Customer Reviews

The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In The Forging of Races Colin Kidd examines the relationship between Biblical Christianity and the construction of race in the 17th to 21st century. While Kidd went into the project with a presupposition about the nature of the relationship of Christianity and racism (he hypothesized "that the dethroning of biblical authority was a necessary prelude to the emergence of modern racism" ), in the end he found that the relationship between the two is much more complicated.

Kidd highlights a significant tension between science (consisting of biology, sociology, and anthropology) and theology from which understandings and meanings of race were negotiated in the 17th to 21st century time period. Given the Christianized milieu of the time period, the emerging scientific understandings of race were often held in check by the dominant theological discourse. This meant that racial oppression and liberation were often promulgated on theological terms rather than on scientific ones. With this in mind, Kidd also notes that competing discourses existed within both the scientific and theological camps just as much as between them.

One of the more prominent themes that Kidd discusses is the multitude of interpretations of key Biblical texts, primarily the book of Genesis. Of the several themes covered in this area, the two most prominent in Kidd's analysis is the monogenesis/polygenesis debate and the meaning behind the story of Ham and the curse placed on his son Canaan. Out of all the stories and issues covered in Kidd's text, these two seem to carry the most weight when it comes to understanding how and why racism became so prominent in the 17th to 21st century time period.
Kidd illustrates throughout the text that the various interpretations of the stories in Genesis (such as the creation account or the story of Ham's punishment) do not provide a causal link between Christianity and racism (or even secularism and racism). Rather, these two stories complicated the way in which racism was manifest in this time period. For example, it might seem logical to believe that a monogenist perspective fosters unity of humanity rather than division.

Yet Kidd shows how various intellectual leaders use monogensist (as well as polygensist) understandings of Creation to both subvert and promote racism. Multiple meanings are similarly derived from the story concerning the punishment of Ham/Canaan as well. Some intellectuals interpreted the story through a more humanizing, non-racist lens while others interpreted it in a way that justified racism. Fundamental to Kidd's analysis is that the varying interpretations of biblical Scripture, when added to the threat presented by the advancement of science, compounded the complexity of how race was understood.

I highly recommend this book. It is a challenging, provocative, and intellectually stimulating work of scholarship.

Service and product were great . . . delivered in a timely manner . . . no problems!!!