“After Whiteness” with Dr. Willie Jennings

Pass The Mic

The Witness

Christianity, Society & Culture, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality

4.7 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 28 September 2020

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

...today’s episode is fire. Tyler has the honor of interviewing powerhouse theologian and author, Dr. Willie Jennings. This episode is filled with powerful insights that will strike uncomfortably close to home. For the uninitiated, Dr. Willie Jennings is an Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale Divinity School. Writing in the areas of liberation theologies, cultural identities, and anthropology, Jennings has authored more than 40 scholarly essays and nearly two-dozen reviews. He is in high demand as a speaker and is widely recognized as a major figure in theological education across North America. He is the author of the book The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (Yale 2010), which won the American Academy of Religion Award of Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Constructive-Reflective category the year after it appeared and, is considered by many to be a “theological masterpiece.” His commentary on the Book of Acts, titled Acts: A Commentary, The Revolution of the Intimate (for the Belief Series, Westminster/John Knox) received the Reference Book of the Year Award from The Academy of Parish Clergy in 2018. His latest book and the subject of our interview today is entitled After Whiteness: An Education in Belonging From the book’s description: “Theological education has always been about formation: first of people, then of communities, then of the world. If we continue to promote whiteness and its related ideas of masculinity and individualism in our educational work, it will remain diseased and thwart our efforts to heal the church and the world. But if theological education aims to form people who can gather others together through border-crossing pluralism and God-drenched communion, we can begin to cultivate the radical belonging that is at the heart of God’s transformative work.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Dynamic Voices for a diverse church. This is Pass the Mic. Well, Dr. Willie Jennings, thank you so much for joining us here on Pass the Mic, sir.
0:20.0	My pleasure.
0:22.0	Well, there's quite a bit that I want to discuss with you today,
0:24.9	but it would be remiss of me not to mention
0:28.2	this week's tragic ruling, non-indictment
0:31.0	regarding the case of Brianna Taylor.
0:33.0	And so Dr. Jennings, I just wanted to give you the space
0:35.4	to speak to that, the tragedy of it,
0:38.1	before we get into the book and all the wonderful ideas
0:42.0	that you're talking through.
0:43.7	What does this say about our society
0:45.2	that we're once again here mourning a lack of justice?
0:49.5	Well, it says a couple of things that I think many of us are aware of. One is the pain that so many folks of color, African Americans, black folks are feeling at this moment. And it also points to the frustration that's woven into that pain.
1:07.0	And it again reminds us of the crucial choice we have to make at this moment.
1:13.2	Either we continue to fight forward, push forward,
1:18.0	or we fall into the despair that is all around us and I'm always I'm always reminded of those
1:27.2	who were before us who said back after said back could yet get up in the morning, fix breakfast for
1:37.4	themselves and their family and start the day and so you know I'm I'm bolstered by that legacy but this is this is an
1:47.2	unprecedented time for us and my hope is that so many people who consider themselves allies of black folks would see this as a
2:00.4	profound call to them to step out of the ordinary,
2:07.0	other ordinary ways of being
2:09.7	and into a new way of being that would join with us to overcome what, you know, is in fact the deepest,
	...

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