Tag / portugal

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

Theory of Race and Iberian Christendom, part 1

Towards a Theory of Race Supporting Mission as Intercultural Reconciliation

I am involved in advocacy for a post-supersessionist vision of Christian mission. My proposal is mission as intercultural reconciliation, hereafter referred to as MIR. The biblical basis for MIR is found poignantly in Paul’s declaration: 

For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall, by abolishing in His flesh the enmity, which is the Law of commandments contained in ordinances, so that in Himself He might make the two into one new man, thus establishing peace, and might reconcile them both in one body to God through the cross, by it having put to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were far away, and peace to those who were near; (New American Standard Version, 1995, Eph. 2:14-17)

Unfortunately, this vision was thwarted by supersessionist theology that abolished the Jewish expression in the church. This biblical interpretive framework affirmed that, “the promises and commitments of God would no longer apply to Israel because it had not recognized Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God but had been transferred to the Church of Jesus Christ which was now the true ‘new Israel’, the new chosen people of God” (Cunningham, 2017). 

The prophetic symbol of the “one new man” formed of formerly alienated peoples was substituted by a vision of a church united by the nullification of cultural identity. The instinct of catholicity was born out of which came emphases on episcopal lineage and uniform doctrine and practice. The history of Christianity that ensued has been one of serial fragmentation with each separating group claiming to represent the purest culture, devoid of human infiltration and contamination. 

My context of service is the Iberian diaspora – Spain, Portugal and their colonies in the Americas – where I have served as a missionary for the past 30 years. In his book The Christian Imagination, Willie Jennings (2010) argues that Christian identity became encompassed by European (white) identity during the colonial era through Catholic missions springing forth from the Counter Reformation in the 15th century. This Christian identity had been wholly removed from Muslim identity during La Reconquista when the Iberian Peninsula was retaken from the Moors, just as it had been removed from Jewish identity during the Inquisition. 

Although supersessionism came to prominence as early as the second century, it was at the commencement of Spanish and Portuguese colonialism that this doctrine became the rationale for the displacement of indigenous peoples and their categorization according to their proximity or distance from the “people of God” embodied by the white European colonizers. Willie Jennings (2010) proposes that supersessionism is primordial to the development of the modern concept of race, i.e., origin of race as supersessionism, hereafter referred to as ORS.

But some have argued that the ORS thesis asks the supersessionism of 15-18th century Iberian Catholic colonizers to bear more responsibility than is reasonable (McDermott, 2023). I believe that ORS has potentially fruitful ramifications for post-colonial race relations. I agree with Jennings that Iberian Catholic colonialism in the early modern era contributed to the Western concept of race. That theories of race based in Western colonialism have had catastrophic effects on humanity is something I take for granted. However, I feel that some social science research on racial theory is based too heavily on a US-American perspective. Both CRT and ORS are cases in point, borrowing too heavily on the US-American historical experience to serve as a global paradigm for racial justice today. In fact, this paper will explore the ambiguous meaning of the term race as it is used in the U.S. versus Europe. The thesis of this paper is that ORS is helpful to mission as intercultural reconciliation, but it requires adjustment to engage the European/Iberian context.

In this essay I will give a brief presentation of Jennings’ ORS thesis followed by a section contextualizing ORS within Critical Race Theory (CRT). In the late 20th century, CRT emerged in the US-America becoming one of the most prominent recent developments in the social sciences related to race in the popular imagination. This body of inquiry critiques the foundations of modern liberalism, being skeptical towards the ideas of equality and Enlightenment rationalism. CRT focuses on the formation of social roles, patriarchy, forms of domination, and is concerned with addressing historical wrongs in legal and practical ways (p. 5). CRT also draws upon critical white studies, which investigates the essence of whiteness and its prominence related to understandings of race (Farmer & Farmer, 2020). 

The next section of the essay critiques ORS considering the European and Iberian context. Here I will draw from European and Iberian analysis of popular contemporary US-American race theory. Since the ORS thesis is little known in European social science literature, I focus on the reception of CRT as a proxy. My premise is that both ORS and CRT are part of the US-American genealogy of black civil rights theory (and praxis) and both theories share many common themes. To conclude, I will offer some suggestions for post-supersessionist mission as intercultural reconciliation (MIR) in the European/Iberian context. 

