Ideas don't always transform behavior. Another way of saying this is that orthodoxy doesn't necessarily lead to orthopraxy. Perhaps one of the most obvious examples of the disconnect emerges with racism for it is a sad, sad fact that some profound thinkers have been thoroughly orthodox and incredibly "hetero-praxis" when it comes to racism. But the tools to undo racism can be found in orthodox thinking. In particular, in christology. Orthodox christology obliterates racism. This is how I read the Prelude to J. Kameron Carter, Race: A Theological Account
Question: How important is the Incarnation of Christ to racism?
This Prelude argues that the tools to undo racism can be found in the debate Irenaeus had with the version of Gnosticism at work in Lyons (Gaul). Gnosticism is complex; Ireneaus's response just as complex. Let me do my best to summarize Carter's summary of that debate.
First, Gnosticism categorized humans into three classes in a descending order:
the spirituals, who were not related to YHWH or to Israel;
the psychics;
the materialists [hylics].
This categorizing of humans, Carter argues, provides a foundation for racialization and classification of humans.
Second, Gnosticism declassified Israel as the People of God.
Third, Gnosticism declassified YHWH as the Sovereign God.
Carter argues that Irenaeus' response to Gnosticism profoundly undoes any basis for hierarchy among humans, for disconnecting the Church from Israel, and for delegitimating YHWH as God.
How does Carter see this happening for Irenaeus?
Christology. The drive of Irenaeus is to affirm and assert the utter materiality of Christ in both the Incarnation and his Recapitulation. Furthermore, Irenaeus affirms and asserts the intimacy of the Father with the (material) Son via the Spirit in Creation and in God's covenant with Israel. Materialization, then, connects God to creation, to Israel, and to the Son.
The moment one affirms these ideas -- both Incarnation and Recapitulation -- racism is obliterated. Christ becomes material and redeems materality and connects God to materiality. Most importantly, Christ recapitulates the entirety of human material existence:
Nations
Languages
Generations
But here's what recapitulation does not do: it does not overwhelm or conquer all other nations, languages and generations into a single nation, language or generation, but encompasses and embraces each in that each is found in Christ. In Christ's material existence then one finds Pentecost embodied. This affirms diversity without violently forcing uniformity or conformity.
All humans and each human then is recapitulated in Christ and this means there can be no grading of humans, no hierarchy.
Racialization of humans and theology, which classifies humans into degrees of worth and which then forms a discourse that legitimates hierarchy, therefore is obliterated in the material incarnation and recapitulation of Christ.
Well, that's my read of Carter's Prelude.
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Greg#6-
Carter does not make the argumant that Irenaeus'anti-Gnostic Christology reduces or obliterates racism. In this Prologue his point is that Gnosticism, in its unravelling of the Israel from Jesus,and YHWH from material creation,opened the door for the hierarchical anthropological understandings which can (and did!) lead to the emergence to the racial imagination as a theological phenomenon. Positively,he is trying to make the point that inasmuch as the process of constructing the edifice of race was theological and the theological moves Irenaeus made in his Christological reflections contra Gnosticism was analagous to what certain African American Christians did in the 18th and 19th century in articulating a Christology which was embedded in the history of Israel and covenatal and non-racial,as an antidote to the faux Christian racialized accounts at play at the time.Both were constructive theological responses to similar theological dynamics. The fact that Carter has made this connection is a testament to the brilliance of his deep and profound theological and philosophical analysis, something that characterized the stream of Eastern Christian theology, from Ireanaeus to Athanasius and the Cappadocians to Maximus the Confessor but which does not characterize much of what is superficailly characterized as "orthodox".That critical spirit of really getting at the heart of what is the nature of the Christian claims are in terms of the a particular controversy,from theology to social implications is something that they understood,just as Athanisius did with Arianism.But not us!
Scott W:
Thanks for taking the time to respond as I understand you are busy.
You said: "Carter does not make the argument that Irenaeus’anti-Gnostic Christology reduces or obliterates racism."
My comment was directed at the assertion in the main post that: "The moment one affirms these ideas — both Incarnation and Recapitulation — racism is obliterated."
As I said; I just don't see it there or how that is particularly helpful in fighting racism for reasons already stated. I can see how the example of the Exodus would have a somewhat less opaque appeal and more direct application to the issue of slavery as would the letter to Philemon. What I am waiting to see is how Christian theology today is so riddled with racism that it requires a complete rethinking. Frankly; so far there is far too much reading racism and racist motives into every little statement and action (When it is not there) for my liking, but I am willing to entertain specific examples. Happy Thanksgiving weekend to all the Canadians.
Scot,
You made good summary of Carter on Irenaeus. I loved that chapter/prelude! :)
Greg#10-
I did address your assertion:I think Scot's overstated this point,as it had to do with the Prologue,even though in substance it's an accurate.
Unless I misunderstand how you use the term "racism" I think you are setting up a straw man which Carter,as a very sophisticated and careful scholar, eschews.I've addressed what he's actually trying to do:a historical,philosophical,sociological and political analysis of the development of white supremeecy as a theological phenomenon.What you refer to is just the tip of the ice berg of a much larger and pernicious phenomenom, a worldview.
I'm not sure, in a practical sense, that the Incarnation obliterates racism. If Christ is the fulfillment of the Law, then how does that perpetuate the belief that the Jewish nation established the concept of a "master race?" This is vis-a-vis Andrew Young and his role in the United Nations.
Even more practically, this last May we went to Georgia on vacation. Like good Christians, we attended a church service one night where the pastor preached about the "sin" of inter-racial marriage, quoting Scripture left and right like no one's business. Perhaps this is merely one consequence of copying-and-pasting verses of the Bible a la Frank Viola in order to concretize a pre-established view.
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