Читать книгу The Craft of Innovative Theology. Argument and Process онлайн
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They had for more than a century before been regarded as being of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. ... And no distinction in this respect is made between the free negro or mulatto and the slave, but this stigma, of the deepest degradation was fixed upon the whole race. Dred Scott, 1857. Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 HOW.) 393 (1857) 1
The historic theological crisis in American race relations between blacks and whites not only has been a conflict with biblical interpretations that justified slavery and segregation, it also has involved conflicting views about what it means to be fully human and who has the power to define this. The heated biblical debates of the nineteenth century over whether slavery could be justified moved into the twentieth century in the debates over Jim Crow segregation and white supremacy. Whether to extend notions of Christian compassion and charity to African Americans as part of humankind or to continue to view them as inferior humans, as racially stigmatized beings, was at the heart of this controversy over racism, white supremacy, and racial segregation and their impact on African Americans.