References

by daviddawson462742281

Generalizations About the Poor Overshadow Innovation and Agency

Lisa Cliggett’s Grains From Grass (2005) studies the Gwembe Tonga people of Zambia. This research reveals diverse socioeconomic strategies developed to deal with the complexity of globalization (p. 3). We see development among the Tonga as happening through labor migration, negotiating kinship paradigms of assistance, and religious practice. These forms of finding sustenance can be studied statistically looking at groups but are employed and altered by individuals. Indeed, the individualism demonstrated in various forms of socioeconomic self-preservation counter romantic Western notions of such societies being inherently collectivist and altruistic (p. 2). 

It may seem like a stretch, but this situation made me reflect on my own socioeconomic experience as a missionary from the West. I have spent most of my life outside Southern California where I was born, in two countries – Brazil and Portugal – where supporting myself and my family are much easier with my vocation than back home. Although I come from a Pentecostal tradition that emphasizes divine guidance and prophecy, I believe that my wife and my choice of location has been affected by economic realities. After 16 years in Brazil, my wife and I moved back to Southern California for 3 years but eventually moved on to Portugal. The cost of living in that part of the U.S. was a very real part of our decision to move. We could have stayed in the U.S. but our vocation as missionaries meant this would likely result in a loss of financial support. 

For most missionaries, donations are the main source of income, but increasingly other forms of financial sustainability are sought. This should be done with supporters’ knowledge to preserve accountability and not undermine the validity of a missionary’s appeal for donations. Again, I realize the great different in the Gwembe Tonga experience and my own, but the reality of individual agency versus oversimplified generalizations is shared. I feel that long-term missionaries today are not helped by being given only a few legitimate options for financially supporting their work. 

Cliggett (2005) promotes using a “framework of vulnerability that highlights difference in terms of a group’s resources and its ability to control those resources” that “forces us to develop a more complex vision” of such societies (p. 16). Again, I blush at trying to connect the economic situation of the Gwembe Tonga to my context in Portugal, but I do see some relevance. The Portuguese media constantly discuss the exodus of young people to other parts of Europe looking for better wages (Portugal at a risk of poverty below the EU average, n.d.). A tradesperson, for example, can make 3 or 4 times more in a country like France or Germany. However, diverse groups of immigrants to Portugal are thriving as they compare its economic opportunities to those of former Portuguese colonial nations which they come from (Monteiro, 2024). More recently, increased amounts of immigrants to Portugal are coming from South Asia, who find the country an easier port of entry than other European nations. 

At the same time, Portuguese economists constantly criticize the culture of nepotism and “amigismo” (closing economic circles among friends) as the prime source of its relative poverty and underperformance in Western Europe (Pimentel, 2021). There is no other nation I know in Europe that has an economy like Portugal’s in comparison to its powerful neighbors. As I think of my children’s economic future here in Portugal, I am forced to think of where there are thriving sources of innovation and opportunity. As I look around the metro area of Lisbon where we live, it is obvious that economic prosperity exists here. This is like my experience living in large cities of Brazil. The Brazilian media constantly spoke of the lack of economic opportunities in the nation in comparison to other countries. However, in these huge, teeming metropolises I was aware of millions of people who were finding a way to survive and often thrive. Cliggett’s work encourages me to look beyond the media portrayal of national economics which always makes money off bad news. As a missionary, I believe Cliggett’s work provides encouragement towards a rejection of negative economic stereotypes of the nations we serve. 

Now I will proceed gears to the second discussion prompt regarding gendered land ownership and accusations of witchcraft. I believe it is possible that Gwembe Tonga women may be accused as bulozi(witches) because of increased access to land inheritance from husbands. Elderly men are believed to engage in sorcery to “manipulate the supernatural world for human goals” (Cliggett, 2005, p. 131). Sorcery is believed to be the cause of sickness and death to their relatives (p. 134), and land inheritance disputes are common to so many cultures. Elderly men’s use of mystical powers sometimes backfires, resulting in witch hunts aiming to cleanse the community of evil and unfair practices (p. 136). Therefore, I think it is reasonable to assume that elderly women’s empowerment related to land makes them vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft like elderly men. 

