2006 Colloquy on “Race and Reformed Theology”
Institute for Reformed Theology
Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education

Course Topics and Readings: 

Session 1:  Racial Justice and the Reformed Tradition: Visions and Challenges

Background Reading:

• Blakely, Allison. Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern Society. (Indiana Univ. Pr., 1993)
• Boesak, Allan. Black and Reformed: Apartheid, Liberation and the Calvinist Tradition edited by Leonard Sweetman. (Orbis Books, 1984)
• Gerstner, Jonathan Neil. Thousand Generation Covenant: Dutch Reformed Covenant Theology and Group Identity in Colonial South Africa, 1652-1814. (Brill Academic Pr., 1991)
• Hood, Robert E. Begrimed and Black: Christian Traditions on Blacks and Blackness. (Fortress, 1994)
• Lindqvist, Sven. Exterminate All the Brutes. (New Pr., 1996)
• McGrath, Alister E. A Life of John Calvin: A Study in the Shaping of Western Culture. (Blackwell, 1990) 

Recommended Reading:

• Hannaford, Ivan. Race: The History of an Idea in the West. (Wash., DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Pr., 1996)                            
• Bouwsma, William J. John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait. (Oxford Univ. Pr., 1988)

Supplementary Reading:

• Gerrish, Brian A. Grace and Gratitude: The Eucharistic Theology of John Calvin. (Fortress, 1994)
• Higginbotham, A. Leon. In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process. (Oxford Univ. Pr., 1978)
• Hinks, Peter P., ed. David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. (Penn State Univ.Pr., 2000)
• Postma, Johannes Menne. The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600-1815. (Cambridge Univ. Pr., 1900)
• Snowden, Frank. Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks. (Harvard Univ. Pr., 1983)
• Wood, Forest G. The Arrogance of Faith: Christianity and Race in America from the Colonial Era to the Twentieth Century.  (Northeastern Univ. Pr., 1990)

Session 2:  Biblical Hermeneutics and Racial Justice

Background Reading:

• Blount, Brian K. Then the Whisper Put on Flesh: New Testament Ethics in an African American Context. (Abingdon Pr., 2001)
• DeVries, Dawn. Jesus Christ in the Preaching of Calvin and Schleiermacher. (Westminster John Knox Pr., 1996)
• Felder, Cain H., ed. Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation. (Fortress Pr., 1991)
• Goldenberg, David M. The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam. (Princeton Univ. Pr., 2003)
• Gutierrez-Jones, Carl Scott. Critical Race Narratives: A Study of Race, Rhetoric and Injury. (NYU Pr., 2001)
• Haynes, Stephen R. Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery. (Oxford Univ. Pr., 2002)
• Kelly, Shawn. Racializing Jesus: Race, Ideology and the Formation of Modern Biblical Scholarship. (Routledge, 2002)

Recommended Reading:

• Puckett, David L. John Calvin’s Exegesis of the Old Testament. (Westminster John Knox Pr., 1995)

Supplementary Reading:

• Allen, Theodore W. The Invention of the White Race: The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America. (Verso, 1997)
• Byron, Gay. Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Literature. (Routledge, 2002)
• Daly, John Patrick. When Slavery Was Called Freedom: Evangelicalism, Proslavery and the Causes of the Civil War. (Univ. of KY, 2002)
• Haas, Guenther H. The Concept of Equity in Calvin’s Ethics. (Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Pr., 1997)
• Rosello, Mireille. Declining the Stereotype: Ethnicity and Representation in French Cultures. (Univ. Pr. of New England, 1998)
• Smith, John David, ed. Biblical and “Scientific” Defense of Slavery. (Garland Pub., 1993)
• Wu, Frank. Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White. (Basic Books, 2002)

Session 3:  Historical and Current Institutional Challenges for Racial Justice in the Presbyterian Church (USA)

Background Reading:

• Butin, Philip W. Revelation, Redemption and Response: Calvin’s Trinitarian Understanding of the Divine-Human Relationship. (Oxford Univ. Pr., 1995)
• Carter, Anthony J. On Being Black and Reformed: A New Perspective on the African-American Christian Experience. (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R Pub., 2003)
• Garnet, Henry Highland. The Past and the Present Condition and the Destiny of the Colored Race. (1848 rpt. Miami, FL: Mnemosyne Pub. Inc.,1969)
• Murray, Andrew E. Presbyterians and the Negro – A History. (Presbyterian Historical Society, 1966)
• Parker, Inez Moore.  The Rise and Decline of the Program of Education for Black Presbyterians of the United Presbyterian Church U.S. A., 1865-1970. (Tulsa:  Trinity Univ. Pr., 1977)
• Steinmentz, David C. Calvin in Context. (Oxford Univ. Pr., 1995)
• Williams, Patricia  J. Seeing a Color-Blind Future: The Paradox of Race. (Noonday Pr., 1998)

