Race
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Lamentation of Dehumanisation: Theological Resistance and the Sacredness of the Accused Child
Atlanta, Georgia “If there’s somebody out there like that has him, I just wish they knew that somebody here loves him; that a whole lot of people love him. This whole community loves him and they want him back, too.” Camille Bell.[1] On the 21st of October 1979, nine-year-old Yusuf Bell ran an errand for an elderly neighbour at a nearby grocery store. He never returned home to his mother, who called out for him. His body was later found in an abandoned school building eighteen days later.[2] His cause of death was classified as a brutal hit on his head and strangulation. Yusuf was one of the thirty African-American…
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Problematizing Whiteness in Religious Scholarship: A Call for Racial Justice
Introduction A recent Twitter thread asked users to “Watch Whiteness Work” by pointing out examples of White Privilege [1] across various contexts (Husky 2023). This raises important questions for religious scholarship regarding whether our academic disciplines may also perpetuate systems of inequality [2] we ostensibly critique. As Christian ethicists and theologians concerned with justice and righteousness, how might our scholarship be vulnerable to racial bias? The study of religion and theology within higher education is responsible for confronting internalized racism within its canon and methods. As womanist scholar Emilie Townes notes, appeals to the Bible and doctrine often supplied the ideological justifications for systems of slavery, segregation, and other evils propagated upon…
