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Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being
Being human is neither abstract nor hypothetical. It is concrete, visceral, and embodied in the everyday experience and relationships that determine who we are. In that case, argues distinguished theologian Shawn Copeland, we have much to learn from the embodied experience of black women who, for centuries, have borne in their bodies the identities and pathologies of those in power.
With rare insight and conviction, Copeland demonstrates how black women's experience and oppression cast a completely different light on our theological theorems and pious platitudes and reveal them as a kind of mental colonization that still operates powerfully in our economic and political configurations today. Further, Copeland argues, race and embodiment and relations of power not only reframe theological anthropology but also our notions of discipleship, church, and Christ as well. In fact, she argues, our postmodern situation -- marked decidedly by the realities of race, conflict, the remains of colonizing myths, and the health of bodies - affords an opportunity to be human (and to be the body of Christ) with new clarity and effect.
With rare insight and conviction, Copeland demonstrates how black women's experience and oppression cast a completely different light on our theological theorems and pious platitudes and reveal them as a kind of mental colonization that still operates powerfully in our economic and political configurations today. Further, Copeland argues, race and embodiment and relations of power not only reframe theological anthropology but also our notions of discipleship, church, and Christ as well. In fact, she argues, our postmodern situation -- marked decidedly by the realities of race, conflict, the remains of colonizing myths, and the health of bodies - affords an opportunity to be human (and to be the body of Christ) with new clarity and effect.
176 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2008
26 people are currently reading
680 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
April 27, 2022
Reading this book has quite honestly shifted the entire way I think about theologies embodiment, incarnation, and crucifixion.
I give it a four instead of a five because occasionally prose gets very abstract without fully explaining what a certain use of theological terms means, which can be confusing at times. I felt like I wasn't quite able to understand all of it, and I wish that I could.
I give it a four instead of a five because occasionally prose gets very abstract without fully explaining what a certain use of theological terms means, which can be confusing at times. I felt like I wasn't quite able to understand all of it, and I wish that I could.
December 9, 2021
Theology! Embodiment! M. Shawn Copeland!
That is all the review I have brain space for before writing an academic book review for finals!!!!
That is all the review I have brain space for before writing an academic book review for finals!!!!
September 16, 2018
Copeland makes a compelling case for starting theological anthropology with the personhood of the downtrodden. The book makes the sin of racism visible. There are a few instances in which evangelical theologians will certainly disagree with her argument, but there are also many places where they will follow. Well worth the read!
June 26, 2024
A "THEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY" FOCUSING ON THE BLACK EXPERIENCE
M. Shawn Copeland is a professor of theology at Boston College and a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America; she has also she taught theology Marquette University, Yale University Divinity School, and Xavier University. She has written/edited other books such as Uncommon Faithfulness: The Black Catholic Experience,The Subversive Power of Love: The Vision of Henriette Delille,Concilium 1996/Feminist Theology in Different Contexts, and Violence Against Women.
