Yesterday Rodney Thomas wrote a post titled “Can White People Do Contextual Theology Too?” wherein he rightly argues, “…many well-intentioned religious thinkers try to hide …whiteness in the name of universality. The idea that even white people do contextual theology is disruptive.” I recommend reading it, because it is true! Sometimes those of us with more Eurocentric worldviews forget that all history is not western history (using “western” for lack of a better word), all philosophy is not western philosophy, all religion is not western religion, and so forth and so on. While Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard, and other “postmoderns” receive a bad rap in my circles I think this was one of their great insights and one of their great contributions to the critique of western thought from within the paradigm of western thought: we should not assume our non-universals to be universals.
We hear a lot about African, Asian, and Latin American biblical studies/hermeneutics/philosophy/theology as if it is the abberation of the objective, universal approach to the aforementioned subjects. This assumes too much. It speaks of Eurocentric (i.e. white) approaches to various topics as universals when the truth of the matter is that this approach is contextualized as well. While I think it is right to discuss African, Asian, and Latin American (and other categories) forms of thought in order to be more aware of the differences, we must be careful to avoid to assumption the they contrast a fundamental, universal approach (i.e our approach).
It is easy to make this mistake. Often we assume our view is the universal, especially if we are in the majority. For example, my wife recently shared a few paragraphs from a chapter titled “Religious Microagressions in the United States: Mental Health Implications for Religious Minority Groups” in Microaggressions and Marginality: Manifestation, Dynamics, and Impact (ed. Derald Wing Sue) where the following paragraphs grabbed my attention (its from the Kindle edition so excuse the lack of page numbers):
“…another common experience for religious minorities may include asking someone to be a spokesperson for their entire religious or nonreligious groups. Such an act implies that individuals from a specific religious group have had universal experiences and that each person is interchangeable and nondescript. This phenomenon is similar to the theme ‘assumed universal black experience’ in which a Black/African person is asked to speak on behalf of the entire race (Sue, Nadal, et al., 2008). Expecting a person from a religious or nonreligious group to speak for his or her group can be viewed as unfair and may evoke stress from the recipient. Perpetrators from dominant religious groups are rarely asked to be representatives of their groups. This form of religious microaggression can be similar in literature on race. For example, McIntosh (2003) reveals that one privilege that Whites have is that they may never be asked to represent their entire group, while people of color may be asked to be spokespersons regularly. Similarly, Christians may never have to be spokespersons, while Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and other religious and nonreligious minority groups may be asked recurrently.””
I have heard from fellow Caucasians/Whites the opening line, “My friend _____ is Black and s/he thinks….” as the beginning of an argument for why one African American/Black’s vantage point suddenly sums up the views of a whole ethnic/racial group. Some examples would be “My Black friend _____ doesn’t like the idea of Affirmative Action, therefore….” or “My Mexican friend _____ says that s/he doesn’t think it is fair for the school in the Latino neighborhood to get a larger portion of government aid, so….” and the African American or Latino who happens to have a view similar to that of the majority is cited as evidence that the minority group either (A) doesn’t necessarily disagree with the majority or (B) since some within the minority group agree with the majority the concerns of the rest of the minority are unjustified.
I am a white, male Protestant/evangelical. This puts me in the majority in the United States. Sometimes I sense the need to defend myself against the demonization of “whiteness” or “maleness” and often one card we white males play is the appeal to our minority or female friend. I know why we do this, but I’m not sure that it is wise, especially when we ignore the views of a minority group in favor of a “spokesperson” who agrees with us.
Those of us from religious groups that are the majority do the same thing. I have heard some fellow evangelicals warn about the dangers of Islam because they heard “a former Muslim, now Christian” outline their own negative experience with Islam and then they assume this describes all Muslims. The same thing can happen when a “former Catholic” explains to Protestants why “Catholicism” is bad. The Protestant appeals to the view of one former Catholic, but does not give other Catholics a speaking platform. (This is one reason why I was hesitant in writing my series on Oneness Pentecostalism, since I know I am only one former adherent.)
