Beyond Race: The Communion of Peoples in the People of God: A Catholic Engagement with the New Black Theologians

Date of Award

8-15-2026

Degree Name

Ph.D. in Theology

Department

Department of Religious Studies

Advisor/Chair

Jana Bennett

Abstract

This dissertation explores the historical relationship between Christian theological discourse and the phenomenon of racialization with the goal of surfacing theological resources for deracialization. It is especially concerned with the Catholic theological tradition, the extent to which it might have contributed to modern racial thinking, and the intellectual resources it has to offer the problems of racialization and racism today. Taking cues from two contemporary Protestant theologians, J. Kameron Carter and Willie James Jennings, I contend that only a non-identitarian theopolitics, a “theology of peoples,” can provide the alternative social imaginary required for the project of deracialization. I attempt to demonstrate that the Catholic tradition offers the kind of non-secular, non-identitarian anthropology and theopolitics that Carter and Jennings suggest is necessary in their own constructive proposals for a deracializing theology. To stage the dialogue between the “New Black theologians” and the Catholic tradition, I first engage deeply with the historical-genealogical arguments Carter and Jennings have made regarding the origins of modern race—centrally, the claim that the Christian theological tradition is responsible for racializing the Western social imaginary and that theology remains enclosed in “whiteness.” I challenge aspects of that historical account and offer an alternative reading of the intellectual figures in that narrative. I also highlight a cluster of questions that are raised by their accounts regarding the role of tradition in revelation and the sacramental nature of revelation, which connects it necessarily to ecclesiology. Finally, I engage with the prescriptive theological proposals proffered by Carter and Jennings and attempt to show that some of the Catholic magisterial documents of the 20th century contain a “theology of peoples and their cultures” which has much in common with those proposals. And I attempt to demonstrate how some of the insights that Carter and Jennings only gesture toward have been more fully developed in the Catholic magisterial tradition, such as its philosophical account of ‘peoples’ as ontologically real entities and its theological account of the Church as the mediator of “cultural intimacy” and “cultural exchange” between ‘peoples.’ Properly understood, this “theology of peoples and their cultures”—which is not merely a moral principle but a fundament of Catholic ecclesiology—constitutes a non-identitarian theopolitics that can deracialize the modern social imaginary.

Keywords

African American Studies, Ethnic Studies, History, Religion, Theology

Rights Statement

Copyright 2026, author

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS