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Race: A Theological Account
In A Theological Account , J. Kameron Carter meditates on the multiple legacies implicated in the production of a racialized world and that still mark how we function in it and think about ourselves. These are the legacies of colonialism and empire, political theories of the state, anthropological theories of the human, and philosophy itself, from the eighteenth-century Enlightenment to the present.
Carter's claim is that Christian theology, and the signal transformation it (along with Christianity) underwent, is at the heart of these legacies. In that transformation, Christian anti-Judaism biologized itself so as to racialize itself. As a result, and with the legitimation of Christian theology, Christianity became the cultural property of the West, the religious ground of white supremacy and global hegemony. In short, Christianity became white. The racial imagination is thus a particular kind of theological problem.
Not content only to describe this problem, Carter constructs a way forward for Christian theology. Through engagement with figures as disparate in outlook and as varied across the historical landscape as Immanuel Kant, Frederick Douglass, Jarena Lee, Michel Foucault, Cornel West, Albert Raboteau, Charles Long, James Cone, Irenaeus of Lyons, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor, Carter reorients the whole of Christian theology, bringing it into the twenty-first century.
Neither a simple reiteration of Black Theology nor another expression of the new theological orthodoxies, this groundbreaking book will be a major contribution to contemporary Christian theology, with ramifications in other areas of the humanities.
Carter's claim is that Christian theology, and the signal transformation it (along with Christianity) underwent, is at the heart of these legacies. In that transformation, Christian anti-Judaism biologized itself so as to racialize itself. As a result, and with the legitimation of Christian theology, Christianity became the cultural property of the West, the religious ground of white supremacy and global hegemony. In short, Christianity became white. The racial imagination is thus a particular kind of theological problem.
Not content only to describe this problem, Carter constructs a way forward for Christian theology. Through engagement with figures as disparate in outlook and as varied across the historical landscape as Immanuel Kant, Frederick Douglass, Jarena Lee, Michel Foucault, Cornel West, Albert Raboteau, Charles Long, James Cone, Irenaeus of Lyons, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor, Carter reorients the whole of Christian theology, bringing it into the twenty-first century.
Neither a simple reiteration of Black Theology nor another expression of the new theological orthodoxies, this groundbreaking book will be a major contribution to contemporary Christian theology, with ramifications in other areas of the humanities.
504 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
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March 21, 2012Ohmystars. My dear theology professor wrote this book. I think it's just been published. He's a gem and if anyone is reading this, which I doubt they are, you should go buy a copy and read it! He is brilliant! And he loves Jesus....
May 19, 2011
If the theological academy as we have known it is under deadly threat, Kameron Carter's Race is an argument for its survival. Only those historically unusual conditions could have produced this tremendous work. Its writing and reading requires training in multiple, specific humanistic disciplines: I might list history, philosophy, critical theory, and the study of religion, in addition to systematic and historical theology. Apart from the academy, this book would be incomprehensible and probably indefensible. Within the academy, it preaches the gospel, in a new and necessary form.
Carter binds many disparate arguments together between these covers—no one would mistake this for something other than a much-revised dissertation, built from separate chapters. Yet a single argument animates all of them, specifically, a claim that only theology can successfully narrate the history and present of race. Only theology, and specifically only the Christian gospel, can remove this category from our thinking, just as only God can save us from racism.
For Carter, working from a high theology, the doctrine of the Trinity is the grounding for all Christian speech and the standard of human truth. Within the Trinity, difference is revealed as a legitimate category, as a condition of God's own being, as the aspect of God's own being made concrete or actual in creation. Understood in light of this revelation, differences among humans become a road into the life of the Trinity, an aspect of human beings' growing fully into the image and likeness of God, living out our destiny—for Carter, as for the African Orthodox like Athanasius, a destiny called divinization. "Modern logics of race foreclose" that possibility by any number of means, played out across the humanistic disciplines that have adopted the category of race, theology among them. By returning to theology, and indeed to the Christian God who is revealed in and lived into through difference, we can imagine something new, something rooted not in purity but in what Carter later calls "the miscegenized or mulattic existence of divinization" (192).
The weaknesses of this book are standard for an academic text. Carter is far too harsh on his predecessors and on scholars outside his own discipline-- and I say that as someone who works in his discipline and agrees with essentially all of his premises and method. Nonspecialists will probably find it impenetrable. Those whose time and background let them read this book at all, however, will find it hugely rewarding.