I am not saying that this is the type of thing being done of Rachel Held Evans’ blog where she has a series that includes, “Ask an Atheist”; “Ask a Catholic”; “Ask an Orthodox Jew”; “Ask a Humanitarian”; “Ask a Mormon”; “Ask a Mennonite”; and “Ask an Evolutionary Creationist”, but I do think there is a danger that readers of these posts may assume a smug sense of “awareness” now that “a Catholic” or “a Mormon” has spoken on behalf of the religious minority. Rachel’s series does something very positive–it invites evangelicals to dialogue with “the other”. It allows someone from a minority group to speak rather than be spoken for by an outsider. Most importantly, it allows an individual to show that a generalization of a given group ignores that different individuals in that group have different opinions on various matters. If these things are kept in perspective all is well and good. What needs to be avoided is that misconception that the “spokesperson” represents the group or that it is even a “good” thing that they must be a “spokesperson”. It should be seen as the beginning of a conversation including more voices, not a final word spoken by one individual.
For those of us in the majority we must ask ourselves how much we would like to be represented by one voice. One example, as a citizen of the United States it was very concerning to talk to people who thought that because President George W. Bush had a particular foreign policy that he represented the entire American ethos. One person I know from Belgium was quite surprised to hear that all Americans aren’t pro-war!!! Another example is that as a white male I don’t like when it is assumed that I come from a line of slave owners (no evidence of this in my family line) or that I think a good woman is one who washes the dishes and cooks every meal (I cook sometimes and I do many of the house chores). If someone asked my dad what a “white, American male” thinks of a given subject I’d be quite horrified if someone assumed that his views are my own.
So we must avoid the fallacy of assumed universal experience from two angles. First, we must avoid the idea that our own experience is the universal while others are abberations. Second, we must avoid the misconception that the view of one person of a minority race, ethnicity, sub-culture, or religion represents everyone in said group.
What are your thoughts on this issue?
the archives near Emmaus 
Great post! Very thoughtful. What I really hope your other readers will do is also to read Rod’s post, which you link to, but even the comments there. Your self-disclosure there is just powerful:
My wife is Latina and she has been very quick to show me that some debates and discussions are grounded more in my culture than in some sort of universality, which is the key point of what you’ve written here. You nail it when you argue that much of our gender debate is grounded in Anglicized ethics. So-called Christianity “masculinity” has little to nothing to do with Jesus and manhood in the ancient world and everything to do with an era that ended about six decades ago in the United States.
Being suspicious of the “system” of theology in white, Euro-American-centric reasoning is what the French postmodernists were so good at. Moreover, being doubly marginalized (by sex and by race) allows your wife to give you and many of us much to think about. Reading the gospels through the lens of women (some not in the racial majority) written about in those same gospels should offer us similar sorts of things to thing about. Furthermore, we may even get not just things to think about but also completely <i<different ways of knowing and of being.
Thanks for being so open in sharing your personal experience and for writing this post.
Excellent post Brian. Make no mistake about it, before all of the fundies get on here to accuse me of such, I am not trying to promote some relativism. What I am trying to say is that there is no “universal way” of discussing “universal truth,” only particular ways of talking about universals. If there aren’t any general or common human experiences, there would be no need for dialogue or community.
I am still working this out.
@ J.K. : You’re welcome, and yes, I agree, people should read Rodney’s post. I have come to greatly appreciate my wife, her insight, and how she has stretched me. She allows me to see the world from a different vantage point and it makes a huge difference.
@Rod: Sadly, some will read these post as appeals to some sort of relativism. It is no such thing. We are both arguing for something we find true, so that should cause people to think twice about that accusation.
Hey Brian,
Thanks for the posts and the links. This is an intriguing topic and one that I find myself unconciously wrestling with at times, especially being one (if not, the only) child of non-native English speaking, immigrant parents at our church plant of mostly white, middle to upper class, Protestant evangelicals, my wife included. I ahve found it sometimes difficult for me to embrace or discuss certain topics or subjects because they seem like non-issues for me (I.e. wives working as well as husbands, giving money away freely, not saving up money for the future, the issue of hospitality, etc.). I don’t disagree with some assertions in these categories, but the means by which they are arrived at is, by my observation, clearly a cultural one rather than a universal one.
