- Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God – Kelly Brown Douglas
- Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism – Drew Hart
- Race: A Theological Account – J. Kameron Carter
Main Point:
Each of these books presents important insights regarding different aspects of race, and how the church engages issues surrounding the racial divides that affect us all. The authors approach their topics in very different ways; however, there are significant similarities in the conclusions they draw from their treatments of the subjects at hand.
In Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God,” Kelly Brown Douglas contends that the Anglo Saxon myth sits at the foundation of American Exceptionalism and has given birth to a “stand your ground culture” (page 16). This culture is fed by a form of racism that has declared war on the black bodies by which it feels threatened. She challenges the church to work at righting the wrongs of the past by changing the systems and structures that have risen from the narrative of exceptionalisms that support white supremacy.
In Trouble I’ve Seen, Drew Hart pleads with the church to be God’s instrument for healing the racial divides that plague our world. By taking his readers through his personal journey of racial exploration and through an examination of history, Hart sets the foundation for delivering a set of practices that he believes the church can use to affect needed change.
In Race: A Theological Account, J. Kameron Carter tells “the story of how the loss of a Jewish-inflected account – and thus a covenantal, nonracial account – of Christian identity cleared the way for whiteness to function as a replacement doctrine of creation…where ‘white’ signifies not merely pigmentation but a regime of political and economic power for arranging (oikonomia) the world” (page 35).
Summary/Analysis:
Stand Your Ground – Kelly Brown Douglas: When entering into her subject, Kelly Brown Douglas begins by examining history. She presents her interpretation of the grand narrative of American Exceptionalism. She acknowledges the contested nature of the interpretation of that narrative, but nonetheless wades directly into the fray (page 15). Her interpretation takes her into an exploration of the place of the “Anglo-Saxon myth” in the formation of American Exceptionalism and the importance of “blood” or “race” in the establishment of that myth. Brown’s interpretation shows that the Pilgrims and Puritans viewed themselves as God’s instruments for bringing about “God’s vision for the world…[and that] vision was effectively indistinguishable from the Anglo-Saxon/American vision for freedom and democracy” (page 25). She believes this led to an overvaluation of whiteness and a severe devaluation of blackness. She concludes that “Whiteness is the line drawn between Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism and any other corrupting influences” (page 39). Hence, whites developed a fundamental right to exclude any who were thought to bring about these corrupting influences. She finishes her first chapter by asking and answering the question, “Could Trayvon have stood his ground on that sidewalk” (page 44). Her answer: “Trayvon did not possess the property that would have afforded him that right” (page 46).
Douglas believes that the ancient Germanic myths of blood purity are “intrinsic to America’s identity” and provides the backdrop to supporting the underlying assumption that “black bodies” are presumed guilty until proven innocent. She asks the trenchant question, “Why is it reasonable to believe, even in the face of all evidence to the contrary, that a black murder victim is culpable in his or her own slaying” (page 49). She asserts that “natural law theo-ideology provides sacred legitimation” for a “stand your ground culture” (page 50). She traces the history associated with black bodies being seen as “hyper-sexualized…dangerous…[assumed as] criminal… [,and] guilty of something” (pages 64-89). She views this history as providing the backdrop to the current “stand your ground war” incited by “Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism” which “continues to generate new constructions of the black body as chattel” (pages 88-89). She believes the narrative behind Manifest Destiny…though no longer explicitly articulated” provides the fuel for the current “war declared by [that] narrative” against anything perceived to threaten the space controlled by Anglo-Saxon whiteness (page 112). She sees both the killing of Trayvon Martin and Emmitt Till growing out of this culture.
In part two of her book, Douglas examines “the tenacity of black faith” by reviewing the narratives that have undergirded the black faith tradition (page 139). She summarizes the claims pronounced in song that spoke to freedom and resistance in the face of the narrative of Anglo-Saxon exceptionalism throughout U.S. history. She reviews the black faith tradition’s reading of the Exodus story in scripture and highlights the nuanced perspective that “the particularity of God’s revelation is not the same as divine exclusivism. [This particularity] does not suggest that there are only certain people who are deserving of God’s care and freedom…It is through the Jesus narrative that the justice of God becomes clear, perhaps providing a counter-narrative to the promised-land narrative of Manifest Destiny” (pages 159-162).