Carter binds many disparate arguments together between these covers—no one would mistake this for something other than a much-revised dissertation, built from separate chapters. Yet a single argument animates all of them, specifically, a claim that only theology can successfully narrate the history and present of race. Only theology, and specifically only the Christian gospel, can remove this category from our thinking, just as only God can save us from racism.
For Carter, working from a high theology, the doctrine of the Trinity is the grounding for all Christian speech and the standard of human truth. Within the Trinity, difference is revealed as a legitimate category, as a condition of God's own being, as the aspect of God's own being made concrete or actual in creation. Understood in light of this revelation, differences among humans become a road into the life of the Trinity, an aspect of human beings' growing fully into the image and likeness of God, living out our destiny—for Carter, as for the African Orthodox like Athanasius, a destiny called divinization. "Modern logics of race foreclose" that possibility by any number of means, played out across the humanistic disciplines that have adopted the category of race, theology among them. By returning to theology, and indeed to the Christian God who is revealed in and lived into through difference, we can imagine something new, something rooted not in purity but in what Carter later calls "the miscegenized or mulattic existence of divinization" (192).
The weaknesses of this book are standard for an academic text. Carter is far too harsh on his predecessors and on scholars outside his own discipline-- and I say that as someone who works in his discipline and agrees with essentially all of his premises and method. Nonspecialists will probably find it impenetrable. Those whose time and background let them read this book at all, however, will find it hugely rewarding.
December 4, 2020
This book is hard to review. Almost as hard as it was to get into. I will say that the subtitle of this book, “a theological account” is rather misleading. Cameron is essentially reviewing accounts of race that have been held by “Afro-Christians” through out the centuries. However, these reviews are less theological and more culturally focused. While this is not a bad thing, it is a hit surprising given the subtitle of the book. Some of the gold in this book are how he lays out the Jew and Gentile dilemma and applies it race as seen today, how he examines the early church’s understanding of race, and how he breaks down how the colonial aspects of White Christianity (European Christianity) have influenced with race is views theological in both Black and non-Black religious communities. I can’t say I’d recommend this book, but I also can’t say it was a waste of time. To be honest it was just a peculiar book, and one that pushed my own thinking on this issue as I thought about it historically in the community of Christians.
I will add that the chapters read more as individual articles rather than chapters of a book. This makes it hard to read straight through, but could be beneficial when needing resources in the future.
I will add that the chapters read more as individual articles rather than chapters of a book. This makes it hard to read straight through, but could be beneficial when needing resources in the future.
April 14, 2021
I read around 40% of this book for my Special Topics: Race and Theology course under Dr. Jacob Lett at MidAmerica Nazarene University.
I consider myself a strong reader and attentive academic; however, this book was entirely inaccessible. The author's thoughts were incredibly difficult to understand. This is really only written for a doctoral-level student of theology. After debriefing the chapters we read with our professor, we were able to grasp his main ideas and found them compelling, but Carter needs to write an undergraduate version of this text for it to be able to be read by anyone other than professional theologians.
I look forward to reading the more accessible version if/when Carter writes it in the future!
I consider myself a strong reader and attentive academic; however, this book was entirely inaccessible. The author's thoughts were incredibly difficult to understand. This is really only written for a doctoral-level student of theology. After debriefing the chapters we read with our professor, we were able to grasp his main ideas and found them compelling, but Carter needs to write an undergraduate version of this text for it to be able to be read by anyone other than professional theologians.
I look forward to reading the more accessible version if/when Carter writes it in the future!
April 5, 2022
This book is a RIDE and not for the faint of heart. I was fortunate enough to read it in a seminar and with a glass of wine handy most nights while reading.
October 30, 2016
While I will not hazard a real review of this excellent book I will say that it has been a long time since a book kicked my intellectual butt. This was a very sophisticated, philosophical, and urgent unmasking of the sources of the concept of "whiteness"in western civilization. This is a theological account of race because Carter grounds the invention of race in christian suppersessionism, that is the assumption of large swaths of christianity that the church has replaced Israel in God's economy. This related to the ancient heresy of Gnosticism and its rejection of the God of the OT. Anyway, this book was a reworking of the authors dissertation, so that tells you something. He had several well written and interesting bridge chapters that were much easier to read and summarized what he had just exhaustively explained in the previous chapters.
I valued his unmasking of the assumption that people are different based on race, which is itself an invented concept. I also was intrigued by his deep engagement with the theological tradition of the church in the persons of Irenaeus, Gregory Nazianius, and Maximus the Confessor.
I did not finish this book unfortunately, hence the butt kicking reference above. My inter library loan ran out. I think this is one book and I will try to finish at a future date. But for now novels are so much easier to read.
