Abstract
Supersessionism in the Western Christian theological tradition remains an issue to be remediated. The problem of supersessionism is the problem of Gentile Christians’ wrongly viewing themselves as the exclusively favored object of God’s desire. This misplaced prioritization of Gentile belonging within the life of Israel’s God mirrors dynamics found in Euro-American racism or whiteness. Just as theories of anti-racism are useful for confronting the challenges of whiteness, in this paper I argue for an explicitly anti-supersessionist theology. This theology offers possibilities for deepening an understanding of the covenantal relationships among God, Israel, Jesus Christ, and the Gentile Church. As such, it transcends the binary of supersessionism and post-supersessionism.
Highlights
Racism typically seeks the total domination and exclusion of other racialized groups for the benefit of Euro-Americans. While it can display a racial dimension, supersessionism fundamentally seeks the expropriation of the covenant and scriptures of Israel from the Jewish people, in order to subsume them within the Gentile Christian Church
Whiteness and Gentile Christian identity require decentering in order to restore the vision of reconciliation of all people with God that is at the heart of the ministry of Jesus Christ. For those identified as white in the Gentile church, part of this work can be accomplished by incorporating patterns of anti-racism into the construction of an anti-supersessionist theology
Following that I will show how anti-racism offers a helpful framework for addressing the limitations of post-supersessionism before advancing an anti-supersessionist alternative, exemplified in a rethinking of covenantal relationships between God, Israel, Jesus Christ, and the Gentile Church
Summary
Racism typically seeks the total domination and exclusion of other racialized groups for the benefit of Euro-Americans While it can display a racial dimension, supersessionism fundamentally seeks the expropriation of the covenant and scriptures of Israel from the Jewish people, in order to subsume them within the Gentile Christian Church. For those identified as white in the Gentile church, part of this work can be accomplished by incorporating patterns of anti-racism into the construction of an anti-supersessionist theology. Following that I will show how anti-racism offers a helpful framework for addressing the limitations of post-supersessionism before advancing an anti-supersessionist alternative, exemplified in a rethinking of covenantal relationships between God, Israel, Jesus Christ, and the Gentile Church.
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