These articles seem to clarify some of the unconcious discomfort I have felt in dialoging within the small church plant I am a part of, as it points to a possible Euro-centric assumption of universal context. Thanks for the post, brother. It’s giving me a lot to chew on this morning.
@Tony : I have no doubt that part of the awkwardness has to do with these issues being culturally specific yet debates and discusses as if they have universal relevance, at least in their application. Most of what surrounds the debate on so-called “biblical manhood and womanhood” has everything to do with the American culture of the beginning of the last century (whose end began in the 60’s) and little to nothing to do with first century Galilee or Judea, and therefore little to do with Scripture.
I certainly hope many will have access to this post. Doubtless it will serve as a rude awakening, yet one that is needed for those of us (i’m not the exception) who know they are making generalizations or are woefully unaware. While there is much noteworthy here, i fancy the sentence where you say the one voice should be the beginning of many conversations to come and not a final word spoken by the individual.
@Brian: Especially in terms of “biblical manhood and womanhood,” where have you found a more biblically faithful answer to that question? Clearly, we have Scripture that points to a biblical example. But where have you found a voice that calls people more to what Scripture is teaching and less to an American cultural understanding of that issue. As a teacher and a student, I’m curious to see what you’ve found.
@Tony : I think the best example has to do with employment. There are some who think it is “biblical” for a man to go work and a woman to stay home to raise children and care for the house. This is foreign to the ancient world where often both genders went to the field (see the Book of Ruth). Some tasks may have been more common for a gender (it seems women were often depicted as being the one’s to go to the well to collect water), but I don’t think this is because “men don’t draw water, women do”.
Strength is another thing. We talk of men as if they were all like Esau: hunter-gathers who play football, watch MMA, smoke pipes, and cuss. Yet God had no problem with Jacob and Jesus advocated “turning the other cheek” which doesn’t fit well in many “manhood” discussions I hear.
I think we must also be cautious about things like “role” or “office”. There are obvious, basic biological differences, but to say that a man must be the one who goes to work, even if the woman is more qualified and will earn more income, simply because she is a woman, is more “Mad Men” that Jesus or Paul. Also, leaderships roles seem fluid in the early church (what’s an apostle, pastor, teacher, prophet, and when in the history of the church do those terms means what we think they mean?) so we must be cautious to avoid mixing Scripture’s addressing matter as they “were” with Scripture saying this is how it “ought” to be (even most conservatives concede this point when discussing how the NT addresses slavery).
@Roger: Thanks! I hope it is well read too.
@Brian: Great points. I agree. It surprises me that people forget that even from the beginning (Gen. 1-2), it is implied that Eve would help Adam in whatever he was doing (i.e. working the garden). Though I find that most of the argument I hear for men’s responsibility to work and women’s responsibility to stay at home comes in the curses pronounced by God (Gen. 3), and not original intent of created beings where I often hear leaders/teachers pointing people to anyways. Curious to me.
Thanks again Brian!
@Tony : Of course, if we follow that line of thinking, then we must agree with the Luddites and quit our office jobs since the curse was that we would work the fields with our hands!
Brian –
I think this is the reality of now living in a global world. Much before our generation, people did not have this perspective. We all grew up in the same town, were part of the same social groups, part of the same church, had the same friends, went to the same school, etc.
Now this has totally changed with being able to fly half-way across the world in a half day, the world wide web, and immigration of all types of peoples into all types of countries and cultures. None of this is bad. I just suppose this is a major reason why we see happening what you explain in your article.
In Christian circles, at least evangelical ones, there are no longer reformed Presbyterians or conservative Souther Baptists or Oneness Pentecostals that all hold to the exact same creed on some issues. You find eclectic people everywhere, one who is Calvinistic, dispensational, charismatic and egalitarian. Who would have thought those 4 could have mixed together, but they do today.