Update: Dear reader I bought this one. And it was worth every penny. Moving with Carter through all the critical philosophical and historical groundwork that he laid was so rewarding when reading the three almost parenthetical engagements with Irenaeus, Gregory Nazianius, and Maximus the Confessor that divide the book into thirds. And to be moved almost to tears when the eyes of your heart are enlightened to see Jesus in the bodies and stories of those who have been written out of history in the interest of the modern, was unexpected but deeply moving. So, while I will not venture a full review of this book, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to all those who are so inclined to come to a fuller understanding of how our raced world came to be, to be inspired by examples for resisting that world, and a stretched to embrace a truer understanding of the gospel.
I valued his unmasking of the assumption that people are different based on race, which is itself an invented concept. I also was intrigued by his deep engagement with the theological tradition of the church in the persons of Irenaeus, Gregory Nazianius, and Maximus the Confessor.
I did not finish this book unfortunately, hence the butt kicking reference above. My inter library loan ran out. I think this is one book and I will try to finish at a future date. But for now novels are so much easier to read.
Update: Dear reader I bought this one. And it was worth every penny. Moving with Carter through all the critical philosophical and historical groundwork that he laid was so rewarding when reading the three almost parenthetical engagements with Irenaeus, Gregory Nazianius, and Maximus the Confessor that divide the book into thirds. And to be moved almost to tears when the eyes of your heart are enlightened to see Jesus in the bodies and stories of those who have been written out of history in the interest of the modern, was unexpected but deeply moving. So, while I will not venture a full review of this book, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to all those who are so inclined to come to a fuller understanding of how our raced world came to be, to be inspired by examples for resisting that world, and a stretched to embrace a truer understanding of the gospel.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 21, 2016
Carter argues that modern racial thinking began when Jesus was stripped from his Jewish roots and recast as white. His premise is interesting and might have some validity, but not on the level of the grand over arching narrative that he tries to create. This book is so heavy on theory that it ends up being completely divorced from reality. Carter's historiographical skills are also pretty lacking --the chapter on Fredrick Douglas is especially painful. I hate social science books like this, social science is at it's worst when it tries to pretend that it's a positive science.
November 19, 2020
A masterful account of modernity and a specifically, unapologetically theological-response to its harmful racializing of humanity. This book is extremely dense, and therefore not for everyone, but for those who are willing to do some work, it's masterful theology-philosophy for our time.
See my video review here: https://youtu.be/TfBaJK590RA
See my video review here: https://youtu.be/TfBaJK590RA
September 6, 2024
Monumental
James Cone called it “An intellectual tour de force!”
Amos Yong and George Hunsinger named it one of the 5 “essential theology books of the past 25 years”
J. Kameron Carter taught at Duke Divinity School from 2001–2018, and alongside Willie James Jennings and their students, established a body of work that became known as “the new Black theology,” “the Duke African-American Nouvelle Théologie of Race,” or just simply “the Duke school.” Along with Jennings, The Christian Imagination (2010), Carter’s book Race: A Theological Account (2008) is one of the seminal texts in this “school.”
It was praised by many academic reviewers:
"Carter’s work will undoubtedly become an unforgettable milestone in the history of Black theology” (Doerge).
“Vigorous, audacious and groundbreaking, Carter's book, published in 2008, sets the agenda for theology and race for at least the next 25 years. The scope of its scholarship is amazing and endlessly provocative” (Hunsinger).
"Carter's book drops like a bombshell on the playground of 21st-century theologians” (Yong).
Even evangelical theologian Keith Johnson (Wheaton College) said this: “Regardless of how I may critique either of these two volumes, the fact that a discussion upon the topic of evangelicals and race is taking place at all, and that it is doing so in conversation with core Christian doctrines such as Christology, is an encouraging and positive development. It is a testament to the strength and richness of the two books under review, and hopefully, these books will spark a wider conversation about the issue of race within evangelical ranks.”
“This erudite study repays patient, resolute reading, especially in conjunction with Willie Jennings's The Christian Imagination. The latter volume postdates Carter's, but further elaborates various aspects of the framework they share as academic colleagues. Highly recommended” (Elizabeth Sung).
“The Duke School,” can be characterized as a rigorous attempt to think *theologically* about race and the history of race, particularly in the transatlantic world. It includes deep soundings in Jewish and Christian scripture, early church “fathers” like Athanasius and Augustine, enlightenment philosophers like Kant, and modern Black theologians like James Cone. One can observe a common thread in all of their works, namely, the theological focus particularly on Christology, the error of bypassing Jesus’s Jewish flesh, and the “supercessionism” that results.
