A Theology of Race and Place

In a world marked by the effects of colonial displacements, slavery’s auction block, and the modern observatory stance, can Christian theology adequately imagine racial reconciliation? What factors have created our society’s racialized optic--a view by which nonwhite bodies are objectified, marginalized, and destroyed--and how might such a gaze be resisted? Is there hope for a church and academy marked by difference rather than assimilation? This book pursues these questions by surveying the works of Willie James Jennings and J. Kameron Carter, who investigate the genesis of the racial imagination to suggest a new path forward for Christian theology. Jennings and Carter both mount critiques of popular contemporary ways of theologically imagining Christian identity as a return to an ethic of virtue. Through fresh reads of both the ''tradition'' and liberation theology, these scholars point to the particular Jewish flesh of Jesus Christ as the ground for a new body politic. By drawing on a vast array of biblical, theological, historical, and sociological resources, including communal experiments in radical joining, A Theology of Race and Place builds upon their theological race theory by offering an ecclesiology of joining that resists the aesthetic hegemony of whiteness.''Draper has spied out in our work possibilities for a different future for theology, one that takes the problems of the racial imagination seriously. If we will ever move beyond the racial dilemmas of the West, it will require more Christian ethicists and theologians who turn their attention to these matters. Andrew Draper’s text leads the way in this important work.'' --Willie James Jennings, Yale University ''The great value of this book is in Draper’s analysis of both Carter’s and Jennings’ choice of conversation partners to illumine arguments of how past theologies of race have been deficient just to the extent they have lacked a theological control that keeps them engaged with scripture. In particular, Carter and Jennings argue that the need to account for the relation of Jesus to Israel has been a source for continuing the racial evasion of Christian theology. Draper’s is the first book-length analysis of these important contemporary voices of which I’m aware. I’m sure there will be more, as the issues raised by these thinkers will continue to shape theological discourse for many years to come.'' --Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Emeritus Professor of Divinity and Law, Duke University''The theology of race and place is sorely neglected in the American church. Andrew Draper is extremely qualified to speak on both as a pastoral practitioner of the philosophy of ministry embodied in Christian community development. This includes two powerful aspects, reconciliation and relocation, both of which demonstrate that place matters. I highly recommend A Theology of Race and Place.''--Wayne ''Coach'' Gordon, Pastor, Lawndale Christian Community Church; President Emeritus, Christian Community Development Association ''As the bullets are flying and the bodies are falling across the race line in America once again, precious few Christian theologians dare examine the issue at its theological roots. Andrew Draper’s concise and insightful engagement with the bravest and most exciting thinkers doing so today is a real gift. His own contribution takes the conversation a big step forward by offering us a winsome vision of a church that does not aspire to go beyond race, but to learn what it means to embrace a vulnerable communion in the middle of a world characterized by racial strife.'' --Brian Brock, Reader in Moral and Practical Theology, Department of Divinity, History and Philosophy, King’s College, Aberdeen''In this deeply engaging and transforming book, Andrew Draper teases out the Christological and ecclesiological implications of the theories on the origin of the racial imagination posited by noted theologians Willie James Jennings and J. Kameron