She wrote in the Introduction to this 2010 book, “[This book] focuses on the Christian question of what being human means on the body, most particularly on the bodies of black women… Five basic convictions ground my discussion of theological anthropology: that the body is a site and mediation of divine revelation; that the body shapes human existence as relational and social; that the creativity of the Triune God is manifested in differences of gender, race, and sexuality; that solidarity is a set of body practices; and that the Eucharist orders and transforms our bodies as the body of Christ… The argument here covers difficult, often precarious ground. First, this book makes slavery visible… This book also makes visible black bodies in pain. I have chosen to reproduce accounts of torture, sexual assault, and lynching, but I do not do so casually… In the middle of the book, the principal historical and social context for thinking about bodies shifts to exercises of imperial power… The book concludes with a return to accounts of the abuse of black female bodies, then takes up reports of lynching… In spelling out the meaning and implications of life in Christ, that theology can neither ignore nor mitigate the experiences that complexify being human and the real questions these experiences instigate… Thus, a theological anthropology worthy of reclaiming black women’s bodies is worthy of reclaiming HUMAN bodies. This is the task I have set for myself.” (Pg. 1-6)
She explains, “Theologians and ethicists of African descent have begun explicitly to address the position and condition of the black body in Christian theological anthropology… Their critical analyses of the human condition and its incarnation in the black human condition, particularly the experiences of the black female embodiment, imply new categories for theological anthropology. These categories include blackness, being, body, incarnation, beauty; power and oppression; sin and grace; suffering and compassionate solidarity; history, memory, and freedom.” (Pg. 22)
She observes, “For on a global scale bodies---especially poor, dark, despised bodies---are forced through the winepress and consumed by totalizing dynamics of domination. The memories of these dead invokes dangerous memories, which protest our forgetfulness of human others, our forgetfulness of what it means to enflesh freedom in our time and place. But there is one who does not forget---Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ of God. He does not forget poor, dark, and despised bodies. For these, for all, for us, he gave his body in fidelity to … the reign of God, which opposed the reign of sin. Jesus of Nazareth is the paradigm of enfleshing freedom; he IS freedom enfleshed.” (Pg. 52-53)
She suggests, “Jesus of Nazareth is the measure or standard for our exercise of erotic power and freedom in the service of the reign of God and against empire. He is the clearest example of what it means to identify with children and women and men who are poor, excluded, and despised; to take their side in the struggle for life---no matter what the cost… Through his body, his flesh and blood, Jesus of Nazareth offers us a new and compelling way of being God’s people even as we reside in the new imperial order.” (Pg. 65)
She argues, “The words ‘queer’ and ‘Christ’ form a necessary if shocking, perhaps even ‘obscene’ conjunction. By inscribing a queer mark on the flesh of Christ, I NEITHER proposed NOR insinuate that Jesus Christ was homosexual… Just as a black Christ heals the anthropological impoverishment of black bodies, so too a ‘queer’ Christ heals the anthropological impoverishment of homosexual bodies… Only an ekklesia that follows Jesus of Nazareth in (re)marking its flesh as ‘queer’ as his own may set a welcome table in the household of God.” (Pg. 78)
She states, “My thesis here is quite basic: The Enlightenment era’s ‘turn to the subject’ coincided with the dynamics of domination. From that period forward, human being-in-the-world literally has been identical with white male bourgeois European being-in-the-world. His embodied presence ‘usurped the position of God’ in an anthropological no to life for all others… [The revelation of Jesus] directs us to a new anthropological subject of Christian theological reflection---exploited, despised, poor women of color… this thesis involves not only a critique, but also a judgment… this judgment exposes the way in which we ALL have betrayed the very meaning of humanity---our own, the humanity of exploited, despised poor women of color, and the humanity of our God.” (Pg. 88-90)
She notes, “Racism opposes the order of Eucharist. Racism insinuates the reign of sin; it is intrinsic evil… As intrinsic evil, racism is lethal to bodies, to black bodies, to the body of Christ, to Eucharist. Racism spoils the spirit and insults the holy; it is idolatry. Racism coerces religion’s transcendent orientation to surrender the absolute to what is finite, empirical, and arbitrary, and contradicts the very nature of religion. Racism displaces the Transcendent Order and selects and enthrones its own deity.” (Pg. 109-110)
She says, “At the [Eucharistic] table Jesus prepares, ALL assemble: in his body we are made anew, a community of faith---the living and the dead. In our presence, the Son of Man gathers up the remnants of our memories, the broken fragments of our histories, and judges, blesses, and transforms them. His Eucharistic banquet re-orders us, re-members us, restores us, and makes us one.” (Pg. 128)
She concludes, “I came to realize that this [book] might be read on several levels. Certainly, it is a constructive exercise in theological anthropology… In writing about body, race, and being, I have tried to work dialectically, but with an eye toward the foundations. At the same time, I believe, this book may be read as a meditation on Toni Morrison’s great novel Beloved. Hence, it gestures concretely toward a theology of re-membering and remembrance. This work may also serve as a meditation on the blues… For the theologian of the black experience, writing theology may also evoke the deepest sorrow, the deepest gratitude, the deepest love.” (Pg. 130)
This book will be of keen interest to anyone studying Womanism, Black Theology, African-American Studies, and contemporary Spirituality.