In Race: A Theological Account, Carter is keen to ask specifically “How did theology become the handmaid of colonialism? How did theology become the handmaid of the geography, the idea, and the ideal of the West in relationship to the rest? How did theology become the intellectual aid and abettor of this process? what would it mean to think beyond this?”
Perhaps because I read them in this order, I found Jennings to be mind-blowing, and I found Carter to be deeply enriching. The range of interlocutors Carter engages with is vast: Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor; Albert Raboteau, James Cone, Charles Long; Briton Hammon, Frederick Douglass, Jarena Lee—and those are just the main subjects with chapters devoted to them, not mention many others like Augustine, Kant, Foucault, Cornel West, and more.
Interestingly, Elizabeth Sung did wonder whether “Carter's monograph might be more aptly retitled: “Whiteness’’ in Kantian Thought and an Antebellum Afro-Christian Christological Reconstruction of "Blackness',' with Implications for the Future of Christian Theology.”
In a 2009 interview, Carter describe the book as part of a projected trilogy that, to my knowledge, was never completed:
“I will try to lay this out in the hook that is coming after the one I am completing now. That work has a tentative title called The Melancholic Condition. So, this present book on race is really part of what will be a trilogy when it is completed” (in Cultural Encounters 5.2)
With Jennings and Carter’s moves (to Yale and the University of Indiana, respectively), “the Duke school” has dispersed, and I’m not sure about the status of any coherent larger “project” might be. Their work is still incredibly valuable and stimulating for those interested in theology and race, but I’m curious about where things stand in 2024 and beyond.
James Cone called it “An intellectual tour de force!”
Amos Yong and George Hunsinger named it one of the 5 “essential theology books of the past 25 years”
J. Kameron Carter taught at Duke Divinity School from 2001–2018, and alongside Willie James Jennings and their students, established a body of work that became known as “the new Black theology,” “the Duke African-American Nouvelle Théologie of Race,” or just simply “the Duke school.” Along with Jennings, The Christian Imagination (2010), Carter’s book Race: A Theological Account (2008) is one of the seminal texts in this “school.”
It was praised by many academic reviewers:
"Carter’s work will undoubtedly become an unforgettable milestone in the history of Black theology” (Doerge).
“Vigorous, audacious and groundbreaking, Carter's book, published in 2008, sets the agenda for theology and race for at least the next 25 years. The scope of its scholarship is amazing and endlessly provocative” (Hunsinger).
"Carter's book drops like a bombshell on the playground of 21st-century theologians” (Yong).
Even evangelical theologian Keith Johnson (Wheaton College) said this: “Regardless of how I may critique either of these two volumes, the fact that a discussion upon the topic of evangelicals and race is taking place at all, and that it is doing so in conversation with core Christian doctrines such as Christology, is an encouraging and positive development. It is a testament to the strength and richness of the two books under review, and hopefully, these books will spark a wider conversation about the issue of race within evangelical ranks.”
“This erudite study repays patient, resolute reading, especially in conjunction with Willie Jennings's The Christian Imagination. The latter volume postdates Carter's, but further elaborates various aspects of the framework they share as academic colleagues. Highly recommended” (Elizabeth Sung).
“The Duke School,” can be characterized as a rigorous attempt to think *theologically* about race and the history of race, particularly in the transatlantic world. It includes deep soundings in Jewish and Christian scripture, early church “fathers” like Athanasius and Augustine, enlightenment philosophers like Kant, and modern Black theologians like James Cone. One can observe a common thread in all of their works, namely, the theological focus particularly on Christology, the error of bypassing Jesus’s Jewish flesh, and the “supercessionism” that results.
In Race: A Theological Account, Carter is keen to ask specifically “How did theology become the handmaid of colonialism? How did theology become the handmaid of the geography, the idea, and the ideal of the West in relationship to the rest? How did theology become the intellectual aid and abettor of this process? what would it mean to think beyond this?”
Perhaps because I read them in this order, I found Jennings to be mind-blowing, and I found Carter to be deeply enriching. The range of interlocutors Carter engages with is vast: Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor; Albert Raboteau, James Cone, Charles Long; Briton Hammon, Frederick Douglass, Jarena Lee—and those are just the main subjects with chapters devoted to them, not mention many others like Augustine, Kant, Foucault, Cornel West, and more.
