S9 Ep911: Empire and Race in the Book of Acts: Dr. Willie James Jennings
Theology in the Raw
Theology in the Raw
4.5 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 18 October 2021
⏱️ 69 minutes
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Summary
Dr. Jennings is Associatet Professor of Systematic Theology and Africana Studies at Yale University and has written several books including 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, in 2015 and the Grawemeyer Award in Religion, the largest prize for a theological work in North America. 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.
In this episode, Dr. Jenning helps us understand how the book of Acts critiques empire and imperial values, and also how the early Christians in the book of Acts were wrestling with ethnic reconciliation and inclusion. Toward the end of the episode, we talk about the concept of “Whiteness”--what it means, what it doesn’t mean, and how it can be a useful tool for people to use to think through the history and politics of race.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology Narah. I have on the show today, |
| 0:04.6 | the one and only, Dr. Willie James Jennings. Dr. Jennings is associate professor of systematic |
| 0:10.0 | theology and Africana studies at Yale University. He's the author of the highly acclaimed book, |
| 0:16.3 | The Christian Imagination, A Theology and Origins of Race, another book after whiteness, |
| 0:22.4 | which we discuss briefly, an education in belonging. And the main book we talk about is his commentary |
| 0:29.6 | on the book of Acts. It's called Acts, a commentary, the revolution of the intimate. It is a |
| 0:36.8 | very stimulating commentary. I mean, he's so poetic and such a beautiful writer and it comes out |
| 0:46.0 | in his commentary, such a thoughtful guy. I wanted him to just help us think through the theology |
| 0:50.9 | of Acts in this podcast. And that's exactly what it does. We start with Acts. We linger there for |
| 0:56.4 | a long time and then we make some cultural contemporary applications. And then we got into a |
| 1:00.7 | discussion about race and whiteness and imperialism and so on and so forth toward the end of the |
| 1:06.0 | podcast, which I thought was very provocative and clarifying in many ways with some of these |
| 1:11.6 | really debated and volatile concepts. So please welcome to the show, for the first time, |
| 1:16.0 | they want to know only Dr. Willie James Jennings. |
| 1:34.5 | Hello friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Rom. I'm here with Dr. Willie James |
| 1:39.8 | Jennings, professor at Yale University and I reached out to Dr. Jennings. |
| 1:45.3 | I must have been a month and a half ago or so and I described it as kind of a Hail Mary. I'm like, |
| 1:50.2 | yeah, I ever now and then I'll throw a Hail Mary to some Ivy League professor and usually I get |
| 1:55.8 | maybe crickets or maybe a polite no, you know, I mean now and then I'll land one. And so I was |
| 2:00.6 | really excited when you swung it back so kindly right away and said, yeah, I'd love to. I'm like, |
| 2:04.4 | really? I'm like, wait, sure. So thanks so much for being on the podcast. |
| 2:09.0 | My pleasure. My pleasure. So I'm holding in my hands. One of your books, The Book of Acts, |
... |
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