References

Cliggett, L. (2005). Grains from grass: Aging, gender, and famine in rural Africa. Cornell University Press.

Pimentel, A. H., Marina. (2021, December 23). Maria José Morgado: “Cultura de impunidade, nepotismo e amiguismo tem feito de Portugal um país pobre e atrasado.” PÚBLICO. 

Portugal at a risk of poverty below the EU average. (n.d.). Retrieved October 9, 2024, from https://www.portugal.gov.pt/en/gc23/communication/news-item?i=portugal-at-a-risk-of-poverty-below-the-eu-average

Monteiro, C. (2024, April 16). Migração: Factos e Números 2024. EAPN. https://www.eapn.pt/centro-de-documentacao/migracao-factos-e-numeros-2024/

by daviddawson462742281

Do the Most Successful Immigrants Assimilate or Negotiate?

In Kinship and Continuity , Alison Shaw (2000) studies how Pakistani immigrants to Oxford, England preserve their culture while adapting in many creative ways to their new context. This work counters many of the troupes common in the West regarding immigrant communities. On the one hand, these groups are often seen as either immutably “stuck” in their traditional ways, causing lack of integration and development. The corollary to this perspective is that immigrants that assimilate most comprehensively bear the most benefits of the modern Western world. But Shaw’s (2000) work indicates a much more complex and nuanced reality, showing how cultural enclaves develop creative hybridity. 

Immigrant Communities in Portugal Today

The insights from Shaw’s (2000) study  indicate several possible applications  for the multicultural Lisbon metro area where I live. It is important to recognize  “general restlessness” and “desire for social advancement” generated by colonialism among immigrant communities (p. 25). A 2023 study showed the number of foreigners living in Portugal had doubled over the past decade, significantly impacting demographics (Foreign Population in Portugal Sees Dramatic Rise, n.d.). The jobless rate for foreigners is almost twice as much as the national average, and nearly a third of immigrants live in conditions of “poverty or social exclusion”. On the other hand, one third of all graduate students at the doctoral level are immigrants (Foreign Population in Portugal Sees Dramatic Rise, n.d.). 

A 2024 study indicates that in the Lisbon metropolitan area 43% of the population is from an immigrant background with 41% being first-generation residents (Monteiro, 2024). As a whole, the country has an exceptionally high percentage of repatriated immigrants, with 63% being ethnic Portuguese. These entered the country by way of family reunification or having come with their parents when they were children (Monteiro, 2024). Besides these, a 2021 study showed that the largest group of immigrants was Brazilians at 25.6% followed, by Portuguese speaking African countries at 9.2% (Imigração e emigração em Portugal | Eurocid – Informação europeia ao cidadão, n.d.). 

On the other hand, the flow of native Portuguese emigrants remains high, with other E.U. countries being the primary destinations (Vidigal & Pires, n.d.). And Portuguese moving overseas tend to be the empowered and upwardly mobile. 47.6% of  emigrants have higher education degrees, and 66% are men (Foreign Population in Portugal Sees Dramatic Rise, n.d.). 

What Cultural Hybridity Teaches us About Immigrant Communities

Shaw’s (2000) analysis demonstrates how Pakistanis coming to Oxford were neither mere pawns of international labor nor fully autonomous agents (p. 38). While these immigrants were subject to wider economic and political forces, they acted upon their own aspirations and principles (p. 38). For the families that grew up, socio-economic circumstances changed for the better. In part this depended on adapting traditional forms of family organization. Some women took up work outside the home while also fulfilling the role of maintaining community ties which they traditionally held (Shaw, 2000, p. 68, 227-8).

Shaw (2000) also describes the conversion of the Isai, known within Hinduism as untouchables (p. 79). This phenomena is relevant to the evangelization of immigrant communities in Lisbon by Evangelicals. The Isai were latrine cleaners in Pakistan but were considered equal to all brethren in a Christian worldview. However, evangelism targeting groups of marginal status must consider whether religious change is tied to material and social ambitions. This can  undermine the unity of  church community where doubts arise regarding its members motivation to convert. Evangelistic efforts that target the marginalized of society can be seen as exploitative, with new proselytes being the goal of the first party and new social status being the goal of the second party. On the other hand, liberation theology would argue that converting to Christianity that hopes for social and material betterment is not a contradiction of interests. 

