Yes, White people can be saved. In God's redemptive plan, that goes without saying. But what about the reality of white normativity? This idea and way of being in the world has been parasitically joined to Christianity, and this is the ground of many of our problems today. It is time to redouble the efforts of the church and its institutions to muster well-informed, gospel-based initiatives to fight racialized injustice and overcome the heresy of whiteness.
Written by a world-class roster of scholars, Can ’White’ People Be Saved? develops language to describe the current realities of race and racism. It challenges evangelical Christianity in particular to think more critically and constructively about race, ethnicity, migration, and mission in relation to white supremacy.
Historical and contemporary perspectives from Africa and the African diaspora prompt fresh theological and missiological questions about place and identity. Native American and Latinx experiences of colonialism, migration, and hybridity inspire theologies and practices of shalom. And Asian and Asian American experiences of ethnicity and class generate transnational resources for responding to the challenge of systemic injustice. With their call for practical resistance to the Western whiteness project, the perspectives in this volume can revitalize a vision of racial justice and peace in the body of Christ.
Missiological Engagements charts interdisciplinary and innovative trajectories in the history, theology, and practice of Christian mission, featuring contributions by leading thinkers from both the Euro-American West and the majority world whose missiological scholarship bridges church, academy, and society.
Innehållsförteckning
Preface
Introduction: Race and Missiology in Glocal Perspective (Johnny Ramírez-Johnson and Love L. Sechrest)
Part I: Race and Place at the Dawn of Modernity
1 Can White People Be Saved? Reflections on the Relationship of Missions and Whiteness (Willie James Jennings)
2 Decolonizing Salvation (Andrea Smith)
Part II: Race and the Colonial Enterprise
3 Christian Debates on Race, Theology, and Mission in India (Daniel Jeyaraj)
4 Ambivalent Modalities: Mission, Race, and the African Factor (Akintunde Akinade with Clifton R. Clarke)
Part III: Race and Mission to Latin America
5 Siempre Lo Mismo: Theology, Rhetoric, and Broken Praxis (Elizabeth Conde-Frazier)
6 Constructing Race in Puerto Rico: The Colonial Legacy of Christianity and Empires, 1510–1910 (Angel D. Santiago-Vendrell)
Part IV: Race in North America Between and Beyond Black-and-White
7 The End of ’Mission’: Christian Witness and the Decentering of White Identity (Andrew T. Draper)
8 Community, Mission, and Race: A Missiological Meaning of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Beloved Community for Racial Relationships and Identity Politics (Hak Joon Lee)
9 ’The Spirit of God Was Hovering over the Waters’: Pressing Past Racialization in the Decolonial Missionary Context; or, Why Asian American Christians Should Give Up Their Spots at Harvard (Jonathan Tran)
Part V: Scriptural Reconsiderations and Ethnoracial Hermeneutics
10 Intercultural Communication Skills for a Missiology of Interdependent Mutuality (Johnny Ramírez-Johnson)
11 ’Humbled Among the Nations’: Matthew 15:21-28 in Antiracist Womanist Missiological Engagement (Love L. Sechrest)
Conclusion: Mission After Colonialism and Whiteness: The Pentecost Witness of the ’Perpetual Foreigner’ for the Third Millennium (Amos Yong)
Epilogue: A Letter from the Archdemon of Racialization to Her Angels in the United States (Erin Dufault-Hunter)
List of Contributors
Subject Index
Scripture Index
Om författaren
Andrew T. Draper (Ph D, University of Aberdeen) is founding teaching pastor at Urban Light Community Church in Muncie, Indiana, and adjunct theology faculty at Anderson School of Theology and Winebrenner Seminary. He is the author of A Theology of Race and Place, Christian Mission and Poverty, and numerous articles on race, disability, and the church.