CHRISTOLOGY AND WHITENESS ThisbookexploresChristologythroughthelensofwhiteness,addressingwhitenessas asiteofprivilegeandpowerwithinthespecificcontextofChristology.Itaskswhether or not Jesus’ life and work offers theological, religious and ethical resources that can address the question of contemporary forms of white privilege. The text seeks to encourage ways of thinking about whiteness theologically through the mission of Jesus.Inthissense,whiteChristiansareencouragedtoreflectonhowtheirwhiteness is a site of tension in relation to their theological and religious framework. A dis- tinguished team of contributors explore key topics including the Christology of domination, different images of Jesus and the question of identification with Jesus, and the Black Jesus in the inner city. George Yancy is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University, USA. HisbooksincludeBlackBodies,WhiteGazes:TheContinuingSignificanceofRace(2008) and Look, a White! Philosophical Essays on Whiteness (2012). CHRISTOLOGY AND WHITENESS What Would Jesus Do? Edited by George Yancy Firstpublishedin2012 byRoutledge 2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada byRoutledge 711ThirdAvenue,NewYork,NY10017 RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninformabusiness ©2012GeorgeYancyforselectionandeditorialmatter;individualcontributors, theircontributions Therightoftheeditortobeidentifiedastheauthoroftheeditorialmaterial,and oftheauthorsfortheirindividualchapters,hasbeenassertedinaccordancewith sections77and78oftheCopyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedorreproducedor utilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,orothermeans,now knownorhereafterinvented,includingphotocopyingandrecording,orinany informationstorageorretrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthe publishers. Trademarknotice:Productorcorporatenamesmaybetrademarksorregistered trademarks,andareusedonlyforidentificationandexplanationwithoutintent toinfringe. BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData ChristologyandWhiteness:whatwouldJesusdo?/editedbyGeorgeYancy. p.cm. Includesindex. 1.JesusChrist–Personandoffices.2.Whites–Raceidentity.3.Raceawareness. 4.Race–Philosophy.5.Racerelations–Religiousaspects–Christianity.6. Racism–Religiousaspects–Christianity.I.Yancy,George. BT205.C532012 232.089'09–dc23 2012003056 ISBN:978-0-415-69997-6(hbk) ISBN:978-0-415-69998-3(pbk) ISBN:978-0-203-10612-9(ebk) TypesetinBembo byTaylor&FrancisBooks “The one who showed him mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.” CONTENTS Notes on contributors viii Acknowledgments xii Foreword xiv Kelly Brown Douglas Introduction: framing the problem 1 George Yancy 1 What Jesus wouldn’t do: a white theologian engages whiteness 19 Karen Teel 2 Grotesque un/knowing of suffering: a white Christian response 36 Laurie M. Cassidy 3 Jesus must needs go through Samaria: disestablishing the mountains of race and the hegemony of whiteness 59 Cheryl Townsend Gilkes 4 The Black Church and whiteness: looking for Jesus in strange places 75 Moni McIntyre 5 What would Zacchaeus do? The case for disidentifying with Jesus 84 Jennifer Harvey Contents vii 6 Is Christ white? Racism and Christology 101 Rosemary Radford Ruether 7 When a white man-god is the truth and the way for black Christians 114 Traci C. West 8 Who belongs to Christ? 128 Josiah U. Young III 9 Upstart Messiahs, renegade Samaritans, and temple exorcisms: What can Jesus’ peasant resistance movement in first-century Palestine teach us about confronting “color-blind” whiteness today? 136 James W. Perkinson 10 Jesus, whiteness, and the disinherited 156 William David Hart 11 Looking like me?: Jesus images, Christology, and the limitations of theological blackness 169 Anthony B. Pinn 12 The (black) Jesus of Detroit: reflections on black power and the (white) American Christ 180 M. Shawn Copeland 13 The mimesis of salvation and dissimilitude in the scandalous gospel of Jesus 196 Victor Anderson Index 212 CONTRIBUTORS Victor Anderson is Oberlin Graduate Professor of Ethics and Society at the Divinity SchoolofVanderbiltUniversity;ProfessorofAfricanAmericanStudiesandReligious Studies in the College of Arts and Sciences. He holds a BA from Trinity Christian College,anMDivandThMfromCalvinTheologicalSeminaryandanMAandPhD in Religion, Ethics and Politics from Princeton University. Anderson is author of Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay in African American Religious and Cultural Criticism ([1995] 1999), Pragmatic Theology: Negotiating the Intersection