The renegotiation of caste among Pakistani immigrants in Oxford is an example of intersectionality causing hybridity, rather than mere assimilation (Shaw, 2000, p. 113-115). Property ownership and business enterprise allowed some men of “low caste or middle-ranking landowning backgrounds” to exceed high caste men financially. But this does not amount to caste being “shrugged off as irrelevant” (p. 114). Rather, the rankings are renegotiated regarding “which caste fits each Brod category” related to occupation and wealth (p. 115). I believe that in this regard Pakistani immigrants in Oxford will increasingly assimilate to egalitarian Western views of individual status. The strength of Enlightenment notions of human freedom without reference to outside authorities may not eliminate caste but it will most likely alter it. This type of renegotiation of cultural concepts is helpful in majority Catholic Lisbon as young people intermarry with other religious traditions. The legacy of racism towards African immigrants in Portugal is an unfortunate legacy of colonialism. However, Africans who are devout Catholics experience an intersection of race and religion where the latter benefits them socially. Inversely, a significant percentage of Brazilian immigrants are Evangelical, which can hurt them socially. Even though many of these Brazilian Evangelicals share a close ethnic matrix with the Portuguese, their religious affiliation creates a cultural barrier. Recognizing these dynamics of intersectionality and being able to dialogue openly about them is helpful for interfaith relations and evangelism. 

Shaw (2000) emphasizes the constant change undergone by constellations of culture including “social structures, economic activities, religious beliefs, health beliefs, and so on” (p. 290). The sum of these phenomena can inadequately be referred to as “ethnic” attempting an “overall explanation of difference” which ignores constant internal change (p. 290). Shaw (2000) seeks to demonstrate that what characterizes and defines a group “may alter over time as circumstances change (p. 290). I feel this is adequately demonstrated by the Pakistani-Oxford immigration study. Several aspects of their cultural constellation are seen to be preservable and adaptable in ways that affect the immigrant, the host community, as well as the sending community. 

Shaw’s (2000) research shows how Pakistani immigrants weigh their interests in ways that permit changes within traditional social structures while adapting to new circumstances (p. 293). This is an alternative to assimilation to Western individualistic values, which I believe the Pakistanis can sustain in the future. On the other hand, the Pakistanis will have to accommodate to the limits of modern Britain’s doctrine of multiculturalism. As Shaw observes, “Protection of, and respect for, minority values and customs does not extend to ideas and practices that contradict civil rights (p. 295).

Lastly, I see potential in the tendency of Pakistani immigrants’ “turning to Islam as a more significant source of identity than ethnicity” for its universal appeal (Shaw, 2000, p. 300). In the process, however, they are challenging traditional Islamic practices in search of innovations that fit their own goals and values. Their creativity is impressively able to do so while articulating faithfulness to Islamic doctrine (p. 300). This approach can serve as a positive model for Evangelical immigrants to majority Catholic Portugal who want to maintain their faith tradition while seeking to be relevant. Traditionally, Evangelical missions in Portugal have yielded humble results, especially in terms of conversions among native Portuguese. Examples of immigrants who are able to adapt their religious practice to a new environment in search of greater compatibility and relevance are inspiring. Even more so when such innovation streams from a genuine sense of lessons leaned from the “host” culture, rather than simple a means to subversively manipulate it for individual gains. 

References

Foreign Population in Portugal Sees Dramatic Rise. (n.d.). Retrieved September 19, 2024, from https://etias.com/articles/portugal-foreign-population-growth-2023

Imigração e emigração em Portugal | Eurocid—Informação europeia ao cidadão. (n.d.). Retrieved September 19, 2024, from http://eurocid.mne.gov.pt/artigos/imigracao-e-emigracao-em-portugal

Monteiro, C. (2024, April 16). Migração: Factos e Números 2024. EAPN. https://www.eapn.pt/centro-de-documentacao/migracao-factos-e-numeros-2024/

Vidigal, I., & Pires, R. P. (n.d.). Portuguese emigration: Trends and forecasts.