Interestingly, Elizabeth Sung did wonder whether “Carter's monograph might be more aptly retitled: “Whiteness’’ in Kantian Thought and an Antebellum Afro-Christian Christological Reconstruction of "Blackness',' with Implications for the Future of Christian Theology.”
In a 2009 interview, Carter describe the book as part of a projected trilogy that, to my knowledge, was never completed:
“I will try to lay this out in the hook that is coming after the one I am completing now. That work has a tentative title called The Melancholic Condition. So, this present book on race is really part of what will be a trilogy when it is completed” (in Cultural Encounters 5.2)
With Jennings and Carter’s moves (to Yale and the University of Indiana, respectively), “the Duke school” has dispersed, and I’m not sure about the status of any coherent larger “project” might be. Their work is still incredibly valuable and stimulating for those interested in theology and race, but I’m curious about where things stand in 2024 and beyond.
January 9, 2021
I've been meaning to read this book for years. I found it very helpful. I'm giving it three stars not because it was merely above-average; I'm giving it three stars because I don't think I fully understand all of Carter's arguments. Therefore, I don't think it would be right of me to make a strong judgment due to my lack of learning.
Carter is very well read. This book on race and theology engages (deeply) with Irenaus, Gregory of Nyssa, Jarena Lee, James Cone, Frederick Douglas, Michel Foucault, Kant, Maximus the Confessor, and others. As someone with two degrees in theology (but not sociology, philosophy, literature, or history) I struggled to fully understand the arguments in disciplines outside of my own. But, to re-iterate, I don't necessarily think that is Carter's fault, it's mine.
But what I did understand of this book was very insightful. Carter begins by making the obvious point that modern racial reasoning is deeply problematic. (No need to belabor the point.) Carter's book explores the question of how Christian theology justified and created this deeply problematic situation. Carter's thesis: European Christians severed Jesus from his Jewish roots. In doing so, they cloaked this eastern, Jewish teacher in Western garb. By creating Jesus in their own image (note how much of a theological nightmare this is), they created "Jewishness" as a racial category of "otherness", and "whiteness" as "normalcy." The rest of the book explores how this problem came to be, and how this problem can be rectified.
Instead of offering a chapter by chapter analysis, I'll offer two thoughts that I found very helpful from this book. First, Carter insists that the theological crisis of whiteness is that white Christians created Jesus to be like themselves. In doing so, they found identity in themselves; they did not find themselves by "leaving the land of the Chaldeans" as Abram did. To be a Christian is to exit whiteness and enter into Jesus's covenantal, Jewish flesh. Secondly, Carter laments how rarely we live or read "theologically" meaning, in accordance to the revelation of God. Far too often our theology is lazy, a way of "thinking" that is content to justify the present political and social relations of the present. To think theologically is to think Christologically, as those bound to Jesus' Jewish flesh.
I would not recommend this book unless if you have a degree in theology. There are many great book written about the deformed white theological imagination that are more accessible, less academic. But if you want to read a true intellectual deep dive into race and theology, this is worth reading!
Carter is very well read. This book on race and theology engages (deeply) with Irenaus, Gregory of Nyssa, Jarena Lee, James Cone, Frederick Douglas, Michel Foucault, Kant, Maximus the Confessor, and others. As someone with two degrees in theology (but not sociology, philosophy, literature, or history) I struggled to fully understand the arguments in disciplines outside of my own. But, to re-iterate, I don't necessarily think that is Carter's fault, it's mine.
But what I did understand of this book was very insightful. Carter begins by making the obvious point that modern racial reasoning is deeply problematic. (No need to belabor the point.) Carter's book explores the question of how Christian theology justified and created this deeply problematic situation. Carter's thesis: European Christians severed Jesus from his Jewish roots. In doing so, they cloaked this eastern, Jewish teacher in Western garb. By creating Jesus in their own image (note how much of a theological nightmare this is), they created "Jewishness" as a racial category of "otherness", and "whiteness" as "normalcy." The rest of the book explores how this problem came to be, and how this problem can be rectified.
Instead of offering a chapter by chapter analysis, I'll offer two thoughts that I found very helpful from this book. First, Carter insists that the theological crisis of whiteness is that white Christians created Jesus to be like themselves. In doing so, they found identity in themselves; they did not find themselves by "leaving the land of the Chaldeans" as Abram did. To be a Christian is to exit whiteness and enter into Jesus's covenantal, Jewish flesh. Secondly, Carter laments how rarely we live or read "theologically" meaning, in accordance to the revelation of God. Far too often our theology is lazy, a way of "thinking" that is content to justify the present political and social relations of the present. To think theologically is to think Christologically, as those bound to Jesus' Jewish flesh.