Douglas next dives into a comparison of the unjust death of Jesus and the unjust death of Trayvon Martin. Without equating the two, she shows the deep connections between “the lengths that unscrupulous power will go to protect itself” (page 180). She asserts that the injustice associated with a “stand your ground culture” exposes it as a “culture of sin” (page 193). She maintains that the deeply unsympathetic perspective of those who take lives in this culture under the guise of self-protection are a product of this sin (page 194). As a counterpoint to this, Douglas challenges the white church “to step out of the space of cherished white property to be where Jesus is, with the crucified class of people” (page 201).
Douglas finishes her book by quoting President Obama regarding the importance of recognizing “that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away” (page 204). Instead, she joins the black voices that are currently turning the narrative of “exceptionalism” back upon our nation, and calling us to live into our aspiration to be a “city on a hill” (page 207). By seeking to “right the past” we will “acknowledge the ways in which our systems, structures, and ways of being in society are a continuation of the myths, the narratives, [and] the ideologies of the past” (page 221).
Trouble I’ve Seen – Drew G. I. Hart: Drew Hart begins his book by painting the picture of what it means to “fit the description” of “being a young black man in a white-controlled society” (page 15). He asserts that “Blackness is a visible marker that justifies suspicion, brutality, and confinement by white society” (page 15). He delivers a long, sad list of “racialized events” over the past 30 years that have sparked outrage in our country. He then confronts the differing perspectives held between whites and blacks on these events. He also claims that both white and black communities have often “internalized” the dominant while culture’s selfish pursuit of the “American dream” (page 19). He then pleads for the white church to wake up and directly confront the racial problems sitting at her doorstep without the “defensive and even antagonistic dismissals,” or “white fragility” that accompany attempts to begin the conversation (page 21). In addition, he maintains that the attempted conversations are often hindered from being productive because of an embedded “racial hierarchy” that sees these exchanges nearly always happening “under the terms and conditions of white people…” (page 27). Hart seeks to examine the implications of this power differential and how it fuels racism in the twenty-first century. He asserts that the church’s understanding of racism is frequently “too thin, narrow, and deficient for it to be anti-racist in its witness. Our very instincts about what racism is tend to be unhelpful” (page 28).
Hart then begins his assault on our society’s individualized views of racism. He starts by describing his experiences of living in a racialized society. He presents the different ways he was viewed in multiple settings in our society; and, shows how the white onlookers varied in their interpretations of him. He then moves to describe how whites and people of color interpret racial incidents from different perspectives; and, how that often those perspectives are interpreted by the other group as “playing a race card” (pages 44 through 47).
From here, Hart moves to define racism. In setting the context for his definition he describes the two common perspectives towards race that we often see in our society today. The first assumes that race “is an essential biological category;” while the other “pretends that it does not exist at all” (page 48). With this in mind, he asserts that “Although race is a lie that divides humanity into categories used to oppress non-white people, the concept has created tangible people groups” (page 48). In gathering a definition of race, Hart borrows from critical race theory which views race and racism from a structural and systemic perspective. He states that “racism is ‘a racialized systemic and structural system that organizes our society’…[it] structures society in such a way that the white dominant group systematically advantages its own group members while oppressing and exploiting other people” (page 51). From this vantage point, race and racism cannot be limited to an individualized phenomenon. It does have individual and personal aspects, but these individual and personal aspects receive their guidance and sustenance from social and systemic elements that support racism, and are in turn supported by it. Hart believes Christians must take the time to understand the historical origins of our racialized society and the violent effects that this history and the systems it birthed have upon black, brown and Native peoples.
After setting this context, Hart traces the “subversive way of Jesus,” who continually “clashed with the establishment in Jerusalem” (page 63). Hart reminds us that though “racial hierarchy didn’t exist in Jesus’ day,” he was forced to navigate “a society built upon other forms of hierarchical power, particularly as it related to ethnicity, gender, class, and other realities…” (page 59). Hart challenges Christians to view the world from the “perspective of the crucified Christ,” who took the side of the oppressed. He pushes the church to “wrestle with where our opinions have been shaped,” and to resist trusting our “own gut” when reacting to our intuitions on racial matters (pages 76 and 77). He traces the church’s failed history of trusting her intuitions, and challenges us to set aside our current intuitions that are highly influenced by dominant white culture in favor of letting those who are on the underside of our culture “lead and guide” us to a place of relational solidarity with the marginalized (pages 87 and 96).
