Abstract
The message of Luke A. Powery's book is powerful; it is like an African American preacher delivering a sermon to you about the importance of racial justice: ‘If “othering” others is learned by example, what example can the church be and offer to unlearn othering and help humans become more humane in their interactions and relations with fellow human beings beyond the wreckage of racialization?’ (p. 109). Powery's question pinpoints the problem of churches in the contemporary world, where they are too comfortable with marginalising others, and in Powery's concern, racialisation. As Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, Powery investigates the linkage between pneumatology and race and how this may apply to homiletics. The book is an expanded version of the three Thomas White Currie Lectures given at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary during his sabbatical in Spring, 2020 (p. xv). Given the killing of George Floyd took place in May 2020, this is a timely theological response to the dilemma of the ‘colour-blind’ approach of Christian homiletics and reflects how preachers can incorporate the mindset of racial justice in sermons, so as to better walk with suffering bodies.
Chapter 1 narrates the history of racism and describes how black bodies are marginalised, and how Christianity may have taken part in it. Chapter 2 presents the perceived biological differences between different races and shows that such a presupposition is a social, colonial construction, rather than one with scientific evidence. Chapter 3 argues for a pneumatology of race through the exegesis of and theologising of the Pentecost account in Acts 2. Chapter 4 speaks about ecclesial practices highlighting a nonwhite perspective of homiletics. Chapter 5 pushes forward the discussion of pneumatology and provides practical suggestions on how suffering bodies can follow Jesus to strive for a community that embraces mortality (p. 106).
One of the strengths of this book is that it highlights the communal aspects of homiletics. When I was learning to preach during my MDiv study, I fondly remembered that we had to be sensitive about ourselves—our voice, our gestures, and our language. While these are all important, at some points, they are all about me—how I interpret the scripture, how I receive the revelation from God, and how my life experience is relevant to the scripture. The strength of interpreting pneumatology as a communal exercise is that it can resist the temptation of imposing a certain hierarchy on the congregation, who may be historically marginalised by those who have the power to speak for themselves and may (mis)represent the oppressed ones.
Another aspect I find compelling is Powery's imaginary of the filling of the Holy Spirit, in reference to Acts 2, to overcome the limitation of the racism rooted in society. The current discourse linking Christianity and racism tends to be from a sociological perspective that draws theories from theological anthropology, but the correlation between pneumatology and racism is understudied. A common critique from those who benefit from a racist system is that defeating racism is not a Christian responsibility and has no linkage to Christian theology.
I find Powery's arguments helpful to stretch our imagination about how Christian theology and, in particular, ecclesiology, have appreciated the diversity of the Christian community since the Pentecost, the birth of the church. The perceived model of a successful Christian church in the West is often shaped by the media and those with power to portray themselves on the media. This does not always reflect the ideal setting of the church in Acts 2, which allows diverse ethnicities, bodies, and tongues to worship God as a whole body, moved and guided by the Holy Spirit (p. 73). Powery's interpretation of the correlation between race and pneumatology reminds us what a flourishing church should look like.
On this note, while I totally agree that the Church should be continuously guided by the Spirit to deal with issues which may dehumanise our brothers and sisters, I wonder how it is implemented in a multiracial, multicultural congregation. As an Ivy League institution, I am sure Duke's chapel is filled with students from different nations and cultural backgrounds. In other words, the chapel does not only consist of white or African Americans, but also other races. On an operational level, to what extent can the congregational leader be sensitive to the multifaceted layers of hierarchy within the congregation itself in a way that can celebrate the ‘diversunity’ (p. 73) of all the people in the community?
This also leads to the next question regarding language. As I am writing this review in the United Kingdom, where classism is a complex factor related to accents and lifestyle, I appreciate Powery's criticism of racialised sound in the pulpit (pp. 87–91). This concept neglects the diversity of sound and assumes that only one type of sound or accent is allowed to preach God's words. To press further on this issue, I wonder in what ways can the interplay of sound or accent take part in this conversation, because even with the same skin colour, accent itself reflects one's socioeconomic or cultural background. It is sad to articulate this, but internalised racism may take place within the same race, when one with an upper economic background may look down on those who are not economically prosperous. This applies whether it is conscious and intentional or not. Sometimes one chooses to be in a church community because the members have a similar background, which may in turn marginalise those who are different, economically or culturally. In other words, in what ways can a preacher, or a sermon produced by a particular preacher, address the internalised racism deeply rooted in the minds of people from the global majority heritage so that they do not pass down this kind of racialised trauma to the next generation? I understand Powery works in a college setting where he usually preaches to university students, but I wonder if his theory can be extended to other congregations, so that our vision of a new ecclesiology does not only stay within the college campus.
Criticisms aside, this book is a welcome addition to the existing literature on how Christians can respond to the racialisation that is deeply rooted in American society. Such marginalisation is not merely a phenomenon in the United States but is also observable in other parts of the world. Unfortunately, it may lead to micro-aggression, prejudice, and racial violence. To imagine the world to be a better place and the church to mirror that in Acts 2, the Christian community requires continuous reflection and renewal by the Holy Spirit, who guides God's children to the truth (John 16:13). The book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of pneumatology, race studies, World Christianity, and homiletics.