Centre for Black Theology & Book Launch (26th February, 7pm – 9pm)
THE WHITE BONHOEFFER: A Postcolonial Pilgrimage by Tim Judson is the first project of The Centre for Black Theology, Oxford, both of which are launching in February 2025 at New Road Baptist Church, Bonn Square.
More about the centre:
The Centre for Black Theology, Oxford, is an interdisciplinary, research based initiative focused on the intellectual development of Black Theology in Britain and across the world. It is the first centre of its kind in the University of Oxford. The inaugural director is Professor Anthony Reddie, who is the Professor of Black theology in the University of Oxford. The Centre is based in Regent’s Park college, a Permanent Private Hall of Oxford university.
Linked to the Centre, will be Black Theology: An International Journal, for which Professor Reddie has served as the Editor-in-chief for the past 22 years. In addition to this existing work, there will be a new international book series in Black theology in partnership with Baylor university press. The latter is another first, for which Professor Reddie will also serve as Editor-in-chief.
The Centre for Black Theology, Oxford will work in partnership with colleagues within the University Oxford and with friends from across the world, particularly, with the University of South Africa, where Professor Reddie is also a Professor Extraordinarious.
Book description:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer continues to inspire the minds and actions of many people around the world, including academics and ministers, as well as countless others seeking to imagine afresh what Christian discipleship entails today. Rightly or wrongly, Bonhoeffer’s name is evoked across different streams of the church. Such is the far-reaching and sometimes misplaced appeal of the man.
Judson’s book offers a “pilgrimage” through Bonhoeffer’s main theological and ethical themes, as well as his key works, with a particular gaze on the subject of race. More specifically, Judson generously interrogates the reality that Bonhoeffer’s vision was constituted from within his particular horizons as a White Western man. The book suggests that Bonhoeffer is really helpful for navigating some of the complexities pertaining to human life, and particularly in relation to the subject of race, given that much of his thinking was shaped in response to Hitler’s demonic vision of Aryan (White) supremacy in Germany.
However, Judson also shows that there are points where Bonhoeffer only got so far, and could have imagined things differently at times. Judson journeys with Bonhoeffer to see where he is helpful and where his (and the author’s) White Western horizons become limited through this particular gaze. Therefore, the book opens (particularly White) readers to explore the themes of race and Whiteness by letting others guide the way, others who offer insights from a Global Majority perspective regarding what it means to be human, and how to live alongside others in a continually violent and disparate world.
Contact the Race & Resistance team for more details.