Next, Hart dives deeply into the nature of “what it means to be white” (page 100). He highlights the important point that “what defined a white person several centuries ago is not what we mean by it now…Whiteness subtly shifts and changes over time as necessary…” (page 101). This shifting adjusts the manifestations of racism so that niceness veils the prevailing attitudes that assume the racial superiority of whiteness. Hart asserts that “White supremacy thrives off unexamined claims of colorblindness while simultaneously engaging in highly racialized practices” page 109). The deep identification with whiteness that sits at the personal core of so many people makes it hard to unmask the powers that seduce whites to want to control other people’s lives and seek the transformation of everyone else but themselves (page 116).
In the next two chapters Hart delves into issues associated with status, respectability, and the hierarchy that supports those notions. He contends that it “is impossible for any people who have been colonized or oppressed to not feel the lure of those in power” (page 136). Instead, he calls for both blacks and whites to resist the dominant culture’s lure to respectability and status, and to be “transformed agents who subvert from below the lie of our current world order” (page 142). This transformation includes challenging hierarchy in three interrelated areas: white supremacy, patriarchy, and plutocracy. It also includes recognizing that after 400 years of marinating in the subconscious messages of white supremacy, the terminal sickness of our society produces fear-based behaviors in many people in the dominant culture. He maintains that the tendency to “lord it over” others “normally occurs at the intersection of racialized, gendered, and economic oppression” (page 160). All three of these manifestations congeal in the mix of oppression that is antithetical to the way of Jesus. Hart contends that the “mythic white male figure” who assumes an apolitical stance above the fray, really is engaged in a power move that often serves to crush dissenting voices.
Hart concludes by offering seven “embodied practices and Christian disciplines” to help the church move forward (page 167). They are: Share Life Together; Practice Solidarity; See the World from Below; Subvert Racial Hierarchy in the Church; Soak in Scripture and The Spirit for a Renewed Social Imagination; Seek First the Kingdom of God; [and] Engage in Self-examination (pages 167 through 176). His sense of hope lies not in government policies, philanthropic activities of the rich, or celebrity engagement, but in “communities living in the presence of Jesus within the cracks and holes of the world” (page 179). Because the church in America has looked too often to the idols of power and wealth in the manner of the world, we have missed the true power of God that is “released by God at the axis of human vulnerability” (page 180). Hart urges the church to “rediscover our call” to be the community that works to imaginatively be a source of “healing and deliverance” to a world that needs the love of Jesus and the light of Christ.
Race: A Theological Account – J. Kameron Carter: Carter begins by addressing the relationship between race, religion, and the modern state. He maintains that if we misunderstand the relationship between the theological underpinnings of politics in early modernity, the problem of race will be misunderstood. He examines the anxiety at the heart of modernity highlighted by Foucault. He indicates that the “inner anxiety” of modernity manifests itself as “racial anxiety,” and particularly “over the Jew” and “what the Jew religiously and theopolitically symbolizes” (page 58). He dives deeply into an analysis of Kant’s views of race, and how Kant sought to advance the “project of modernity” by promoting a pure universal conception of reality, and pure humanity within that conception. Carter shows that as part of that project, Kant sought to sever “Christianity from its Jewish roots” (page 108). Kant does this through his reading of Paul as presenting “a rationally triumphalist account of Christianity as moral religion over the antirational, which is to say, the nonreligious ‘religion’ of the Jews” (page 113). Kant separates Jesus the Christ from his Jewish identity. Carter explains that the “narrative that [Kant thinks that Jesus] enacts is not in continuity with Israel’s convenantal history with YHWH” (page 117). In fact, Carter contends that this perspective has severe implications for how the modern project infected Christianity and led to the significant problems of “supersessionism” (page 121).
Next, Carter surveys the field of African American religious studies and analyzes how those in this field have conceived of the problems surrounding race and responded to it. He begins by examining the distinct expression of Christianity known as “Afro-Christianity” (page 128). Carter shows that the “slaves and their late-nineteenth century progeny came to understand the faulty historical foundations on which the plotline of American manifest destiny rested” (page 147). Carter asserts that through the struggle of living through the extreme difficulty of being oppressed “at the hands of professed fellow Christians…[their] faith began to weaken modernity’s discourse and pseudotheology of race” (page 155).
