Conclusion

The Conclusion begins by asking whether there is any hope in and for our whiteness. It argues that the answer must be no. The no that we must utter to our whiteness is the only sign of hope to which we can cling. It is a hope that emerges from the painful practices of remembrance, repentance, and reparation, but it is the only hope capable of challenging our bondage to white supremacy. It concludes by briefly analyzing biblical language of the church and demonstrating the ways these metaphors push white Christians to do the difficult work of taking responsibility for our white supremacy.

An Ethic of Responsibility

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.

Racism at the End of White Christian America

Chapter 1 engages in social analysis to outline the current racial landscape in churches in the United States. Beginning with our current political and religious moment, it addresses and defines the many layers to the problem of whiteness. Drawing on the work of James Baldwin, womanist theology, and contemporary sociology, this chapter describes whiteness as a process of social and identity formation currently experiencing a crisis of legitimation. This current legitimation crisis has precipitated the phenomenon of colorblindness, which leads white people to see our interests and perspectives as universal, blinds us to our epistemological limitations, and leads to a posture of defensiveness and fragility. The chapter concludes by arguing that whiteness presents itself as a “wicked problem” with no identifiable solution.

Introduction

The Introduction locates the narrative roots of white supremacy and white theology and briefly states their implications for the contemporary church and world. It outlines the methods this book will use to analyze white postliberal theology and black liberation theology in order to find the tools for an ethic of responsibility to confront white supremacy. Addressing key terms and concepts like colorblindness and whiteness, it introduces the argument that all of white theology and white Christian practice are implicated in white supremacy. After summarizing the argument that follows in the book, this introduction concludes with an outline of each of the six chapters.

Remembrance, Repentance, Reparation

This final chapter fleshes out an ethic of responsibility in practical terms through three church practices: remembrance, repentance, and reparation. It calls the white church to, first, remember and memorialize its role in the invention of white supremacy. Next, white churches must engage in acts of public repentance of their continued complicity and silence in the face of racism. Finally, white Christianity must confront the racial damage it has inflicted through concrete actions of reparation—politically, financially, and spiritually. The chapter offers empirical examples of churches engaging each these practices as well as notes the difficult work that lies ahead in the struggle against white supremacy.

Witnessing White Theology

Chapter 3 analyzes the ways that white theology neglects race and white supremacy as topics of ethical engagement. The chapter presents the influential postliberal, witness theology of Stanley Hauerwas as an example of a theology that fuels colorblindness through its avoidance of race. This chapter argues that Hauerwas and many white theologians are indebted to the concept of tradition and a limited account of narrative that have been influenced by whiteness. This theological model hinders the ability of white theologians to see the effects of whiteness in their work. This chapter then identifies resources within Hauerwas’s work that are useful in confronting whiteness, even if Hauerwas has not deployed them to this end.

The Theological Origins of White Supremacy

Chapter 2 offers a historical and theological account of the theological elements that contributed to the development of white supremacy. It highlights crucial historical moments in the emergence of white supremacy and demonstrates the way white, European theology created and sustained its dominance. The chapter then analyzes the continuing malformative aspects of white Christian theology. To demonstrate that all of white theology is contaminated with racism, it investigates the ways elements of white supremacy show up in the work of two of America’s most influential theologians, Walter Rauschenbusch and Reinhold Niebuhr. The text demonstrates the theological origins of white supremacy and identifies its continuing presence in corrupting even the most well-intentioned white theology.

Narrating Black Theology

Employing the theology of James Cone as a representative of black liberation theology, this chapter analyzes the narrative basis of his ecclesiology as a vision of the church untethered from whiteness. The analysis demonstrates the ways Cone’s ecclesiology contrasts and refines Hauerwas’s. It attends specifically to the ways his narrative theology offers more promising resources for rightly telling the story of white Christianity and offering better witness to our whiteness. This chapter identifies the three conceptual elements of an ethic of responsibility in his thought—memory, particularity, and concreteness. Then, drawing on womanist engagement with his work, argues that Cone offers the concept of “narrative blackness” that invites white theologians and Christians to a form of conversion he calls “becoming black.”