In spirit and in truth: (re)searching Christianity and racial liberation in education

Abstract

As educational justice scholarship addressing racial oppression continues to name the role of the spirit, there is a need for Black and Brown Christian educators and researchers to locate ourselves as grounded in the epistemologies and pedagogies of Christ as our spiritual home. This paper brings together eight Black and Brown Christian educators and researchers to grapple with what it means to be Christians committed to racial justice in education against the backdrop of centuries of religious corruption. Through collaborative autoethnography, we turn to our spiritual and religious lives situated within our racialized identities to challenge the disciplinary and material boundaries of what critical qualitative research counts as “knowing.” In doing this, we give ourselves, and all educators and researchers, permission to make evident the unseen forces that shape our ways of being in research and teaching.