I would not recommend this book unless if you have a degree in theology. There are many great book written about the deformed white theological imagination that are more accessible, less academic. But if you want to read a true intellectual deep dive into race and theology, this is worth reading!
June 7, 2021
An incredibly heavy and academic read with a rather convoluted writing style that does take some getting used to! But it contains some remarkable arguments that creased my cranium!
I enjoyed the challenge! Totally worth it!
Carter argues that modern racial thinking began with supersessionism. Distancing Christ from His Jewish roots creating an occidental (white) Christianity.
Big chunks of each chapter comprised of a summary of what was said before, such reiteration would normally be frustrating but so helpful in this case to keep you engaged with the argument.
The title is deceiving as Carter relies more on philosophy and social science than scripture to justify his arguments. But nonetheless a thorough treatment.
With this in mind I would propose the title to be “An Afro-Christian view of Race theology through church history” rather than “Race - a theological account.”
P.240 Carter asks the important question of whether this study is motivated by a humanist cause or a theological one. A question that is so important to ask in the current climate. In the same way that we must condemn the misuse of scripture to justify the horror of racism, we must also be prepared to critique current progressive movements (however well intentioned they may seem) against the truth of scripture. God is our measure of truth and love, His word our life giving authority.
Stand out chapters for me were on Irenaeus and Gregory of Nyssa. You could read these two chapters and get the bulk of Carter’s argument.
This book was first published in 2008, long before BLM and thus is not a reactionary piece to capitalise on the “woke brigade”. But a sincere work that is essential reading for anyone interest in Afro Christian theology - although not an accessible read.
Thanks!
I enjoyed the challenge! Totally worth it!
Carter argues that modern racial thinking began with supersessionism. Distancing Christ from His Jewish roots creating an occidental (white) Christianity.
Big chunks of each chapter comprised of a summary of what was said before, such reiteration would normally be frustrating but so helpful in this case to keep you engaged with the argument.
The title is deceiving as Carter relies more on philosophy and social science than scripture to justify his arguments. But nonetheless a thorough treatment.
With this in mind I would propose the title to be “An Afro-Christian view of Race theology through church history” rather than “Race - a theological account.”
P.240 Carter asks the important question of whether this study is motivated by a humanist cause or a theological one. A question that is so important to ask in the current climate. In the same way that we must condemn the misuse of scripture to justify the horror of racism, we must also be prepared to critique current progressive movements (however well intentioned they may seem) against the truth of scripture. God is our measure of truth and love, His word our life giving authority.
Stand out chapters for me were on Irenaeus and Gregory of Nyssa. You could read these two chapters and get the bulk of Carter’s argument.
This book was first published in 2008, long before BLM and thus is not a reactionary piece to capitalise on the “woke brigade”. But a sincere work that is essential reading for anyone interest in Afro Christian theology - although not an accessible read.
Thanks!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 5, 2019
This is a thorough theological account of race which seeks to dismantle what the author considered to be the Kantian pseudotheological construct of whiteness. Whiteness is pseudotheological in that it undermines the locus of all human flesh in the one, covenanted flesh of Jesus Christ. Thus, though with some nuance, Carter adopts of a Barthian approach to our own humanity, which reifies all humanity in Christ. Most interesting for me is Carter's enlisting of three patristic theologians: Irenaeus of Lyons, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor. Though dense reading, I would highly recommend it.
Read
December 20, 2020"Dense" doesn't begin to describe this -- though Carter is certainly impressive in his intellectual breadth and depth. I'm inclined to agree with his argument tying whiteness and the severance of Christianity from an understanding of God's covenant with Israel -- but I'm not convinced that this book is really focused on making that argument.
July 5, 2020
I am really interested in the topic but this is a hard read (it's very scholarly and I struggled to get the points).
I would recommend Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times by Soong-Chan Rah instead :)
I would recommend Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times by Soong-Chan Rah instead :)
December 18, 2018
So good!