Carter then moves to examine the work of James Cone and black liberation theology. He highlights Cone’s sensitivity to “the problem of abstraction in theology,” where he quotes Cone as saying “…‘To talk of God or of man without first talking about Jesus Christ is to engage in idle, abstract words which have no relation to the Christian experience of revelation’…” (page 161). More specifically, Carter aligns with Cone in being wary of any attempt to separate “the Jesus of history from the Christ of faith,” and seeing that tendency as “a sure sign that abstraction lurks nearby” (page 169). As part of his examination of Cone’s thought, Carter surveys how Cone’s work speaks to issues raised in the theology of Karl Barth and Paul Tillich. In the final analysis, Carter thinks there is much to celebrate in black liberation theology and particularly with Cone’s theology; however, he concludes that it is “not radical enough” (page 192). It “leaves whiteness in place…” (page 192). Carter believes that “only a Christian theology of Israel establishes the framework within which to overcome the theological problem of whiteness” (page 193).
After his engagement of Cone’s theology, Carter sets the stage for his “interlude on Christology” by examining how the modern study of religion, hermeneutics, and culture affect the subject of black consciousness. He indicates that theological language within the black consciousness, is “freedom language” that points to the “…‘inner dynamics of the conversion experience’…” (page 223). The question this engagement yields for Carter is “how to make sense of New World Afro-Christian faith as a theological phenomenon that, in its re-performance of the master’s religion, disrupts modernity’s enslaving narrative…” (page 227).
As part of this trying making sense, Carter delivers, as an interlude, an examination of what, “within Gregory of Nyssa’s theological interpretation of Scripture, causes him [Gregory] to read against rather than within the social order” (page 233). Carter believes that a central element of Gregory’s reading is “his complex understanding of the image of God” (page 233). Carter makes the interesting, nuanced point that “while to be sure it is Christ who is the Image of God, more accurately it is Christ in his full humanity as Christ-Israel who is the Image of God” (page 241). Carter thinks of Gregory’s theology as being abolitionist because of how it views the Image of God in Jesus the Christ as the prototype of humanity which is to be set free in all ways through the Easter event. Human identity in this context is “covenantal and thus nonracial” (page 250).
After this interlude, Carter conducts a probing of the writing of three antebellum African American authors in order to deliver a theological reading of each. They include: Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man; Frederick Douglas’ 1845 Narrative; and, The Writings of Jarena Lee. As part of setting the stage for analyzing these texts, Carter directs his attention to how human difference is viewed. He concludes this analysis by asserting that Scripture portrays human difference as residing in a person’s relationship to their “covenant status” (page 261).
Carter shows that Hammon’s narrative is formed by theological ideas that frame his notions of identity in relation to selfhood and nation. Carter views the narrative “as part of a literary tradition that bears witness to an Afro-Christian struggle to theologically negotiate existence in the New World or in Modernity…[and, as] a moment in a long history…of struggling to live into Christianity in a different way…” (pages 284-286). That literary tradition is continued by Douglas as he, in the manner of Augustine, gives a confession “of how he remade himself beyond the confines of how race defined his existence in America” (page 287). In doing so, Douglas “brings the problematic of religion, race, and gender together” (page 295). However, Carter also believes that Douglas “cannot see that the cross of Christ is the revelation of power as the exchange of love…[he] cannot see how in the flesh of Christ crucified a wholly new social arrangement is inaugurated…[he] boxes himself into a fateful redeployment of the Easter story as a story of culturally illicit power” (pages 306 and 307). Instead, Carter ties the work of Jesus Christ back to the story of Israel who was to be the means of bringing about the “reversal of the judgment of Genesis 11…and reaches its crescendo in Jesus of Nazareth…” (page 309). Carter strongly asserts that “white theology” does not take into account the significance of Pentecost in overturning nationalism and reformulating identity. He contends that “white theology” is unable because of “the stammering of whiteness” to speak the truth about the God of Israel revealed at Pentecost. Finally, in the writings of Jarena Lee, Carter shows that “Pentecost is a Christological event…Zion and Pentecost are two sides of the same theological reality” (page 315). Lee, in her autobiography, sees herself as journeying to Zion in order “to establish a just community” (page 328).