The question now, which comes through for me in the article, is how to faithfully engage in a global world. This is why I would encourage Americans, if they have the opportunity, to spend some kind of longer amount of time (at least 6 months, if not 1 year) in another country and culture to see how things are not exactly the same as they are in America. We have an eclectic America, a melting pot, but for the normal American (like myself and you), even a western European country can rock our worlds (as Belgium has done for me, much more than Britain did for me).
@ Scott,
You say “Now this has totally changed with being able to fly half-way across the world in a half day, the world wide web, and immigration of all types of peoples into all types of countries and cultures. None of this is bad. I just suppose this is a major reason why we see happening what you explain in your article.”
And I like how Brian had already brought up Ruth and Boaz, different types from different countries and different cultures and (initially) different religions. So, I’m not so sure this is really all that recent. Yesterday, I was in the melting pot of the DMV (or the DPS as it’s called here in Texas USA); there were probably nine different ethnicities of peoples in just one room. A woman there had on a t-shirt with a quotation from Frederick Douglass: “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” My daughter, with me, read it out loud and considered it a feminist statement. Douglass was surrounded by Euro-Americans and by native Americans and by African Americans but resisted the logic that would make him a slave, the Western logic we’ve inherited from Aristotle. The point I’m getting at is that there were different ways of knowing and of being, different mixes of peoples (see “Dissoi Logoi”) from ancient days up through today. Brian and Rodney are just encouraging us to recover them.
@Scott : There is no doubt that globalization has led to this awareness to some extent (though Lyotard’s criticism of meta-narrative came long before the internet completely flattened the world) and it is hard to find solid lines between groups because of the cross pollination on ideas. I agree that it would be good for Americans to live abroad for a while (I’d love to live in Paris), though that is easier said than done.
I wonder what would happen if we tried to think from the hypostatic union (or theologically) on this? I mean, how do we account for the union of the universal/particular in the person of Jesus Christ (or the theological reality of enhypostasis/anhypostasis)? Shouldn’t we as Christians, be seeking a mode or way of grammar that starts from this ground in Christ; or is this itself contextual (and I mean the reality of God becoming man in Christ and the conciliar grammar provided for that by the Church), and thus not a valid place to try and start our thinking?
Or maybe, Brian, you guys are just trying to simply say that we should avoid making sweeping generalizations or arguments from the beard; is that all you are suggesting with this post?
@Bobby : I am sure there is a way to discuss this using hefty theological terminology, but I am not so sure that it makes for good communication. Most people will have no idea what is being said and I don’t think my theological vocabulary is large enough to accomplish such a feat.
@Bobby,
I think you may be on to something with making Christology as a starting point for theology. I would push you (in my reading of J Kameron Carter’s & Willie Jennings’ work) that the language of the church (Gentiles) be understood inside the story of Israel. Our notions of particularity, or what I see as particularity revealing universality. If our place is as Gentiles who have been engrafted, we should look to see what is the relationship between the hypostatic union of Christ and the story of Israel. I think Jennings and Carter (and I would) see this in the notion of covenant where the Jews participate in the holiness of YHWH.
Another good one. As good in your particular application as Rod’s original. Win/win.
Brian, Quakers are promiscuously guilty of this universalizing bias. Including non-white charismatic Quakers in Africa or Latin America where the simple Quaker concept – “that of God in everyone” – carries a universal tone torqued by emotional warmth. It’s a “Presence” sensibility which makes us (Quakers) more like Catholics in our particular universalisms (to invent a weird oxymoron!) than like evangelical Protestants. I had a post with questions drafted for Rod. But I could not get my questions right. Until I saw your comment here. Another good job. Thanks, ~ Jim.
@Jim: Thank you! I don’t know much about Quakerism, but I assume any group can fall into the trap of assuming that their language or perspective is a universal.
JK –
I don’t agree that this stuff happened before. Technology took place before the 1990’s and 2000’s. It’s just that it has absolutely flooded our world in the past 20 years. So, it’s the same with globalization, etc. It was a reality before, but the past few decades has seen this exacerbated beyond what any generation has seen before.