of an American Philosophy of Religion and Public Theology (1999), and Creative Exchange: A Constructive Theology of African American Experience (2008). Laurie M. Cassidy is currently Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Mary- wood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Her most recent book is a co-edited volumeentitledInterruptingWhitePrivilege:CatholicTheologiansBreaktheSilence,which won Catholic Theology Society’s book of the year in 2007. Her work as 2009 Luce Faculty Fellow for the Society for the Study of Art in Religion and Theological Studies is forthcoming in a volume from Liturgical Press co-edited with Maureen O’Connell entitled She Who Imagines: A Catholic Feminist Aesthetic. Cassidy’s research draws on the resources of Christian mysticism for individual and social transformation, particularly in responding to contemporary culture. M.ShawnCopelandisanAssociateProfessorofTheologyandholdsanappointment in the interdisciplinary Program in African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College. Previously, she has taught at Marquette University and Yale University Divinity School. Copeland is recognized as one of the most important influences in North America in drawing attention to issues concerning the experience of African American Catholics. She has written more than ninety articles, reviews, and book chapters on such topics as Christology, freedom, gender, and race. Copeland is the Notesoncontributors ix author of Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race and Being (2010) and principal editor of Uncommon Faithfulness: The Black Catholic Experience (2009). Cheryl Townsend Gilkes is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of African-American Studies and Sociology and director of the African American Studies Program at Colby College (Waterville, Maine). Her research, teaching, and writing have focused on the role of African American women in generating social change and on the diverse roles of black Christian women in the twentieth century. SheiscurrentlyatworkonabookentitledThatBlessedBook:TheBibleandtheAfrican American Cultural Imagination and she is also exploring the impact of African Muslims on the formation of African American Christianity during slavery. Some of her essays and articles are gathered in her book If It Wasn’t for the Women: Black Women’s Experience and Womanist Culture in Church and Community (Maryknoll, New York: OrbisBooks,2001).Several ofherjournal articleshave beenreprintedin anthologies such as African American Religious Thought: An Anthology, edited by Cornel West and Eddie Glaude (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004). William David Hart is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North CarolinaGreensboro.Hartdescribeshimselfasacriticaltheoristofreligion.Heisthe authorofthreebooks:EdwardSaidand theReligiousEffectsofCulture(Cambridge2000) and Black Religion: Malcolm X, Julius Lester and Jan Willis (Palgrave 2008), and Afro- Eccentricity: Beyond the Standard Narrative of Black Religion (2011). Hart’s next project addresses relations among religion, the state, and forms of violence. Jennifer Harvey is Associate Professor of Religion at Drake University in Des Moines,Iowa.ShereceivedherPhDinChristianSocialEthicsfromUnionTheological SeminaryintheCityofNewYork.SheistheauthorofWhitenessandMorality:Pursuing Racial Justice through Reparations and Sovereignty (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) and a co-editorofDisruptingWhiteSupremacyfromWithin:WhitePeopleonWhatWeNeedto Do (Pilgrim Press, 2004). Her recent publications include articles pertaining to the movement for reparations among US Protestant denominations. Moni McIntyre is currently Assistant Professor in the Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy at Duquesne University. Prior to her ordination as an Episcopal priest in 2000, she had been assistant professor in Duquesne’s Theology Department. SheistherectoroftheChurchoftheHolyCrossinPittsburgh.SheisaretiredNavy Captain (0–6) and former Ethics Consultant to the Navy Surgeon General. She tea- ches bioethics to Navy physicans and dentists in the Advance Medical Department Officer Course in Bethesda, MD. Her publications include three books and numer- ous articles. Her research interests are in bioethics, nonviolent social change, com- munity organizing, and social movements. James W. Perkinson is a long-time activist and educator from inner-city Detroit, currently teaching as Professor of Social Ethics at the Ecumenical Theological