Can “Dangerous Memories” be Communicated? Extending Insights from the Intercultural Theology of Robert J. Schreiter into Dialogue with Subculture and Racialization

Authors

  • Kevin P. Considine Calumet College of St. Joseph

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/isit.35584

Keywords:

Schreiter, Robert J., intercultural theology, racial justice, racial suffering, intercultural hermeneutics, semiotics

Abstract

Robert J. Schreiter's groundbreaking work on the connection between theological discourse and intercultural hermeneutics is a sound foundation for a theological project that engages culture and its connection to globalization and racialization within the United States. This essay extends insights from Schreiter's work to bear upon the theological problem within the US context of communicating "dangerous memories" of racialized suffering by bringing Schreiter's insights regarding semiotics and intercultural hermeneutics into engagement with the concepts of subculture and racialization. I conclude that this approach can assist theological communication of "dangerous memories" of racialized suffering through highlighting the aberrant theological anthropology conferred through racialization-and its dehumanizing hierarchy of race that offers and prohibits access to the benefits of globalized society depending upon one's entrance into "whiteness"-and semiotically focusing upon culture and subculture as the locations through which communication is possible. Such an approach may lead to a broader, re-humanizing reinterpretation of the signs, codes, and messages that are intertwined with phenotype.

Author Biography

  • Kevin P. Considine, Calumet College of St. Joseph

    Assistant Professor of Theology

References

Anderson, Victor. 1995. Beyond Ontological Blackness: An Essay in African-American Religious and Cultural Criticism. New York: Continuum.

Arbuckle, Gerald. 2010. Culture, Inculturation, and Theologians: A Postmodern Critique. Collegeville: Liturgical Press.

Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo. 2006. “Black, Honorary White, White: The Future of Race in the United States.” In Mixed Messages: Multiracial Identities in the ‘Color Blind’ Era, edited by David L. Brunsma, 33–48. London: Lynne Rienner.

———. 2017. Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America. Fifth edition. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Carter, J. Kameron. 2008. Race: A Theological Account. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195152791.001.0001

Cassidy, Laurie and Alex Mikulich, eds. 2007. Interrupting White Privilege: Catholic Theologians Break the Silence. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

Clarke, Clifton and Jarvis Williams. 2017. “How Christians Can Combat Racism Theologically After Charlottesville.” Christianity Today. http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2017/august-web-only/christians-combat-racism-theologically-charlottesville.html

Cone, James. 1972. The Spirituals and the Blues. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

Considine, Kevin P. 2013. “Han and Salvation for the Sinned-Against.” New Theology Review 26(1): 87–89.

Considine, Kevin P. 2017. “To Resist the Gravity of Whiteness: Communicating Racialized Suffering and Creating Paschal Community through an Analogia Vulneris.” Black Theology: An International Journal 15(2): 136–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/14769948.2017.1326738

———. 2018. “Solidarity with the Sinned-Against: A Reflection on Cultural Hybridity, Racialization, and Transmission of the Christian Faith.” In Crossing Cultures and Generations: Reflections on Today’s Church by Korean-American Catholics, edited by James K. Lee, 1–18). Chicago: Paul Bechtold Library.

Copeland, M. Shawn. 2009. Enfleshing Freedom: Body, Race, and Being. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress.

Douglas, Kelly Brown. 2015. Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

Dyson, Michael Eric. 2017. Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Elizondo, Virgilio. 2000. The Future is Mestizo: Life Where Cultures Meet. Boulder: University of Colorado Press.

Garcia-Rivera, A. 1995. St. Martin de Porres: The “Little Stories” and the Semiotics of Culture. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

———. 2003. A Wounded Innocence: Sketches for a Theology of Art. Collegeville: Michael Glazier.

Hopkins, Dwight. 2005. Being Human: Religion, Race, and Culture. Minneapolis: Fortress.

Jennings, Willie James. 2010. The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Lloyd, Richard. 2006. Neo-Bohemia: Art and Commerce in the Post-Industrial City. Abingdon: Routledge.

Melczek, Dale. 2013. Created in God’s Image: A Pastoral Letter on the Sin of Racism and a Call to Conversion. http://www.dcgary.org/pdf/Created-In-Gods-Image.pdf

Metz, Johannes Baptist. 1980. Faith in History and Society: Towards a Practical Fundamental Theology. Translated by David Smith. New York: Seabury.

Massingale, Bryan. 2010. Racial Justice in the Catholic Church. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

Schreiter, Robert J. 1985. Constructing Local Theologies. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

———. 1992. Reconciliation: Mission and Ministry in a Changing Social Order. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

———. 1997. The New Catholicity: Theology between the Global and the Local. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

———. 1998. The Ministry of Reconciliation: Spirituality and Strategies. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis.

———. 2011. “Christian Witness in a ‘New Modernity’: Trajectories in Intercultural Theology” Concilium 1: 27–36.

———. 2017. “Emerging Forms of Intercultural Hermeneutics” In Beyond Dogmatism and Innocence: Hermeneutics, Critique and Catholic Theology, edited by Anthony Godzieba and Bradford Hinze, 40–55. Collegeville: Liturgical Press.

Tanner, Kathryn. 1997. Theories of Culture: A New Agenda for Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress.

Thurman, Howard. 1976. Jesus and the Disinherited. Boston: Beacon.

Tracy, David. 1987. Plurality and Ambiguity: Hermeneutics, Religion, Hope. San Francisco: Harper and Row.

Twiss, Richard. 2015. Rescuing the Gospels from the Cowboys: A Native American Expression of the Jesus Way. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

Wrogemann, Henning. 2016. Intercultural Theology, Volume One: Intercultural Hermeneutics. Translated by Karl Boehmer. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Academic.

Yancy, George. 2008. Black Bodies, White Gazes: The Continuing Significance of Race. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Published

2019-04-05

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Considine, K. P. (2019). Can “Dangerous Memories” be Communicated? Extending Insights from the Intercultural Theology of Robert J. Schreiter into Dialogue with Subculture and Racialization. Interreligious Studies and Intercultural Theology, 3(1-2), 63-81. https://doi.org/10.1558/isit.35584

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >>