Can "White" People Be Saved?: Triangulating Race, Theology, and Mission (Missiological Engagements Book 12)

by Willie James Jennings

When the church preaches salvation of souls while matters of physical and social well-being are ceded to outside institutions such as government and dedicated charities, the result divides salvation into two separate spheres—physical and spiritual—that subvert the original multilayered concept exhibited in Peter’s explanation to the socioreligious authorities in Acts 4. This bifurcated ideology creates, nourishes, and maintains fertile soil for the whiteness project to prosper, and we maintain that this whiteness project (signified by our use of the phrase “White” People in the title) cannot be saved! We who have benefited from the whiteness project, whether by the color of our skin or by our unconscious biases in favor of white norms, white institutions, and white culture, are like that man lame from birth in need of walking again. Having benefitted economically, politically, and socially, we are lame because of the weight of the sins of the system that have accrued to us. We need the healing of Jesus to make us whole.