M. Shawn Copeland is a professor of theology at Boston College and a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America; she has also she taught theology Marquette University, Yale University Divinity School, and Xavier University. She has written/edited other books such as Uncommon Faithfulness: The Black Catholic Experience,The Subversive Power of Love: The Vision of Henriette Delille,Concilium 1996/Feminist Theology in Different Contexts, and Violence Against Women.
She wrote in the Introduction to this 2010 book, “[This book] focuses on the Christian question of what being human means on the body, most particularly on the bodies of black women… Five basic convictions ground my discussion of theological anthropology: that the body is a site and mediation of divine revelation; that the body shapes human existence as relational and social; that the creativity of the Triune God is manifested in differences of gender, race, and sexuality; that solidarity is a set of body practices; and that the Eucharist orders and transforms our bodies as the body of Christ… The argument here covers difficult, often precarious ground. First, this book makes slavery visible… This book also makes visible black bodies in pain. I have chosen to reproduce accounts of torture, sexual assault, and lynching, but I do not do so casually… In the middle of the book, the principal historical and social context for thinking about bodies shifts to exercises of imperial power… The book concludes with a return to accounts of the abuse of black female bodies, then takes up reports of lynching… In spelling out the meaning and implications of life in Christ, that theology can neither ignore nor mitigate the experiences that complexify being human and the real questions these experiences instigate… Thus, a theological anthropology worthy of reclaiming black women’s bodies is worthy of reclaiming HUMAN bodies. This is the task I have set for myself.” (Pg. 1-6)
She explains, “Theologians and ethicists of African descent have begun explicitly to address the position and condition of the black body in Christian theological anthropology… Their critical analyses of the human condition and its incarnation in the black human condition, particularly the experiences of the black female embodiment, imply new categories for theological anthropology. These categories include blackness, being, body, incarnation, beauty; power and oppression; sin and grace; suffering and compassionate solidarity; history, memory, and freedom.” (Pg. 22)
She observes, “For on a global scale bodies---especially poor, dark, despised bodies---are forced through the winepress and consumed by totalizing dynamics of domination. The memories of these dead invokes dangerous memories, which protest our forgetfulness of human others, our forgetfulness of what it means to enflesh freedom in our time and place. But there is one who does not forget---Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ of God. He does not forget poor, dark, and despised bodies. For these, for all, for us, he gave his body in fidelity to … the reign of God, which opposed the reign of sin. Jesus of Nazareth is the paradigm of enfleshing freedom; he IS freedom enfleshed.” (Pg. 52-53)
She suggests, “Jesus of Nazareth is the measure or standard for our exercise of erotic power and freedom in the service of the reign of God and against empire. He is the clearest example of what it means to identify with children and women and men who are poor, excluded, and despised; to take their side in the struggle for life---no matter what the cost… Through his body, his flesh and blood, Jesus of Nazareth offers us a new and compelling way of being God’s people even as we reside in the new imperial order.” (Pg. 65)
She argues, “The words ‘queer’ and ‘Christ’ form a necessary if shocking, perhaps even ‘obscene’ conjunction. By inscribing a queer mark on the flesh of Christ, I NEITHER proposed NOR insinuate that Jesus Christ was homosexual… Just as a black Christ heals the anthropological impoverishment of black bodies, so too a ‘queer’ Christ heals the anthropological impoverishment of homosexual bodies… Only an ekklesia that follows Jesus of Nazareth in (re)marking its flesh as ‘queer’ as his own may set a welcome table in the household of God.” (Pg. 78)
She states, “My thesis here is quite basic: The Enlightenment era’s ‘turn to the subject’ coincided with the dynamics of domination. From that period forward, human being-in-the-world literally has been identical with white male bourgeois European being-in-the-world. His embodied presence ‘usurped the position of God’ in an anthropological no to life for all others… [The revelation of Jesus] directs us to a new anthropological subject of Christian theological reflection---exploited, despised, poor women of color… this thesis involves not only a critique, but also a judgment… this judgment exposes the way in which we ALL have betrayed the very meaning of humanity---our own, the humanity of exploited, despised poor women of color, and the humanity of our God.” (Pg. 88-90)
