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Mulatto Theology: Race, Discipleship, and Interracial Existence

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Mulatto Theology: Race, Discipleship, and Interracial Existence Mulatto Theology: Race, Discipleship, and Interracial Existence by Brian Keith Bantum Department of Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Stanley Hauerwas, Supervisor ___________________________ Willie James Jennings ___________________________ Amy Laura Hall ___________________________ Jay Kameron Carter ___________________________ Ken Surin Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2009 v ABSTRACT Mulatto Theology: Race, Discipleship, and Interracial Existence by Brian Keith Bantum Department of Religion Duke University Date:_______________________ Approved: ___________________________ Stanley Hauerwas, Supervisor ___________________________ Willie James Jennings ___________________________ Amy Laura Hall ___________________________ Jay Kameron Carter ___________________________ Ken Surin An abstract of a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Religion in the Graduate School of Duke University 2009 Copyright by Brian Keith Bantum 2009 Abstract To exist racially “in-between,” being neither entirely of one race nor another, or more simply stated being a mulatto or interracial, has been characterized in the outlook that tends to mark existence in the modern world as a tragic state of being. It is from this outlook of loneliness and isolation that the term the “tragic mulatto” emerged. The dissertation Mulatto Theology: Race, Discipleship, and Interracial Existence will theologically interpret these lives so as to interrogate the wider reality of racialized lives that the mulatto’s body makes visible. As such, mulatto bodies are modulations of a racial performance in which all are implicated. The mulatto’s body is significant in that it discloses what is most pronouncedly masked in modern (and particularly white) identities. Culture, identities (individual and communal) are not only interconnected, but they are mixtures where peoples become presenced in the lives and practices of other “alien” peoples. This mixture requires careful reflection upon the formation of all identities, and the ways in which these identities become visible within the world. Given this arc of identity any reflection upon Christian identity must articulate itself within the inherent tensions of these identities and the practices that mark such identities within the world. Through this work I hope to show how European theology itself has failed to account for its own dominant enclosure of identities, but also how Christian reflection itself might find a way out of this tragic reality. In examining the formation and performance of mulatto bodies this dissertation suggests these bodies are theologically important for modern Christians and theological reflection in particular. Namely, the mulatto’s body becomes the site for re-imagining iv Christian life as a life lived “in-between.” The primary locus of this re-imagination is the body of Christ. A re-examination of theological reflection and Scripture regarding his person and work display his character as uniquely mulatto, or the God-man. But not only is his identity mulatto, but his person also describes the nature of his work, his re-creation of humanity. So understood Christian bodies can be construed as “interracial” bodies -- bodies of flesh and Spirit that disrupt modern formations of race. The Christian body points to a communal reality where hybridity is no longer tragic, but rather constitutive of Christian discipleship. This new, hybrid and “impure” way of existing witnesses to God’s redemptive work in the world. v Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………………...….iv Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………......vii Introduction………………………………………………………………………………. 1 Part I – Renunciation: Racial Discipleship; or Disciplining the Body……………………... 17 Chapter 1 – I Am Your Son White Man! The Mulatto and the Tragic………………... 18 Chapter 2 – Neither Fish Nor Fowl: Presence as Politics……………………………...59 Part II – Confession: Christ, the Tragic Mulatto…………………………………………123 Chapter 3 – What Child is This? or How can this Be? The Mulatto Christ…………... 126 Chapter 4 – I Am the Way: Mulatto Redemption and the Politics of Identification…..163 Part III – Immersion: Christian Discipleship; or The New Discipline of the Body………202 Chapter 5 – You Must Be Re-Born: Baptism Mulattic Re-Birth…………………….. 