{"id":127801,"date":"2023-05-16T08:44:09","date_gmt":"2023-05-16T12:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=127801"},"modified":"2023-05-16T08:44:09","modified_gmt":"2023-05-16T12:44:09","slug":"professor-blames-st-paul-and-christian-supremacy-for-modern-day-racism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/professor-blames-st-paul-and-christian-supremacy-for-modern-day-racism\/","title":{"rendered":"Professor blames St. Paul and \u2018Christian supremacy\u2019 for modern-day racism"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018The ideology espoused by white supremacists in the US and in Europe is rooted in Christian ideas of social and religious hierarchy\u2019<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

A professor at a Catholic university believes that Christianity, going back to St. Paul the Apostle, is to blame for racism and antisemitism to this day.<\/p>\n

Fordham University Professor Magda Teter\u2019s new book titled \u201cChristian Supremacy\u201d came out today. The book provides \u201ca profound reckoning with history that traces the roots of the modern rejection of Jewish and Black equality to an enduring Christian heritage of exclusion, intolerance, and persecution,\u201d according to its description<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ideology espoused by white supremacists in the US and in Europe is rooted in Christian ideas of social and religious hierarchy,\u201d Professor Teter (pictured<\/em>) wrote in the book, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency<\/em>. \u201cThese ideas developed, gradually, first in the Mediterranean and Europe in respect to Jews and then in respect to people of color in European colonies and in the US, before returning transformed back to Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jewish Telegraphic Agency<\/em> reported<\/a>:<\/p>\n

In the book, subtitled \u201cReckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism,\u201d she traces this idea from the writings of the early church fathers like Paul the Apostle, though centuries of Catholic and Protestant debates over the status of Jews in Europe, to the hardening of racist attitudes with the rise of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Teter also connected Christianity to the white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia who marched through the University of Virginia campus carrying tiki torches<\/a> and chanting \u201cJews will not replace us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even neo-Nazis and actual Nazis who are not actually Christian can be linked to Christian theology, the professor argued.<\/p>\n

JTA<\/em>\u00a0asked Teter if \u201cmodern-day white supremacists, like the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys, see themselves as Christians\u201d and if \u201cthis [is] a kind of white supremacy that doesn\u2019t name itself Christian but doesn\u2019t even realize how many of its ideas are based in theology.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they might not be conscious of this legacy, but neo-Nazis take from the legacy of the Nazis who themselves were not thinking of themselves as Christian necessarily,\u201d she said. \u201cBut what I argue in the book is that white Christian supremacy becomes white supremacy. It never discards the Christian sense of domination and superiority that emerges from its early relationship with Jews and Judaism.\u201d<\/p>\n

She continued:<\/p>\n

In the United States, Black people serve as contrast figures to whiteness, in the law and in the culture. You cannot have whiteness without Blackness. For Christians, Jews serve as that contrast figure. Consciously or unconsciously, the Proud Boys are embracing that. They talk of \u201cGod-given\u201d freedoms for white people. That is the Christian legacy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Teter wants to see theologians address the \u201cdynamics of power\u201d as a result of reading the new book.<\/p>\n

Teter told JTA that \u201cmaybe theologians will begin to grapple with this legacy of superiority and domination, and the way hierarchical habits of thinking have been developed through theology and through religious culture.\u201d<\/p>\n

The professor also said that \u201cwhite supremacy\u201d remains \u201cin the air.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to speak up against it, and make connections and allyships,\u201d the professor said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that maybe because the book deals with law and power, it may create bridges among people who care about \u2018We the People\u2019 as a vision of people who are diverse, respectful and equal, and not the exclusionary vision offered by white and Christian supremacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

MORE:<\/strong> Professor cooked data to make racism seem more prevalent<\/a><\/p>\n

IMAGES: Rembrandt\/Public Domain; Fordham University<\/p>\n

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