She notes, “Racism opposes the order of Eucharist. Racism insinuates the reign of sin; it is intrinsic evil… As intrinsic evil, racism is lethal to bodies, to black bodies, to the body of Christ, to Eucharist. Racism spoils the spirit and insults the holy; it is idolatry. Racism coerces religion’s transcendent orientation to surrender the absolute to what is finite, empirical, and arbitrary, and contradicts the very nature of religion. Racism displaces the Transcendent Order and selects and enthrones its own deity.” (Pg. 109-110)
She says, “At the [Eucharistic] table Jesus prepares, ALL assemble: in his body we are made anew, a community of faith---the living and the dead. In our presence, the Son of Man gathers up the remnants of our memories, the broken fragments of our histories, and judges, blesses, and transforms them. His Eucharistic banquet re-orders us, re-members us, restores us, and makes us one.” (Pg. 128)
She concludes, “I came to realize that this [book] might be read on several levels. Certainly, it is a constructive exercise in theological anthropology… In writing about body, race, and being, I have tried to work dialectically, but with an eye toward the foundations. At the same time, I believe, this book may be read as a meditation on Toni Morrison’s great novel Beloved. Hence, it gestures concretely toward a theology of re-membering and remembrance. This work may also serve as a meditation on the blues… For the theologian of the black experience, writing theology may also evoke the deepest sorrow, the deepest gratitude, the deepest love.” (Pg. 130)
This book will be of keen interest to anyone studying Womanism, Black Theology, African-American Studies, and contemporary Spirituality.
Read
May 18, 2021I read this for class. It came out after James H Cone's early paper the Cross and the Lynching Tree, but before his book of that title. There is a lot here to grapple with. But I also think some things that are not grappled with enough. I would like to have seen some interaction with atonement theories. I think that is also something that Cone needed to do. Comparing Black suffering to Christ's Crucifixion I think has real value, but I also think that there is a weakness in leaving that comparison vague and not thinking through what it is that Christ was doing and what it is that human suffering is doing. The recent comments by House Speaker Pelosi about George Floyd having died for us, is similar. George Floyd's death was a tragic injustice, he was not attempting to die for us. And so attributing that death as a type of martyrdom I think minimizes the loss of life due to injustice as well as the freely given death of Jesus and others that protest injustice and are willingly giving up their bodies for that.
That being said, I have notes on almost every page of this and I likely will skim/read a second time before class because there is so much that is helpful here.
That being said, I have notes on almost every page of this and I likely will skim/read a second time before class because there is so much that is helpful here.
March 5, 2021
This book was given to me by a family member who, at the moment, is a Divinity student. I was a little hesitant to read it because the last book that I read relating to this topic was written for a particular audience that probably didn't include me. Unfortunately, I had a difficult time trying to get through that one.
I enjoyed Copeland's writing style and I was able to easily understand and take in each point that was being made. As someone else mentioned in their review, this book is not one that you can easily and quickly run through. The topics are ones that require time to think about and digest. This book has helped me see how Blackness and womanness deeply relates to Imago dei and that of the body of Christ. For that, I'm glad that I gave this book a chance.
I enjoyed Copeland's writing style and I was able to easily understand and take in each point that was being made. As someone else mentioned in their review, this book is not one that you can easily and quickly run through. The topics are ones that require time to think about and digest. This book has helped me see how Blackness and womanness deeply relates to Imago dei and that of the body of Christ. For that, I'm glad that I gave this book a chance.