Carter’s postlude and epilogue follows. In the postlude he considers a reading of Maximus the Confessor as having an imaginative vision of love that unifies God with creation in the work of the second Adam, Jesus Christ. This in turn enables humanity to heal her divisions through the work of Christ, whose “flesh transfigures all flesh” (page 359). Again, Carter highlights the healing of Pentecost in “reimagining the order of creation” (page 365). In the epilogue, Carter presses the issue of how theologians should do their work given the reality of the “crises of life and death” facing so many in our world (page 377). He contends that “Christian theology must take its bearings from the Christian theological languages and practices that arise from the lived Christian worlds of dark peoples in modernity and how such peoples reclaimed (and in their own ways salvaged) the language of Christianity, and thus Christian theology, from being a discourse of death – their death” (page 378).
Appreciation and Strengths/Weaknesses:
Each book, in one form or another, deals well with various aspects of the problems we face with respect to racism. Each is deeply concerned with how the church has approached issues of race and offers clear and compelling critiques of past and current approaches to racial issues.
In particular, I appreciate Douglas’ short, yet insightful description of the complicated nature of how other European immigrants (“new stock) navigated their relationship with the dominant “Anglo-Saxon” culture of the United States. She describes this group’s desire to “distance themselves” from being thought of as “colored” (page 35). Even white workers in the lower classes made clear that “only black people had masters; thus they adopted the Dutch term ‘boss’…” (page 36). I also found it helpful to face the clarity with which she continually states and restates the question “Why is it reasonable to believe, even in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, that a black murder victim is culpable in his or her own slaying?” (page 49). I think her following statement that “Natural law theory in the hands of subjugating power can become a dangerous tool” stands as an important reminder of the difficulties of wielding power well. I agree with her assertion that the “Unsympathetic understanding” which so many people exhibited in the face of the killing of Trayvon Martin “is a product of a culture of sin” (page 194). Douglas also provides an excellent reminder that black people’s identification with the Israelites in the Exodus narrative ends when Israel enters the Promised Land. She offers a helpful reminder that “through the Jesus story…perhaps…a counter narrative to the Promised Land narrative of manifest destiny” can offer us a way forward to the justice of God (page 162). In that context, she follows this with another insightful comment that “God is always greater and more complex than our words about God” (page 164). Finally, I resonate with her conclusion that “It should not be that easy to deny the life of another human being. To do such a thing certainly does not reflect ‘the plan’ of a God who creates life” (page 181). Her lamentation at the silence of the white church in the face of these issues needs to be heard as a troubling call to change. She helpfully reminds us that “black voices” as they have done in the past, have again, “turned the narrative of ‘exceptionalism’ back upon the nation and called it to live into its very claims to be that ‘city on a hill’ shining forth divine virtues of morality and freedom” (page 207).
With respect to Hart’s work, I found his personal stories to be powerful tools in illustrating the shape and flavor of the current problems at the root of the racial issues facing the church today. These stories helped to keep his treatment from veering into anything approaching abstraction. Hart also clearly and directly addresses the problems of prioritizing an individualistic view of racism if we hope to heal the divides in our churches and society. I also appreciate, and agree with the attention he draws to the “settler colonialism” from which Native American’s have suffered. The lack of awareness and concern that churches have shown to this problem sits directly within the broader context of racism. I agree with his contention that it is extremely significant that America has marinated for 400 years in the stew of racialized white supremacy. To think that this will not yield abhorrent consequences that regularly bubble to the surface is naïve in the extreme. His strongly delivered point that “being a product of one’s time does not absolve anyone. We are all products of our time,” is a poignant reminder of the importance of challenging all things in the light of the teachings of Jesus (page 80). In a similar vein, I believe Hart’s admonition that we not trust our flawed instincts, given how poorly Christians have been served in the past by their “gut” (common sense), is a wise course of action. His challenge to the “unexamined claims of color blindness” coupled with describing the actions of “the mythic white male” exercising power, serve well to set the context for how these issues must be addressed in order to heal us from the disease of racism (pages 109 and 164). I think his strongest, most important, and yet most difficult admonition or challenge to White Christians is “to do something seemingly absurd and unnatural, yet very Christian in orientation: they must move decisively toward a counterintuitive solidarity with those on the margins. They must allow the eyes of the violated of the land to lead and guide them, seeking to have renewed minds no longer conformed to the patterns of our world” (page 87). When combined with his suggestion of shifting the power differential in relationships between whites and non-whites, I believe progress in dealing with the problem of racism may be helped toward healing.
