The Lived Theology and Race Workgroup: Fourth Meeting

Charlottesville, VA – October 26-28, 2001

Narrative

The Lived Theology and Race Workgroup held its fourth and final meeting in Charlottesville, VA on October 26-28, 2001.

The weekend started with a presentation by Barbara Williams Skinner, the president of the Skinner Leadership Institute, Washington, DC. Skinner shared her research and experience in the field of church based racial reconciliation initiatives. Skinner told of her move from radical political activism, through disillusionment with secular ideologies, to her encounter with Tom Skinner and his understanding of "Biblical" reconciliation. In researching for her D. Min dissertation, she discovered that of the growing number of books dealing with race in the church, most identify the problem, but few are able to offer any solutions. It is in children's books that she finds proscriptive suggestions for reconciliation. She believes that the Church tends to lack a vision of what a reconciled community would actually look like and so is unable to realize significant reconciliation.

In discussion with Skinner, the group raised issues that recurred throughout the weekend. For example: in imagining this reconciled church community, are sections of the wider community, particularly gays and lesbians, excluded? Are models of Christian faith based reconciliation able to extend the circle of inclusion to those of other faiths? Perhaps the churches are able to understand the demands of the Gospel upon them in regard to reconciliation, but like the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-25), the demands are too costly.

Four of the workgroup members, including Charles Marsh, Barbara Holmes, Stephen Ray and Timothy Tseng, presented overviews of their current work. Marsh described how he came to write God's Long Summer, an exploration of the way theological ideas come alive in lived social experience. Holmes linked her work on Barbara Jordan and embodiment, with her new pursuit of examining the connection between post-Newtonian physics and concepts of race. Ray presented a critique of Niebuhr and Bonhoeffer. He also explained his project of being a theologian in the Christian tradition, accessible to all, while at the same time seeing the world through African American eyes. Tseng outlined the history of racial identity and categorization of Asians in America. He argued that the whole notion of assimilation is particularly problematic for Asians in its way of reasserting white supremacy.

During the final meeting of the weekend, the workgroup members considered the direction and future of the group and made plans for the Lived Theology Conference to be held in June 2003.

Readings

• Cook, Anthony E. The Least of These: Race, Law and Religion in American Culture. New York: Routledge, 1997.
• Holmes, Barbara A. A private Woman in Public Spaces: Barbara Jordanšs Speeches on Ethics, Public Religion and Law. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press, 2000.
• Marsh, Charles. The Last Days: A Sonšs Story of Sin and Segregation at the Dawn of a New South. New York: Basic Books, 2001.
• Yu, Henry. Thinking Orientals: Migration, Contact and Exoticism in Modern America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Papers/Presentations

• Charles Marsh (53k, pdf): The Civil Rights Movement as Theological Drama: Interpretation and Application
• Stephen G. Ray, Jr. (28k, pdf): Not All Black and White: African-American Christian History and the Politics of Historical Identity
• Timothy Tseng (80k, pdf): Trans-Pacific Transpositions: Continuities and discontinuities in Chinese North American Protestantism since 1965