Anyways, this does not negate much of anything you or I said…….
Very interesting.
As one who seems to be the lone ranger Fundamentalist in biblioblogdom (at least on the list), I have to say that it’s only right that we listen to the other persons’ perspective. That is indeed not a relativistic position. In fact, it seems to be good manners 😉
Of course, I’m just beginning to learn.
@Jason: No, it is not relativism. It just acknowledges obvious influences the differences of perspective that result. For instance, your very identification with being a Fundamentalist is a North American (maybe European to some extent) identification. The debates that formed Fundamentalism have little to do with most of global Christianity’s concerns (save Fundamentalism’s influence on global Christianity to some extent).
That’s why I put it as I did.
Not only do we need to realize the context in which we learn, but we need to entertain outside voices; not just the ones in our head 😎 (joke)
Seriously, fundamentalism (not historic Fundamentalism, as those are rare creatures) is not open to those outside voices. There’s the feeling of being threatened. Most of us feel that way at times, I think.
One can narrow his influences down even farther than USA and Europe if he is a Fundamentalist. My influences have been southern fundamentalism. That is vastly different than northern, historic Fundamentalism. It is also newer.
That being said, I’m now listening to many in evangelicalism. They cover a wide spectrum of beliefs, too.
I am also trying to listen to the early church fathers and what they have to say.
A person must be honest about his influences. They are there; no doubt about it.
@Jason: Agreed, if one acts like they do not have presuppositions and influences they will be blinded. We must admit from where we start and ask if it should stay the same as we interact with new groups and new data.
There’s a sense in which this is relevant.
http://pastoralmusings.com/2011/08/why-people-leave-fundamentalism-evangelicalism-and-christianity/
Thanks for the link! I commented.
@Brian,
Sorry it took me so long to get back; I’ve been quite busy!
But wouldn’t you agree that the material you are considering in this post is very hefty? The fact that you mentioned the French philosophers illustrates that point. And then the post that initiated this whole discussion, from Kait, via our brother, Rod, is also quite the post; she makes appeal to Aquinas and his virtue ethics/theory etc.
@Rod,
I am still considering this; but I am persuaded that we ought to “start,” methodologically, and in principle from a theological starting point. I still need to read Bauckham’s “God Crucified,” and consider this much further.
@Bobby: Sure, like I said, I am sure it has value, but it is beyond my vocabulary and while what I said here could be hefty it wasn’t as foreign to most of my readers as it would be if I tried to incorporate the language you used. Also, it would be quite unnatural for me. For better or for worse I don’t do a lot of my thinking about Christianity and it’s engagement with society in terminology of high systematics (e.g. hypostatic union, enhypostasis, anhypostasis) and I don’t imagine that it would profit me. But I do think folk like yourself and Rodney who are more familiar with the vocabulary and concepts can figure out a way to frame things so that they will be both theologically rich and understandable for a broad audience.
@Bobby,
Just a quick clarification. J Kameron Carter and Willie Jennings are using theological categories to discuss universals and particularities, especially in their working towards a new theology of Israel tied to Christology and ecclessiology. To even to argue that our place is Gentiles is a theological statement, assuming that we have been engrafting into Israel’s covenant (which we are according to Romans).
Oddly enough, language insinuating that reading theologically would mean Bauckham, while brushing off Carter, kind of proves the point of this post. Again, Eurocentric approaches to Christian thought have their place, but that does not mean that it is the norm while Black theology is seen as some sort of specialized subset.
@Brian,
That’s cool!
@Rod,
Definitely! I still haven’t read Carter, and I’ve wanted to even before his book “Race” was released; I’m going to have to make that a priority. But, yes, agreed, theology (good or bad) is inevitable. Ironically, this “place” as Gentiles sound eerily like our dispensational brethren; even though I know coming from Carter (and I haven’t really heard much of Jennings) this would not be the case.
@Bobby,
I can assure you, brother, that Carter nor his colleague Jennings are dispensationalists by any stretch of the imagination. But acknowledging our place as part of our Christian identity should be seen as crucial when it comes to being faith to the biblical story.
