These papers explore racial and theological hybridity and contested notions of ethnic purity and impurity as it relates to Christian theology, human bodies, and Afro-Judaism. Ten years ago, Mulatto theologizing was hailed as the “New” Black theology that constituted a significant theological shift in its development. This panel will explore the impact of this “shift” ten years later.
In this paper I will discuss a problem unique to the study of Afro-Jewish communities, the problem of ortho-ethnicity (proper people). For practitioners and scholars of African American religion, questions of orthodoxy (proper belief) and orthopraxy (proper practice) have been leveled at particularistic interpretations of Abrahamic traditions regarding their beliefs and practices. Regarding the existence of Afro-Jewish traditions, the additional phenomena of ortho-ethnicity (proper people) emerges as a response to Blacks as Jews that renders orthodoxy and orthopraxis secondary. In essence, the level of ritual observance and adherence to accepted doctrines are inconsequential if the Black as Jew in question is regarded as unacceptable according to rabbinic law (halakha). I am arguing that rabbinic law (halakha) itself has been racialized and the appearance of Blacks as Jews necessitates a need to authenticate individuals or entire communities on the presumption that Blackness in of itself raises suspicion.
The theme, La Labor de Nuestras Manos, can evoke for those of African descent, the desire to make visible contributions that, although critical and life giving, have been invisiblized. Afro-Latine peoples, especially those born in the U.S. are empowered by the continuity of critique and scholarship present in African American work/labor. Black theology, together with Latinx, Latin American and other liberation theologies, inform their self-understanding within Christianity in the U.S., and have implications for their engagement in theological reflection in faith communities, especially as these communities participate in social justice movements in the U.S. What are the risks and possibilities of an engagement between Black theology and Latinx theology centered in Afro-Latine realities? What methods can be utilized if Afro-Latine realities have been concealed/erased from Latinx and Latin American Theological reflections?
Ten years ago, in an article for The Christian Century, theologian Jonathan Tran heralded the work of three black theologians—J. Kameron Carter, Willie J. Jennings, and Brian Bantum—as inaugurating a “new black theology.” According to Tran, these three thinkers represented “a major theological shift that [would]—if taken as seriously as it deserve[d]—change the face not only of black theology but theology as a whole.”
Now that ten years have passed, this paper asks: Has it? And arguing that it has not, I offer reflections on why it has not. My central my argument is a critique of the way Carter and Bantum offered their revised understanding of racial identity and hybridity by reimagining the identity Jesus through mulatto/a identity. I conclude by suggesting that the appeals made by their colleague—Willie J. Jennings—to “land” and “language” point toward a more constructive path forward.