Can "White" People Be Saved?

Triangulating Race, Theology, and Mission

Love L. Sechrest, Johnny Ramírez-Johnson, Amos Yong, Love L. Sechrest, Johnny Ramírez-Johnson, Amos Yong

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780830873753
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Religion

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.

List of Contributors

Akintunde Akinade is professor of theology at Georgetown University’s Edmund E. Walsh School of Foreign Service in Qatar.

Clifton R. Clarke is associate dean for the William E. Pannell Center for African American Church Studies and associate professor of black church studies and world Christianity at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Elizabeth Conde-Frazier is academic dean and vice president of education at Esperanza College of Eastern University, St. Davids, Pennsylvania.

Andrew T. Draper is an author, speaker, scholar, and founding Senior Pastor of Urban Light Community Church.

Erin Dufault-Hunter is assistant professor of Christian ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Willie James Jennings is associate professor of systematic theology and Africana studies at Yale University Divinity School, New Haven, Connecticut.

Daniel Jeyaraj is professor of world Christianity and the director of the Andrew F. Walls Centre for the Study of African and Asian Christianity at Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, United Kingdom.

Hak Joon Lee is Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Johnny Ramírez-Johnson is professor of anthropology and profesor del Centro Latino at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Angel D. Santiago-Vendrell is E. Stanley Jones Associate Professor of Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Dunnam School of Urban Ministries, Orlando, Florida.

Love L. Sechrest is dean of the faculty, vice president of academic affairs and associate professor of New Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, Georgia.

Andrea Smith is associate professor of media and cultural studies and director of graduate studies in ethnic studies at University of California Riverside, California.

Jonathan Tran is associate professor of theology and ethics in the Religion Department at Baylor University, Waco, Texas.

Amos Yong is professor of theology and mission and director of the Center for Missiological Research at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California.

Notes

Introduction: Race and Missiology in Glocal Perspective

1Kamala Harris (@SenKamalaHarris), “Black Women helped elect a Democrat,” December 13, 2017, https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/940992476441206785.

2Eileen Patten, “Racial, Gender Wage Gaps Persist in U.S. Depite Some Progress,” Fact Tank, Pew Research Center, July 1, 2016, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/01/racial-gender-wage-gaps-persist-in-u-s-despite-some-progress.

3The US Census reported that in the third quarter of 2017, the unemployment rate for Whites was 3.8%. Black unemployment was nearly double the White rate at 7.5%, and Latina/o unemployment was nearly 35% higher than Whites at 5.1%. Though Asian American unemployment generally tracks with White unemployment, 20- to 24-year-old Asians had an unemployment rate that was 25% higher than Whites in the same age group. See “Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey,” Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpsee_e16 .htm for current quarter comparisons.

4Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (New York: New Press, 2012).

5Wealth creation for working-class and middle-class families in the United States is generally tied to home ownership according to Laura Sullivan et al. in “The Racial Wealth Gap: Why Policy Matters,” a joint report from Demos and the Brandeis Institute for Assets and Social Policy (2015), www.demos.org/sites/default/files/publications/RacialWealthGap_1.pdf. Hence, wealth gaps are largely a product of vast differences in rates of home ownership: Whites at 71%, Blacks at 41%, and Latina/o families at 45% as of 2014.

6Number of infant deaths per 1,000 in 2014: Whites (4.89); Blacks (10.93); Latina/os (5.0); Native Americans (7.66); Asians/Pacific Islanders (3.68). See National Center for Health Statistics, Health, United States, 2016: With Chartbook on Long-Term Trends in Health (Hyattsville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2017), 17.

7Liam Stack, “Alt-Right, Alt-Left, Antifa: A Glossary of Extremist Language,” New York Times, August 15, 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/us/politics/alt-left-alt-right-glossary.html.

8Joseph Barndt, Becoming an Anti-racist Church: Journeying Toward Wholeness (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), 1.

9Joe Aldred, “Black Churches Contributing to Cohesion or Polarising Christians and Other Faith Groups?,” Pentecostal and Multicultural Relations, Churches Together in England, June 15, 2007, www.cte.org.uk/Groups/236173/Home/Resources/Pentecostal_and_Multicultural/Black_Church_in/Black_Church_in.aspx.

10Max Fisher and Amanda Taub, “The Refugee Crisis: 9 Questions You Were Too Embarrassed to Ask,” Vox, September 9, 2015, www.vox.com/2015/9/9/9290985/refugee-crisis-europe-syrian.

11“Global Inequality,” Inequality.org, Institute for Policy Studies, https://inequality.org/facts /global-inequality/.

12Jenna Johnson, “Trump Calls for ‘Total and Complete Shutdown of Muslims Entering the United States,’ ” Washington Post, December 7, 2015, www.washingtonpost.com/news/post -politics/wp/2015/12/07/donald-trump-calls-for-total-and-complete-shutdown-of-muslims -e...