*faithful
@Brian,
You’re reading way too much into me saying that I want to read Bauckham (somehow I missed your comment on this), because I’ve also really wanted to read Carter (longer than I have Bauckham). I don’t really understand your point or response to me on this; what are you getting at? I brought up Bauckham because I think his God Crucified might have something to say in regard to what Rod was saying about the Gentiles being grafted into Israel’s covenant.
There certainly is the reality of contextual theology, but so what; this does nothing to the truth claims being made within said contexts. Either something has universal potency or it doesn’t. Even your statements are contextual ones (as you know); nevertheless, assertions made in particular contexts have the capacity to transcend said context and speak into other contexts if the concepts that are being communicated, again, have universal force. So whether Bauckham communicates something or Carter; what’s at stake isn’t their context, per se (of course I am not denying the power that locatedness has for each one of us — but I am also not willing to tip my hat to Kant too much), but if in fact what they say “corresponds” to reality (that is if a person is a critical realist like I am 😉 ).
@Rod,
I know Carter isn’t a dispensationalist (which is a good thing) 🙂 . And I do agree that it is important to follow the nuance laid out for us in Scripture on this issue.
@Bobby: All I am noting is how easy it is to make statements that seem to connect doing “theology” with the writings of Caucasians. I’m sure you didn’t mean to equate Carter’s work with something less, but it did have the tone of brushing off Rodney’s suggestion.
And yes, I fully agree that what I say is contextualized yet can transfer to different contexts. If this weren’t true there’d be no way to communicate across worldviews and language.
Brian,
You are really jumping the gun here on me! I had no intention whatsover to discount Carter by saying that I want to also read Bauckham. Like I said, the reason I said I’d like to read Bauckham, in the context of that comment, was prompted because Rod brought up gentiles being grafted into the covenant with Israel. I’ve had Bauckham on my mind lately (since I just recently finished his “The Theology of the Book of Revelation”), and so I thought of God Crucified in the context of Rod’s point because it seems like a book that might relate (and an exegetical book to boot). By the way, did you miss my following comment where I said that I have wanted to read Carter for along time now? I don’t understand your suspicion, Brian? Your framing of me here is a bit strange. Anyway, I don’t appreciate your presumption with me on this.
@Bobby: There’s no reason to get frustrated or to take it personal. I’m merely observing how easy it is to use language–intended or not–that can appear to have this bias. If the bias isn’t there, no worries. If you didn’t intend it as a brush off, no worries. Again, I’m just pointing out how our language can sometimes make this impression, even when not intended.
Brian, normally I would blow something like this off; but for some reason your usage of me as an illustration of your post is bothering me quite a bit. This is a very sensitive issue, and I don’t take kindly to the notion that I have some sort of lurking racism in my DNA that is unconsciously informing my MO. That is not a light, thing; so certainly I will (and I think justifiably so) get frustrated (and that’s stating this nicely) with your appropriation of me for your own purposes (and that’s what it “seems” like you’re doing with me here).
I can appreciate that this is 2-D blog-format-communication problem we might be having here; but nevertheless, this is troubling (please don’t act like this isn’t a personal thing; it is — unless of course you and I aren’t persons).
@Bobby: Again, if what I pointed out is merely coincidence, then no worries. If anything, it shows how easy it is to say something that could be understood as supporting a Eurocentric understanding of Christian thought. This is something all of us Caucasians should seek to avoid, myself included.
As far as subtle racism, I don’t think any of us are free of racist tendencies. No one is free of the struggle against our drive to find fault with those of different cultures and races, myself included. This blog rarely features thoughtful commentary on Christian writers from African, Asian, and Latin American perspectives. This is a fault and the first step I must take is awareness.
I’m actually working on a scale to measure microaggressions perpetrating towards Atheists based on the taxonomy created in that chapter in Sue’s Book. How do you think this concept of an assumed universal experience applies to Atheists? The text specifically refers to it as “Assumption of Religious Homogeneity.” Everyones replies may help me create a great instrument to promote diversity and religious minority well being. Thanks 🙂