204 Chapter 6 – The Politics of Presence: Discipleship and Prayer………………………240 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..273 Biography…………………………………………………… ………………………….284 vi Acknowledgements As with any endeavor this project is the sum of many people’s encouragement, support and guidance. Throughout my coursework, exam preparation, and dissertation writing I received funding from the Fund for Theological Education first as a Doctoral Fellow and then a Dissertation Fellow. The Fund not only allowed me financial freedom to pursue this work and still eat more than mac and cheese, but also through conferences and mentoring guided me through the often-perilous world of academia. Additional funding from the Ford Foundation allowed me more time to develop the project as well as actually partake in life with my wife and three children. Duke University has been my intellectual home for nine years. During this time I have benefited from the guidance and wisdom of many faculty and staff members. I cannot name them all, but to all of who supported, encouraged, and prayed for me I am deeply thankful. Stanley Hauerwas has allowed me the freedom to pursue this research with an encouraging and subtle hand. I have appreciated his pushing reminders to be as clear as possible, but also been encouraged that these rejoinders were always grounded in his belief in my work. In Jay Kameron Carter I have been blessed by a seemingly endless reservoir of ideas and enthusiasm. In the moments when I thought this project insignificant or a dead end it was his enthusiasm or a timely book suggestion that helped me to regain my own excitement and momentum for writing. To Amy Laura Hall I must extend my deep thanks for the courage of her teaching and life. In the first class I took at the Divinity School at Duke University my eyes were opened to a way of doing and inhabiting theology that set me vii upon this wonderful path. It was due to her example and encouragement that I even imagined that I could and should do this work. In Willie James Jennings I have been blessed with a mentor and a friend who welcomed me into a new theological world. While in this world, I found no distinction between questions of family, world, theology, church, intellect, feeling, art, music, etc. Instead, all of these questions and realities of life seemed to swim together in his own life, his own questions, his own teaching. Willie has taught me to be a theologian. His most profound lesson has been to teaching me ideas, lessons and a way of being in the world that I did not understand but could only grow into over time. I pray that this dissertation is a faithful marker of his teaching and ultimately God’s faithfulness. My three wonderful children Caleb, Ezra, and Joseph have been sources of perpetual joy and wonder. I was blessed with a new child throughout my time here. With each child I have been blessed with new joys. Dragging me away from my own inner wonderings, they each in their own unique and wonderful ways have allowed me to return to this work with new questions and new insights. But above all they have loved me not as one with good ideas or well-turned phrases, but simply as their daddy. That love wakes me each day and for that I am so thankful. And of course my deepest and most profound thanks must go to my wife. Before any crazy ideas of graduate school Gail loved me, comforted me, pushed me, and most importantly laughed at my jokes. If there is anything good in these pages, it has drawn upon her beauty and grace, determination and sacrifice. Her faith and her faithfulness, her receptivity to the Spirit’s promptings, her joy and love have taught as much if not more than my many years at Duke. Thank you Gail for loving me and for teaching me. viii Introduction “Who is my brother and my sister,” asked the disciples to Jesus. In the 20th century alone we are confronted with countless refusals to even ask this most fundamental question. The horror of the holocaust, genocide in Rwanda, Darfur, Sudan, Serbia, the epidemic of HIV/AIDS, the proliferation of weapons (of mass and minor destruction), the blatant trafficking of children and women throughout the world, the abuse of power among religious and secular leaders alike, the continuing de facto segregation of neighborhoods and schools, the increasing population of African Americans and Hispanics in U.S. prisons. And in the midst of these atrocities and transgressions against humanity we can find no clear delineation between those who call themselves by the name of Christ and those who do not. Theological reflection has surely sought to resist these terrible realities in many ways and yet we, as Christians, have found ourselves terribly complicit or complicitly silent as these challenges seep into our lives. But perhaps the question should not be what have we said about these moments, but rather what have these moments revealed about the nature of what we think we are doing. What are we doing when we do theology? Theological reflection undoubtedly must begin with God. And yet this is where the simplicity ends. Does it have to do with who God is? Does it have to do with who we think God is? How do we know? Who gets to decide? These are all important questions answered in so many ways over the last two thousand years. But perhaps in order to get at this question we must perhaps ask the question what does it mean to do theology if theology is understood primarily as an encounter. That is, theology is not a reflection upon a God-out- 1 there or with the religious imagination of a particular group of people grasping for a sense of what lies beyond them.
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