Recommended Reading:

• Wilmore, Gayraud S. Black and Presbyterian: The Heritage and the Hope. (1983; rpt. Louisville: Westminster Pr., 1998)

Supplementary Reading:

• Alvis, Joel L. Religion and Race: Southern Presbyterians, 1946-1983.  (Univ of Al Pr., 1994)
• Boles, John B., ed. Masters and Slaves in the House of Lord: Race and Religion in the American South, 1740 – 1870.  (Univ. Pr. of KY, 1988)
• Fosl, Catherine. Subversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002)
• Frankenberg, Ruth. White Women, Race Matters: The Social Construction of Whiteness. (Univ. of Minn Pr., 1993)
• Martinez, Ruben. Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail. (Metropolitan Books, 2001)
• Myers, Gustavus. History of Bigotry in the United States. (Random House, 1943)
• Wilmore, Gayraud S. Pragmatic Spirituality: The Christian Faith Through an Africentric Lens.  (NY Univ. Pr., 2004)

Session 4:  Cultural Dispositions toward Race in America

Background Reading:

• Deloria, Philip J. Playing Indian. (Yale Univ. Pr., 1998)
• Goldschmidt, Henry and Elizabeth McAlister, eds. Race, Nation and Religion in the America.  (Oxford Univ. Pr., 2004)
• Jordan, Winthrop D. The White Man’s Burden: Historical Origins of Racism in the United States. (Oxford Univ. Pr., 1974)
• Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics.  (Temple Univ. Pr., 1998)
• Limon, Graciela. Erased Faces:A Novel. (Arte Publico Pr., 2001)
• Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. (Vintage Books, 1993)

Recommended Reading:

• Mann, Charles. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus. (Alfred A. Knopf, 2005)
• West, Cornel. Race Matters. (1994, 2^nd Vintage Books, 2001)

Supplementary Reading:

• Barkun, Michael. Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement. (Univ. of NC Pr., 1994)
• Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race.  (Harvard Univ. Pr., 1998)
• Lewis, Amanda E. Race in the Schoolyard: Negotiating the Color Line in Classrooms and Communities. (Rutgers Univ. Pr., 2004)
• Moore, Marijo, ed. Foreword by Vine Deloria, Jr. Genocide of the Mind: New Native American Writing. (Thunder’s Mouth Pr/Nation Books, 2003)
• Pitkin, Barbara. What Pure Eyes Could See: Faith, Creation, and History in John Calvin’s Theology. (Oxford Univ. Pr., 1999)

Session 5:  Collective Just Acts

Background Reading:

• Harris, Michael D. Colored Pictures: Race and Visual Representation. (U of NC, 2003)
• Juster, Susan and Lisa MacFarlane, eds. A Mighty Baptism: Race, Gender, and the Creation of American Protestantism. (Cornell Univ. Pr., 1996)
• Mills, Charles W. The Racial Contract.  (Cornell Univ. Pr., 1997)
• Mihesuah, Devon. Indigenous American Women: Decolonization, Empowerment, Activism. (Univ. of Nebraska, 2003)
• Taylor, Mark Lewis. The Executed God: The Way of the Cross in Lockdown America. (Fortress Pr., 2001)
• Valls, Andrew, ed. Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy. (Cornell Univ. Pr., 2005)
• Williams, Delores S. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. (Orbis Books, 1993)

Recommended Reading:

• Marsh, Charles. The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice from the Civil Rights Movement to Today. (University of VA, 2004)
• Tyson, Timothy B. Blood Done Signed My Name: A True Story (Three Rivers Press, 2004)

Supplementary Reading:

• Dow, Mark. American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons. (Univ.of CA Pr., 2004)
• Ellison, Marvin and Sylvia Thorson-Smith, eds. Body and Soul: Rethinking Sexuality as Justice-Love. (Pilgrim Pr., 2003)
• Herivel, Taraand Paul Wright, eds. Prison Nation  (Routledge, 2003)
• Jones, Serene. Calvin and the Rhetoric of Piety. (Westminster John Knox Pr., 1995)
• Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. (Simon & Schuster, 1995)
• Phillips, Caryl. The European Tribe. (1992; Vintage Books, 2000)
• Shultz, Jim. The Democracy’s Owner’s Manual: A Practical Guide to Changing the World. (Rutgers Univ. Pr., 2002)
• Singley, Bernestine et al. When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal History. (Lawrence Hill, 2002)