The New World destabilized Acosta’s theology. How could he reconcile the Thomistic tradition he was trained in with the realities of the New World? How would the native peoples of the Americas be reconciled with continental Catholic conceptions of personhood? When Jesuit theologian José de Acosta Porres arrived in Peru in 1572, his experience in the new world created a theological crisis. Jennings deconstruction of the colonial hermeneutic of white supremacy at its inception in Africa becomes a heuristic key to interpreting the colonial encounter with indigenous people in the “New World.” In chapter 2, “Acosta’s Laugh,” Jennings turns to the Latin American colonial landscape. Yet, Zurara’s description of African life expresses a pathos that connects deeply with suffering and struggles of African slaves.
The white European male becomes the archetype of humanity. In this binary racist aesthetic inspired by biblical language, darkness is the negative anchor, while whiteness becomes the positive anchor. Upon encountering the African people, the Christian colonialist describes the “monstrous darkness” of the African in contrast to the “glorious light” of the European. In chapter 1, “Zurara’s Tears,” Jennings tells the tale of Zurara, the royal chronicler who records Prince Henry of Portugal the Navigator’s thoughts about his mission to Sub-Sahara Africa. This multifaceted theological argument is structured around four tales of the past, concluding with two chapters of constructive theology that call the church to intimacy, belonging, and transformation. His call to theological intimacy amidst a world of cultural fragmentation is prophetic, hearkening a post-colonial future for the world Christian communion. Despite these realities, he further argues that the Christian imagination can be fired once again if the church can reconnect to Israel, creation, and the Creator. Given Christianity’s history of colonial captivity, is the Christian imagination exhausted or can it still speak meaningfully and creatively today? In The Christian Imagination Willie James Jennings lays out a persuasive case detailing the racist and capitalist underpinnings of colonial Christianity in Portugal, Peru, South Africa, and the United States, showing how this colonial legacy continues to dominate the establishment agenda of the theological academy. Using his bold, creative, and courageous critique to imagine a truly cosmopolitan citizenship that transcends geopolitical, nationalist, ethnic, and racial boundaries, Jennings charts, with great vision, new ways of imagining ourselves, our communities, and the landscapes we inhabit.ĬHRISTIANITY IN THE AMERICAS is shrouded in a dark past of white supremacy and colonial violence. Touching on issues of slavery, geography, Native American history, Jewish-Christian relations, literacy, and translation, he brilliantly exposes how the loss of land and the supersessionist ideas behind the Christian missionary movement are both deeply implicated in the invention of race. Weaving together the stories of Zurara, the royal chronicler of Prince Henry, the Jesuit theologian Jose de Acosta, the famed Anglican Bishop John William Colenso, and the former slave writer Olaudah Equiano, Jennings narrates a tale of loss, forgetfulness, and missed opportunities for the transformation of Christian communities. A probing study of the cultural fragmentation-social, spatial, and racial-that took root in the Western mind, this book shows how Christianity has consistently forged Christian nations rather than encouraging genuine communion between disparate groups and individuals. Why has Christianity, a religion premised upon neighborly love, failed in its attempts to heal social divisions? In this ambitious and wide-ranging work, Willie James Jennings delves deep into the late medieval soil in which the modern Christian imagination grew, to reveal how Christianity’s highly refined process of socialization has inadvertently created and maintained segregated societies.
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