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I was recently reading one of my favorite books by Harvey Cox, The Future of Faith. He speaks of the decline and re-imagination of Christian faith. Love the book yet he still writes centering the white faith experience. This is a failure. Our faith story is much larger than that.
One thing I notice that white theologians and historians do as they tell the story of Christian faith—for good or for ill—is they only interpret it from the tools and frameworks learned from their social context. This blinds them to the ways they devalue other's experiences.
Whether they are inviting us into a more narrow and conservative Christian faith or into a more inclusive and progressive Christian faith, this story still situates the most meaningful stories of faith around the bad and good that is produced by white people. This is a problem.
This is not to say that the conservative and the progressive are equally wrong and desire the same type of faith experience, we know that to be untrue. This is to say that both have been socialized by whiteness in such profound ways that they fail to let go of the centering.
James Cone, in his last book, wrote that this is the "white theological straitjacket". The lives and faith experiences of non-white people "were invisible in their writings, not even worthy of mention." White histories and theologies seen as the norm is taken for granted.
Their fundamental concern was not, as Cone writes, "the relation between the gospel of Jesus and the reality of black suffering and black resistance." The concern is the failure or flourishing of white lives & white faith. This causes a terrible apathy and misguided discipleship.
All this is to say, we have to tell better stories of Christian faith and Christian failure beyond the white logic. The theology and history of non-white folk matter and is meaningful. Read Cox and his necessary story-telling, yes. But realize this is one story of so many.
Definitely read Harvey Cox book. It is invaluable. Also read these others that do historical and theological story-telling as well.
