A Body Broken, A Body Betrayed: Race, Memory, and Eucharist in White-Dominant Churches
Ebook
Race and privilege are issues that cry out for new kinds of attention and healing in American society. More specifically, we are being called to surface the dynamics of whiteness especially in contexts where whites have had the most power in America. The church is one of those contexts--particularly churches that have traditionally been seen as the stalwarts of the American religious landscape: mainline Protestant churches. Theologians and Presbyterian ministers Mary McClintock Fulkerson and Marcia Mount Shoop invite us to acknowledge and address the wounds of race and privilege that continue to harm and diminish the life of the church. Using Eucharist as a template for both the church's blindness and for Christ's redemptive capacity, this book invites faith communities, especially white-dominant churches, into new ways of re-membering what it means to be the body of Christ. In a still racialized society, can the body of Christ truly acknowledge and dress the wounds of race and privilege? Re-membering Christ's broken and betrayed body may be just the healing path we need.
"The problem this volume addresses--the quiet, subtle way race
deforms predominantly white, Presbyterian congregations--couldn't
be more timely. Its authors bring to this fraught subject a
well-honed commitment to racial justice and a wealth of experience
in Presbyterian congregational life. . . . Clergy, scholars, and
laity have much to gain from this insightful and accessible blend
of trenchant academic analysis, theological wisdom, and genuine
compassion."
--Ellen T. Armour, Carpenter Associate Professor of Feminist
Theology, Vanderbilt Divinity School
"[This book] guides us through the painful process of acknowledging
the existence of racism in the church. It calls us to the difficult
spiritual practice of self-reflection, self-examination, and
truth-telling. . . . This book is an invitation to approach the
Lord's Table in authenticity to receive the nourishment that can
foster reconciliation on a personal and communal level."
--Wanda M. Lundy, Director of Doctor of Ministry program, New York
Theological Seminary
"A bold invitation to explore the healing opportunities that Jesus
offers us through a life together at the table, where denial, fear,
betrayal, and abuse can be explored and cured, creating the
possibility that we might move beyond the dismemberment of the body
of Christ."
--Magdalena I. Garcia, teaching elder in the Presbytery of Chicago,
hospice chaplain
"A prayer request is being answered with this book by two of this
country's premier feminist theologians. . . . Before we can
understand the Eucharist as an answer to the racial condition we
first must grasp how it questions white privilege, and Fulkerson
and Shoop help us do this."
--Willie James Jennings, Yale Divinity School
Product Details
- Title : A Body Broken, A Body Betrayed: Race, Memory, and Eucharist in White-Dominant Churches
- Authors:
- Fulkerson, Mary McClintock
- Mount Shoop, Marcia W.
- Publisher: Cascade Books
- Publication Date: 2015
- ISBN: 9781498273534
Mary McClintock Fulkerson is Professor of Theology at Duke
Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina, and an ordained minister
in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). She is the author of
Changing the Subject: Women's Discourses and Feminist
Theology (1994) and Places of Redemption: Theology for a
Worldly Church (2007).
Marcia W. Mount Shoop is a theologian, minister, and author of
Let the Bones Dance: Embodiment and the Body of Christ
(2010) and Touchdowns for Jesus and Other Signs of Apocalypse:
Lifting the Veil on Big-Time Sports (2014). She blogs at
www.marciamountshoop.com.