March 28, 2016
Very dense, but very interesting. Carter jumps around in the history of literature to create this consideration of race and Christianity. He wants to "decolonize" black Christianity, to take away vestiges of European colonial oppression, and to root Christianity in its Eastern (and, in Carter's eyes, black) roots. Carter describes how the Gnostic Christians once saw the spiritual Christ as separate from the physical Jesus, and how the early Christian Church Fathers like Ireneaus, Maximus, and Gregory of Nyssa rejected this split between God and man. As a theologian, Carter goes beyond mere historical description to actually say the Gnostic interpretation is wrong — to Carter, God is IN the physical world. Carter then pivots to medieval and Enlightenment philosophy. In these periods, Carter argues, Catholic and Protestant thinkers resurrected the split between God and mankind, and added a new racial component. Europeans saw themselves as superior to the Jews of the Middle East, as well as Africans, Native Americans, and Asians. European philosophers & theologians like Kant therefore based their new philosophical arguments on racial hierarchies, with Europeans at the top. In doing so, Kant et. al. divorced the ideas of Christian theology from their link to Middle Eastern Jews and other colonized or hated peoples. Carter sees this as the Gnostic split, but with a new oppressor/oppressed bent. He then turns to 19th- and 20th-century black theologians and writers (Frederick Douglass, James Cone, Cornel West, Jarena Lee, etc.) and argues that slowly these thinkers reject white colonial models of Christianity, and (in Lee's case) turned toward an identification again of Christianity with the physical world and with oppressed peoples. The time and genre jumps are a lot to wrap your head around, and if you don't share Carter's religious critique of Gnosticism, the argument may seem like a bit much. But he does make you think. And rejecting an ethnic or imperial bias in religion to welcome all people is certainly a fine idea.
March 26, 2012
If you follow my blog, I was very captivated with this book when I began it. It's overall thesis was startlingly new to me: the discourse of white supremacy had arisen from modern Christian theology as that theology during the Enlightenment distanced itself from the actual Jewishness of Jesus (distanced from particularity in the search for the universal).
This distancing first gave rise to anti-Semitism, and Carter engages in a very devastating critique of Immanuel Kant on this point. Christianity became identified with Western European civilization, essentially, Christianity was a white religion. This had global, colonial implications. In America this developed in white supremacist discourse.
Black people, of course, existed within this discourse and were oppressed by it. They also worked to subvert it and to develop a Christian theology and religious experience that ran against the grain of modern theology. That black theology, in contact with some ancient traditions in Christian theology, can provide the opportunity for a new Christian theological discourse to be created in the twenty-first century. A theology that does not dismiss the particularity of Jesus' covenantal Jewish flesh and unites all flesh together.
I am still captivated by this overall flow of ideas. But Carter's book becomes very dense in the presentation of this argument. It is a comprehensive book that engages many different scholars ranging from Irenaeus and Gregory of Nyssa to Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson. I can recommend it, but only if you want to seriously, academically engage the topic. And he isn't the most eloquent of authors; his writing style is not engaging. It would be very nice if he could write a smaller, more popular-oriented version of his basic argument, as I think many more would be interested in reading it.
This distancing first gave rise to anti-Semitism, and Carter engages in a very devastating critique of Immanuel Kant on this point. Christianity became identified with Western European civilization, essentially, Christianity was a white religion. This had global, colonial implications. In America this developed in white supremacist discourse.
Black people, of course, existed within this discourse and were oppressed by it. They also worked to subvert it and to develop a Christian theology and religious experience that ran against the grain of modern theology. That black theology, in contact with some ancient traditions in Christian theology, can provide the opportunity for a new Christian theological discourse to be created in the twenty-first century. A theology that does not dismiss the particularity of Jesus' covenantal Jewish flesh and unites all flesh together.
I am still captivated by this overall flow of ideas. But Carter's book becomes very dense in the presentation of this argument. It is a comprehensive book that engages many different scholars ranging from Irenaeus and Gregory of Nyssa to Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson. I can recommend it, but only if you want to seriously, academically engage the topic. And he isn't the most eloquent of authors; his writing style is not engaging. It would be very nice if he could write a smaller, more popular-oriented version of his basic argument, as I think many more would be interested in reading it.
December 12, 2010
If we are to remain faithful to the way of Christ – and as such, become traitors to white, Western modernity – we cannot do otherwise. May we, in this Advent season, hear Carter’s message and may we die to our conformity to Western theology and be born anew into the transformative way of Jesus, who was born of Jewish lineage into Bethlehem’s stable, raised in the Jewish culture of his day, died on a cross and was resurrected by the grace and power of God.
Read my full review on THE ENGLEWOOD REVIEW OF BOOKS...
Read my full review on THE ENGLEWOOD REVIEW OF BOOKS...
March 1, 2013
Great book. Points towards exciting and important new ways for theologians to think about the problem of race as a THEOLOGICAL problem. Carter argues a theological account of race and the resultant racism has its roots in Christian supersessionism - or Christianity severing itself from its Jewish roots.
