Christology and Whiteness ─ What Would Jesus Do?

This book explores Christology through the lens of whiteness, addressing whiteness as a site of privilege and power within the specific context of Christology. It asks whether or not Jesus’ life and work offers theological, religious and ethical resources that can address the question of contemporary forms of white privilege. The text seeks to encourage ways of thinking about whiteness theologically through the mission of Jesus. In this sense, white Christians are encouraged to reflect on how their whiteness is a site of tension in relation to their theological and religious framework. A distinguished team of contributors explore key topics including the Christology of domination, different images of Jesus and the question of identification with Jesus, and the Black Jesus in the inner city.

George Yancy is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Duquesne University, USA. His books include Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race (2008).

Foreword Kelly Brown Douglas Introduction: Framing the Problem George Yancy 1. What Jesus Wouldn’t Do: A White Theologian Engages Whiteness Karen Teel 2. Grotesque Un/Knowing of Suffering: A White Christian Response Laurie M. Cassidy 3. Jesus Must Needs Go Through Samaria: Dis-Establishing the Mountains of Race and the Hegemony of Whiteness Cheryl Townsend Gilkes 4. The Black Church and Whiteness: Looking for Jesus in Strange Places Moni McIntyre 5. What Would Zacchaeus Do? The Case for Disidentifying with Jesus Jennifer Harvey 6. Is Christ White? Racism and Christology Rosemary Radford Ruether 7. When a White Man-God is the Truth and the Way for Black Christians Traci West 8. Who Belongs to Christ? Josiah Young 9. Upstart Messiahs, Renegade Samaritans, and Temple Exorcisms: What Can Jesus' Peasant Resistance Movement in 1st Century Palestine Teach Us About Confronting "Color-Blind" Whiteness Today? James W. Perkinson 10. Jesus, Whiteness, and the Disinherited William David Hart 11. Looking Like Me?: Jesus Images, Christology, and the Limitations of Theological Blackness Anthony B. Pinn 12. The (Black) Jesus of Detroit: Reflections on Black Power and the (White) American Christ M. Shawn Copeland 13. The Mimesis of Salvation and Dissimilitude in the Scandalous Gospel of Jesus Victor Anderson