Acts: A Theological Commentary on the Bible (Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible)

by Willie James Jennings

The dominant way of imaging people together has been forms of cultural and social parallelism (peoples living parallel lives) that underwrite segregationist mentalities. Segregation is an ancient strategy for constructing a world, and we could categorize it in three forms that often enfold and inform each other. There is spatial segregation that creates distinct geographic spheres of life and activity that maintain and control populations and guide the flows of commerce. Spatial segregation easily works itself down into our collective subconscious and teaches us to see peoples as naturally and normally separated for their own good and according to their own desire for separation. Spatial segregation gets woven into the material reality of habitation in the design of buildings, streets, neighborhoods, and cities, and can help perpetuate inequalities, xenophobia, racism, and violence simply by how it has arranged our daily movements and activities. There is cultural segregation whereby people maintain subtle or obvious boundaries to their language, stories, practices, indigenous knowledge, or even history. They may live and interact with other peoples but they maintain a psychic distance and a clear and palpable sense of the other as outsider. Then there is desperate segregation characterized by its fragmentary and episodic character. Here people seek to separate for the sake of survival. They are inundated with the forces of assimilation that constantly seek to render their...