneering Protestants. Journal of Democracy, Volume 15, Number 2

Woodberry, Robert D. (2006) RECLAIMING THE M-WORD: THE LEGACY OF MISSIONS IN NONWESTERN SOCIETIES, The Review of Faith & International Affairs, 4:1, 3-12, DOI: 10.1080/15570274.2006.9523232

by daviddawson462742281

Different Legacies of Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Colonial Missions 

Catholic Counter-Reformation Missions

During the 15-16th Catholic Spain and Portugal became the richest kingdoms in Europe (Cooper, 2016, p. 86). They were given papal authorization to appoint priests and bishops in the Americas, Africa, and the Asian colonies. The Italian church also greatly enriched from treasures coming from Spain and Portugal, even as it reeled from the effects of the Reformation. But through all the changes during and after colonialism, Catholicism still thrives and expands across world till the present (p. 86). 

The Treaty of Tordesillas pope divided all newly discovered land between Spain and Portugal, separating the West and East respectively (p. 94). The main Christian influence in Latin America to this day is Spanish and Portuguese Catholicism. In the Caribbean, exploitative colonization led some Spanish monks to criticize settlers treatment of native peoples. But many priests benefitted from slavery, which only ended with the coming of English and Dutch colonies. The coming of Protestantism fragmented the Islands along national and ecclesiastical lines. In Cuba, the enduring presence of African cults, the failure of Catholicism to connect with locals, and the church’s association with Spain lead to a very low percentage of Christians in Cuba today (p. 94-96). 

The Catholics dominated Central America during colonialism, building banks, convents, churches, schools, and towns. The Catholic church became the largest landowner through tithes and taxes, but this changed after individual nations gained independence and the separation of church and state (p. 98). Protestant missions established a church that favored liberalism versus Catholics conservatism. But in the 20th century the Catholic Church made peace with liberalism and was able to minimize Protestant influence (p. 100). 

In South America, the Spaniard Pizarro conquered the Aztec and Inca Empires. Religious orders flooded the continent and the Catholic Church amassed huge wealth at the same time it was manipulated by totalitarian regimes. However, some prophetic voices of critique emerged from within the church having “marginal success” at curbing exploitation (p. 101); Protestantism came in the 19th century, gaining converts primarily among the middle class. Pentecostals followed with greatest response from the poor, and together with liberation theology these movements have been most influential in Latin American Christianity. The colonial connotations among Pentecostals are limited because in countries like Brazil the emergence of independent native leadership was almost immediate (p. 101-102). 

Protestants Enter the Scene

In Oceania British colonists constructed a modern world in Australia and New Zealand in which Christianity was initially foundational (p. 114). Among the natives of Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia are some of the highest percentages of Christians in the world. This is remarkable since these island regions comprise one of the least evangelized parts of the world. Protestants were the first to send missions to Oceania n the 18th century followed by Catholics in the 19th century. Amidst a backdrop of historical isolation and warfare among diverse native peoples, Oceania is now united by Christianity, albeit influenced by rivalries of Protestant denominations (p. 114-115).

The end of slavery deprived Europeans of forced labor outside Africa, but within the continent colonial powers imposed forced labor upon indigenous peoples during the “Scramble for Africa” (p. 124). When the end of Western colonialism came, the church in Africa unexpectedly grew and spread once the Europeans left. Christianity reentered Africa in the 15th century with Islam already present. From the 17th to 20th centuries European (and later North American) Protestants came, with Portuguese missions in 16th century. But in the 20th century Africans dispossessed Europeans and established independent countries (p. 124-125). 

Formerly Christian Northern African is the region of greatest Muslim dominance in Africa today, but this transition occurred over centuries (p. 132). Western missions of the 19th century were seen as bringing a foreign, Western religion. Missions, however, were a small factor in the larger colonial project in North Africa, and those that did succeed were largely abandoned during decolonization after World War II (p. 132). 

Southern African countries today with Christian majority are those colonized by the English (p. 134). The Dutch Boers resented the English overlords when slavery abolished in the early 19th century. The Boers then embarked on the “Great Trek” out of British controlled areas seeing it as a form of biblical Exodus “leaving Egypt”. But those lands were inhabited by African tribes, and subsequent discovery of diamonds added to conflicts in the region. Afrikaners and British fought during the Boer Wars in late 19th and early 20th centuries, leading up to the establishment of an apartheid state with Dutch Reformed church approval. Western Africa is divided among Islam and Christianity because of Muslim conquest followed by Christian missions in the 15th century. The first Christian missions were the Catholic Portuguese along the coast, followed by the Spanish, Dutch and English (p. 135-136). 

Russian Orthodox Expansion

In Central Asia expansion of Russian empire brought Orthodox faith from the years 1500 to 1900 followed by era of religious repression under the USSR (p. 143). Eastern Asia saw the “Christian century” in Japan with Catholic missions from 1549-1650. This, however, was followed by expulsion of missionaries as the church was accused of being involved in political subversion. During this time from 5 to 6 thousand Christians were massacred. In Southeastern Asia the Portuguese, Spanish and French brought Christianity in 16th century with the Dutch and Germans bringing Protestantism in the 19th century. The pope granted Portugal religious jurisdiction over the East and Spain in West with the treaty of Tordesillas. The legacy of colonialism and Christian missions in Western Asia includes the domination of the church by foreign rulers for centuries – Islamic, Western Christian, and Ottoman. Many Christians ended up converting to Islam because of religious oppression. Although Christianity in Asian continues to grow consistently, it still largely bears association with Western imperialism (p. 144-154). 

References

Cooper, D. (2016). Introduction to World Christian History. IVP Academic.