May 7, 2021
Wow. This book is powerful. I thought it was a book I would learn from, but I saw a mirror that read me as well. This book does a lot of really hard work around racism and the Christian practice of Eucharist in eloquent ways. It made me cringe and cry for others and because of the sin of white supremacy, and it made me feel seen. I feel a strong desire to journal about this book. My one critique of the book is the idea of solidarity needs to be fleshed out more in terms of practice and what it actually looks like. However, this is phenomenal, and a necessary read for anyone thinking about embodied spirituality, especially within community.
November 16, 2023
I think it's important to remember that Goodreads reviews are about whether or not you LIKED a book. This format works great for fiction, but not so great for nonfiction.
While I didn't particularly like this book, I would like to say that it was well researched and a great contribution to the conversation. It's just not a conversation I'm particularly interested in. I read this for a class.
Dr. Copeland is clearly brilliant and has a lot to offer her field.
While I didn't particularly like this book, I would like to say that it was well researched and a great contribution to the conversation. It's just not a conversation I'm particularly interested in. I read this for a class.
Dr. Copeland is clearly brilliant and has a lot to offer her field.
April 20, 2019
Definitely a book for academics - it's not a quick, easy read, by any means, but it is a worthwhile one. Copeland's theological anthropology in this book brilliantly weaves threads of slavery, racism, misogyny, and many other forms of discrimination into an inclusive Eucharistic theology of solidarity and humanity.
December 20, 2023
Expands on James Cone’s “The Cross and the Lynching Tree” focusing specifically on the untold, invisible stories of black women who possibly bore/bear the greatest sins of slavery and racism in their bodies. The cross and the lynching tree call us back to an embodied theology where we see Jesus suffering with and for every human. This is an important work that pastors especially need to read.
December 31, 2018
An important and strong voice. A listening experience, not something to add thoughts to.
April 24, 2020
This book portrays a raw explanation of how enfleshing theology can be lived out. While hard to digest stories of black individuals being harmed, it is necessary to tell the stories.
partially-read
October 8, 2024Read chapter 5 "Eucharist, Racism, and Black Bodies" for Jesus and Being Human.
Read
April 14, 2025Quite abstract at times and hard to pin down. But so interesting especially the piece about crucifixion and Eucharist
April 27, 2016
M. Shawn Copeland writes from a Catholic perspective against racism, colonialism, and other forms of oppression that can manifest within religion. Like James Cone, Copeland believes that God sympathizes with the marginalized and suffering people of the world. She looks back in history and connects Christ to the black women who were enslaved in America. Looking at the present, Copeland believes that God sympathizes with trafficked persons, modern slaves, LGBT people, and so on — the people who especially need help. The big difference from Cone — and the place where the Catholicism kicks in — is that Copeland thinks all these suffering people are also part of the body of Christ. She uses the Catholic metaphor of the Eucharist and argues that we are all part of it. We have to recognize that people who suffer and are mistreated have an equal stake in the kingdom of God.
The book has a great message and is conveyed in deceptively simple prose for a theology text. There's a lot going on here.
The book has a great message and is conveyed in deceptively simple prose for a theology text. There's a lot going on here.
February 25, 2012
Argues so very persuasively the struggle for historical transformation with respect to those issues that challenge the quality of life. "Reflection on these bodies, the body of Jesus of Nazareth and the bodies of black women, lays bare both the human capacity for inhumanity and the divine capacity for love."
April 12, 2014
An unusually programmatic womanist theology, and a very beautiful one at best. The sacramental chapter, relating the Eucharist to Black women's suffering and hope, is easily on par with Cavanaugh, and probably more accessible.
Read
April 22, 2015Eat the fish, spit out the bones. There's good fish here, but plenty of bones too.
April 30, 2016
This book was great but what was most helpful at this moment was her discussion of a Christian Praxis of solidarity.
July 12, 2022
Copeland provides a great connection for readers on the link between margenalized bodies to the body of Christ.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews