Deconstructing Whiteness, Empire and Mission

Description

What happens when ‘go, make disciples’ meets ‘Black Lives Matter’? Arising from the Council for World Mission’s “Legacies of Slavery” project, this book offers an unapologetic exploration of Christian Mission and its history, and the ways in which this legacy has unleashed notions of White supremacy, systemic racism and global capitalism on the world. Contributors reflect on the past and consider the future of world mission in an age of renewed understandings of empire and its impact. Contributors include Mike Higton, David Clough, Eve Parker, James Butler, Cathy Ross, Jione Havea, Peniel Rajkumar, Victoria Turner, Carol Troupe, Michael Jagessar, Paul Weller, Jill Marsh, Kevin Ellis, Rachel Starr, Kevin Snyman, Al Barrett and Ruth Harley.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Missions
• Christian Ministry
• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Hymns Ancient & Modern
• Date de parution: 28 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780334055952
• Langue: English

Extrait

Deconstructing Whiteness, Empire and Mission
Edited by
Anthony G. Reddie and Carol Troupe






© The editors and contributors 2023
Published in 2023 by SCM Press
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The editors and contributors have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the Authors of this Work
All scripture quotations, unless otherwise marked, are from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1946, 1952 and 1971 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked (NRSVUE) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scriptures and additional materials marked (GNB) are from the Good News Bible © 1994 published by the Bible Societies/HarperCollins Publishers Ltd UK, Good News Bible© American Bible Society 1966, 1971, 1976, 1992. Used with permission.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-334-05593-8
Typeset by Regent Typesetting
Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd



Contents
Acknowledgements
Contributors

Introduction
Part One: Decolonizing Theological Education
1. Beyond Theological Self-Possession
Mike Higton
2. Deconstructing Whiteness in the UK Christian Theological Academy
David L. Clough
3. Re-Distributing Theological Knowledge in Theological Education as an Act of Distributive Justice in Contemporary Christian Mission
Eve Parker
4. Dealing with the Two Deadly Ds: Deconstructing Whiteness and Decolonizing the Curriculum of Theological Education
Anthony G. Reddie
Part Two: Perspectives on History
5. Octavius Hadfield: Nineteenth-century Goodie or Twenty-first-century Baddie? Learnings from the Complexities of Mission and Empire
James Butler and Cathy Ross
6. Stolen Myths: Pālangi, Fairness, Native Theologies
Jione Havea
7. Postcolonialism and Re-stor(y)ing the Ecumenical Movement
Peniel Rajkumar
8. A Happy Ecumenical Legacy for the London Missionary Society? Exposing the Coloniality Between Churches Engaged in Mission
Victoria Turner
9. Speaking to the Past: A Black Laywoman’s Theological Appraisal of the LMS Archives
Carol Troupe
10. Mission and Whiteness: Archival Lessons from LMS in British Guiana (Guyana)
Michael N. Jagessar
Part Three: Personal Reflections
11. Coming Full Circle: Christianity, Empire, Whiteness, the Global Majority and the Struggles of Migrants and Refugees in the UK
Paul Weller
12. ‘I Know Where You’re Coming From’: Exploring Intercultural Assumptions
Jill Marsh
13. See, Judge, Act: Wrestling with the Effects of Colonialism as an English Priest in Wales
Kevin Ellis
Part Four: Exploration of Whiteness
14. Unbecoming: Reflections on the Work of a White Theologian
Rachel Starr
15. ‘Turning Whiteness Purple’: Reflections on Decentring Whiteness in its Christian Colonial Missionary Mode
Peter Cruchley
16. ‘Come we go chant down Babylon’: How Black Liberation Theology Subverts White Privilege and Dismantles the Economics of Empire to Save the Planet
Kevin Snyman
17. ‘Holding the space’: Troubling ‘the facilitating obsession of whiteness’ in Contemporary Social Justice-focused Models of Mission
Al Barrett and Ruth Harley