Finally, Carter’s work provides a detailed and trenchant analysis of how race came to be what it is in the Western world, and how theology contributed to that development. I agree with his primary contention that modernity sought to, and for the most part was successful in severing Christianity from its Jewish roots. This in turn created and fed the immense problems the church and the world have faced regarding race. I appreciated his detailed analysis of Kant, and his informative reading of African-American writers and the early church theologians Gregory and Maximus in their reflection on Christianity and issues related to race. I also think Carter expressed several theological concerns with a level of clarity and incisiveness rarely seen from those discussing issues of race. I found his analysis of the importance of the covenant in the life of Israel and Christianity, and the relationship of Christology to the covenant to be well developed and insightful. Though mentioned or probed by others when considering the racialization of the western world, I think that Carter delves into the implications of the incarnation of Jesus Christ better than anyone I’ve read to this point. When coupled with his treatments of the effects of Gnosticism and the importance of Pentecost in the life of Christianity, I think Carter’s work should be read by anyone truly interested in considering the effect of race in the Church and the world.
In terms of what I wish the authors had done differently in their engagement with their subjects, I have very few points to make. With respect to Douglas, I wish that she had set the context of the problems that have risen out of the Anglo-Saxon myth, Manifest Destiny, and American Exceptionalism, by sketching the background of modernity and the rise of the Enlightenment. I think she would have served her readers better if she had more directly addressed why the Anglo-Saxon myth was evil in a broader context, rather than just how it contributes to the abuse of non-Anglo Saxons. Also, throughout the book, Douglas seems unclear as to whether Manifest Destiny is inherently evil, or whether how it is implemented is the problem. I also think Douglas offers a poor reading of the “Evangelical Solution” that she presents (page 34). I think her characterization of the metaphors she cites as having racial meanings misses the mark. Additionally, in my opinion, her interpretation of at least two of the stories she tells regarding her young son’s engagement with other children led her to wrong conclusions regarding these children being products of “America’s narrative of exceptionalism,” or viewing her son “at two looking like a guilty criminal” (pages 44 and 87). As a white male, I think it’s important for me to hear and understand her perspective; but, I think in this instance she may (understandably) have misunderstood the interactions between the children in the stories she presents. Finally, (and more importantly) I think she did not adequately address the underlying issue: should anyone have the right to stand their ground? And, how does her view of this whole issue relate to the justice of God – or even – what is God’s justice? What does God’s justice look like and how should the Church work toward that?
In terms of Hart, I think his overall argument would have benefited from setting the historical context of racism. Even if he did not present as detailed of an analysis as the one delivered by Carter, a summary of the rise of modernity and how the modern project fed into the racialization of the Western world would have been helpful. Most of his work simply delivered a vivid description of the world as it is (or was), but not a description of why, from an historical perspective, the ideas that supported racism have developed in the manner that they have. Secondly, I think Hart’s work would have been strengthened if he had explored more deeply the idea of “scapegoat” that he briefly mentioned regarding mainstream America’s tendency to reflexively make examples of overt racism, while still retaining the systems that support white supremacy (pages 53-55). I think an exploration of Mimetic Scapegoat Theory from an historical perspective would have helped Hart to show how insidious and unhelpful the mob mentality of scapegoating is to affecting healing within a society.
Finally, with respect to the work of Carter, I have even less that I think should, or could, have been handled differently. I think when addressing identity issues and the importance of Israel in fueling the Christian imagination, he could have probed more intently into Romans chapters 9 through 11. I realize Carter’s work was not a direct exegetical analysis of relevant scriptural passages, but rather a theological and historical exploration of the subject of race. Nevertheless, I believe this passage is extremely significant to the subject at hand; and, an analysis of that passage could have contributed well to his argument. Secondly, I think that Carter’s argument might have benefited from an engagement with the work of E.P. Sanders and N.T. Wright with respect to the subject of Jesus Christ as the “recapitulation of Israel’s story,” and the notion of “Christ-Israel” as the image of God (pages 31 and 241).
Todd Rivetti 