Tangled roots: the legacy of Christian mastery and anti-racism today

Abstract

Contemporary accounts of race regularly begin in the Age of Discovery, but Christian entanglement in ‘race-making’ stretches back to Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Liberative action in the Church today must reckon with this history and its impact on church traditions, since the Church has long taken a stance of ‘mastery’ and ‘whiteness’ against the oppressed. This entanglement is intimately related to the little-known history of church property, Christian slaveholding, and the elite dominance of theological expression and ministerial leadership. A troubled theological grammar arose from it, a ‘slave imaginary’, given eloquent but troubled expression in the works of teachers like Augustine of Hippo. The Church’s social practices were aligned with the master class. Canon law ensured that churches and their teachers benefited from unjust hierarchies and the exploitation of marginalised peoples and lands, even as theologians justified their positions and ignored the plight of those who supported their daily lives. This history should move all Christians to engage in new practices of repentance, including confession and a new approach to our theological imaginary, social forms, and the daily life of teachers.