Acknowledgements
Our first thanks must go to all of our contributors. The invitation to write for this book was sent out towards the end of a very challenging couple of years for many of us. We are immensely grateful that, despite this backdrop and the continuing demands and difficulties of work and life, so many of them were both willing and able to make their contribution to this project.
Thanks also go to Council for World Mission for funding Carol’s work, and to former CWM colleagues Peter Cruchley and Michael Jagessar for supporting our contributions to the Legacies of Slavery project, and also to Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford, for their support.
Finally, to friends and family for their ongoing encouragement, and to the Creator, who comforts, sustains and inspires.
Carol Troupe
Editor



Contributors
Al Barrett is a Church of England priest and has been Rector of Hodge Hill Church in east Birmingham since 2010, where he has been engaged in a long-term journey of ‘growing loving community’ alongside his neighbours. He is author of Interrupting the Church’s Flow: A Radically Receptive Political Theology in the Urban Margins (SCM Press, 2020) and co-author (with Ruth Harley) of Being Interrupted: Re-imagining the Church’s Mission from the Outside, In (SCM Press, 2020). In 2022 he co-edited (with Jill Marsh) a special themed issue of Practical Theology on ‘Critical White Theology: Dismantling Whiteness?’ He is engaged in ongoing research, writing and teaching in practical and political theology, particularly through the lenses of race, class, gender and ecology.
James Butler is MA Lecturer at Church Mission Society, Oxford, and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Roehampton, London. He has been involved in mission both in the UK and in Uruguay. His research interests are centred on mission and practical theology and recently he has been researching grassroots experience of learning and discipleship and exploring the theology of lay pioneering.
David Clough is a White British theologian, Chair of Theology and Applied Sciences at the University of Aberdeen, President of the Society for the Study of Theology, and a past President of the Society for the Study of Christian Ethics. His recent research is on the place of animals in Christian theology and ethics, with a particular focus on the ethics of animal agriculture. He is a Methodist local preacher and has represented the Methodist Church on national ecumenical working groups on the ethics of warfare and climate change.
Peter Cruchley works in the World Council of Churches as the Director of the Commission for World Mission and Evangelism. He is a mission theologian from the UK but has worked in the international mission agency context for some years, pressing especially for engagement in legacies of slavery and reparation. He has published in the areas of Whiteness, coloniality and mission, mission and postmodernity and mission ecumenism and justice.
Kevin Ellis is an English-born priest in the Church in Wales. He is the Vicar of Bro Madryn on the Llyn Peninsula. Kevin has a PhD in New Testament Studies and is working for another PhD, looking at how to use the Bible in Wales.
Ruth Harley is a priest in the Church of England, and Curate of Watling Valley Ecumenical Partnership in Milton Keynes in the Diocese of Oxford. She is the co-author (with Al Barrett) of Being Interrupted: Re-imagining the Church’s Mission from the Outside, In (SCM Press, 2020). Her academic interests include feminist ecclesiology, women’s experience of vocation, the use and abuse of power within the church, and theological approaches to safeguarding. She is the Chair of the Mission Enabling Group for On Fire Mission.
Jione Havea is co-parent for a polycultural daughter, native pastor (Methodist Church in Tonga), migrant to Naarm (renamed Melbourne by British colonizers, on the cluster of islands now known as Australia) and research fellow with Trinity Methodist Theological College (Aotearoa New Zealand) and with Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture (Charles Sturt University, Australia). An activist-in-training, on the ground and in the classroom, Jione is easily irritated by bullies and suckers.
Mike Higton is an Anglican theologian specializing in doctrine, teaching at Durham University. He is part of the leadership for the Common Awards scheme, which provides academic validation for much of the Church of England’s ordination training. He is the author of a number of works, including The Life of Christian Doctrine , A Theology of Higher Education and Difficult Gospel: The Theology of Rowan Williams , and he serves on the Church of England’s Racial Justice Commission.
Michael N. Jagessar , a former Mission Secretary of Council for World Mission, researches and writes across theological disciplines drawing on a range of Caribbean resources. Michael, who hails from Guyana, locates himself as a Caribbean diasporan traveller. While located in the UK, he writes, thinks and engages from where he dwells – that is, Guyana and the Caribbean. More on Michael’s writings can be found at https://caribleaper.co.uk/publications/ .
Jill Marsh is a Methodist minister who has lived and worked in Birmingham, Lo