The books density at different points is a credit to Carter's creativity but isn't always easily accessible to non-academics and/or specialists of certain areas.
The outstanding value of the book is in its rethinking what race & racism mean to Christian theology, and how Christians ought to think about addressing this problem.
The books density at different points is a credit to Carter's creativity but isn't always easily accessible to non-academics and/or specialists of certain areas.
The outstanding value of the book is in its rethinking what race & racism mean to Christian theology, and how Christians ought to think about addressing this problem.
November 8, 2013
This book takes on the task of showing how race was theologized and made sacred in European thinking and how people of color, particularly black folks need to re-shape what it means to be black in theological terms. However, this book is way over my head in that one really needs to understand European classical and postmodern philosophy, the history of religions and a whole lot more that I just felt lost. So I did not finish it. J. Kameron Carter is a brilliant thinker,but it would be nice if he offered a version of this book to the non-academic because I suspect he has some important points to make
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 7, 2017
Debated how many stars to give it. It has been awhile since I struggled with a book this dense that packs a hard theological and philosophical punch. Carter is a wonderful genius and theologian. He has given me much to consider and sit with. Three stars because even as a graduate student, I found much of the book over my head, it was a very challenging read
July 28, 2015
This book is important.
Carter traces the problem of "whiteness" to a disembodied and enlightenment form of an ideal Jesus who looks much like a western, white, male thinker. He then argues, using incredible Patristic and Black scholarship for a new beginning of theological thought that is revealed in actions of God through Israel and in the incarnation of Jesus, a poor Jew. This is a theology that celebrates difference because each difference in humanity is incarnated by the risen Christ.
Carter traces the problem of "whiteness" to a disembodied and enlightenment form of an ideal Jesus who looks much like a western, white, male thinker. He then argues, using incredible Patristic and Black scholarship for a new beginning of theological thought that is revealed in actions of God through Israel and in the incarnation of Jesus, a poor Jew. This is a theology that celebrates difference because each difference in humanity is incarnated by the risen Christ.
Want to read
February 5, 2011After picking this up, I was sort of turned off by what appeared to be an argument centered in anti-supersessionism. Not sure what to think about that and how effective it will be. Anyway, I need to pick it back up again and give it a fair reading.
May 4, 2015
A powerful argument that modern racial thinking stems from supersessionist Christian theology. Carter delves into the theological ramifications of this theology and then proposes a counter reading of the Scriptures, Iraenaeus, Maximus, and three early African-American biographical works.
Read
October 11, 2011Got this out of the library and to be honest didn't manage to finish it in time. Couldn't extend as the library had sourced it from a university library and no opprtunity to extend.
July 23, 2012
Wow! Simply amazing. Dense, but very rewarding.
June 23, 2024
A truly life-changing work
March 30, 2017
With Race: A Theological Account, J. Kameron Carter has taken on a huge task; explaining how (mostly) Euro thinkers have distorted Christian theology to excuse and even promote racism, sometimes called "America's original sin." To do so, he begins his survey with the work of Irenaeus (c. 125-202) and, along the way, checks in at length with such luminaries as Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 - c. 395), Maximus the Confessor (c. 580 - 662), Immanuel Kant, Karl Bart, Paul Tillich, and others. His central thesis (as I interpret it): that by decoupling the historic Jewish Jesus from the Cosmic Christ, Euro thinkers co-opted Christianity for themselves and left "dark meat people" as "other," nearly Satanic beings.
The main stream of thought is compelling and many of the illustrations Carter uses are profound. As a general reader, a pastor and not a professional theologian, however, I found sections of the book to be overwritten and too "inside" to be of use. One would need a far greater facility with the aforementioned Kant, Barth, Tillich, "History of Religions School," and others than I possess to follow much of the middle section of the book. I confess to skimming much of chapters 3-5, picking up the main thoughts and leaving the rest. In this way, I was able to follow the argument without being driven to distraction by detail.
With this caveat, I found the majority of the book impressive and plan to use the ideas in my own preaching and ministry.
The main stream of thought is compelling and many of the illustrations Carter uses are profound. As a general reader, a pastor and not a professional theologian, however, I found sections of the book to be overwritten and too "inside" to be of use. One would need a far greater facility with the aforementioned Kant, Barth, Tillich, "History of Religions School," and others than I possess to follow much of the middle section of the book. I confess to skimming much of chapters 3-5, picking up the main thoughts and leaving the rest. In this way, I was able to follow the argument without being driven to distraction by detail.
With this caveat, I found the majority of the book impressive and plan to use the ideas in my own preaching and ministry.
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