This chapter begins the constructive turn in the book and outlines the contours and substance of an ethic of responsibility. The chapter begins by noting the impotence of efforts at “racial reconciliation” and offers the idea of “original sin” as a more accurate lens for addressing whiteness. The failure of white churches and theologians to reckon with the power of whiteness suggests the need for a new approach: an ethic of responsibility built upon the shared commitments of Cone and Hauerwas, and their mutual appeal to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as the criticisms and corrections that black liberation theology directs at white theology. As a process of formation, an ethic of responsibility promotes radical, communal action to confront through material practices the wicked problem of whiteness, while also recognizing the lingering challenges of whiteness within a broken and wounded body of Christ.
Beyond nostalgia in the search for identity: Black liberation theology and the politics of reconciliation
