Protestant Theology and Antiblackness: Law and Gospel in the Afterlife of Racial Slavery Open Access
Harris, Wyatt (Fall 2025)
Abstract
This project puts together two discourses for the first time: Lutheran theology and Afropessimsim. In the process, this project illuminates formal parallels in ideas, frameworks, and arguments concerning the human condition – sin and self-justification in Lutheran theology, violence and incoherence structuring Black life in Afropessimism. The aim of this illumination is to open new ground toward grasping the problems of antiblack racism and antiblack violence which lie at the heart of contemporary civil society. With this aim in mind, critical questions and perspectives in Black Studies, Afropessimism in particular, lead the way here and pose the questions this project seeks to answer. Afropessimism shifts the perspective on race talk, setting aside a human/less-than-human binary with a framework of social or political justice as anchor, and replacing the former with a Black/non-Black binary which throws into sharp relief unaddressed questions and positions structuring Black life, particularly the problem of the intimate association of death with life in Black discourses. This project takes the traditional starting point of Lutheran social and political thought, that God’s word of the Law in two uses facilitates and sustains a post-Reformation civil society, and thinks about these Lutheran commitments in light of Afropessimism’s paradigmatic critique of civil society itself. A particular discourse within Lutheran theology proffered by Gerhard Forde, Stephen Paulson, and Vitor Westhelle provide heuristic theological ideas and frameworks which both render Afropessimist ideas and frameworks theologically intelligible and also facilitate idea and framework overlap between the two discourses. In the process, the project shows how Afropessimism can take explicit theological form when articulated in dialogue with certain expressions of Lutheran theology. Afropessimism’s theological form forces a reckoning for the particular vein of Lutheran theology in operation throughout this project. The hope is that the identified formal parallels, as well as the consequences for Lutheran theology, open new paths for other theological traditions to engage the challenging discourse of Afropessimism. At the same time, Afropessimism’s questions and claims are shown to rise beyond the social, cultural, and political registers to reach the level of theological consideration.
Table of Contents
Epigraphs
Introduction - Civil Society in the Afterlife of Slavery: Afropessimism and the Challenge for Christian Theology
I. Introduction
II. What is Antiblackness?
III. The Problem of the Project
IV. The Argument of the Project
V. Why Afropessimism?
VI. How the Project Unfolds
A. Chapter One
B. Chapter Two
C. Chapters Three and Four
D. Chapter Five
E. Chapter Six
F. Conclusion
VII. On Method
VIII. A Note on my use of the terms “Black” and “Blackness”
IX. A Note on my Capitalization of Particular Terms
Chapter One - The Law in Lutheran Theology: A Review of the Relevant Literature
I. Luther
A. Broader Context: Luther’s Two-Kingdoms Theory
B. Luther’s Account of the Law
1. Law
2. Emphases and Implications
II. From Melanchthon to the Scholastics: A Departure from Luther
A. The Early Melanchthon and Early Lutheran Confessional and Catechetical Documents
B. Melanchthon’s Departure from Luther
C. Recapitulation in the Formula of Concord
D. Lutheran Scholasticism
III. A Representation of Lutheran Theology in Germany from the Enlightenment to Today
A. The Lutheran Renaissance (Briefly)
B. Paul Althaus
C. Gerhard Ebeling
D. Oswald Bayer
IV. The North American Context I: Traditional Interpretations
A. David S. Yeago
B. William Lazareth
C. Mark C. Mattes
V. The North American Context II: Critical Reframing and Challenge
A. Vitor Westhelle
B. Cynthia D. Moe-Lobeda
VI. Summary and Conclusion
Chapter Two - Abstract Fantasy: God, Law, and Human Desire
I. Introduction
II. The “Static-Ontological” Concept of the Law
III. The “Legal Scheme”
IV. Desire’s Plight: Humanity’s “Upward Fall”
A. The Upward Fall
B. Humans in Bondage
V. Patterns of Human Desire for the Law
A. Pattern One - Law Infinite
B. Pattern Two - Law Eternal
C. Pattern Three - Law Incarnate
D. Summing Up
VI. Conclusion
Chapter Three - Concrete Fantasy I: Afropessimism, Desire, and the Human Legal Scheme
I. Introduction to Chapters Three and Four
II. The Afropessimist Legal Scheme
A. Wilderson’s Definition of Ontology
B. Afropessimist Meta-Theoretical Lenses
III. David Marriott on Desire and Law in an Antiblack World
A. Epidermalization as Antiblack Subject Formation
B. Problematics of Black Vertigo - Two Examples
1. Language Between Black and Human
2. Inter- and Intra-Human Recognition
C. Desire as Law
IV. Wilderson and Hartman on the Essence of Slavery
A. The Three Constituent Elements of Slavery and the Absent Presence of Blackness in the World
B. Black Absence = Lack of Consent
V. Conclusion
Chapter Four - Concrete Fantasy II: An Afropessimist Inflection on the Patterns of Human Desire
I. Introduction
II. Law Infinite as Ruse of Narrative Coherence
III. Law Eternal as Ruse of Analogy
A. The Ruse of Analogy
B. Afropessimist Examples of the Non-Analogy Between Black and Human
1. On the Non-Analogy of Red and Black
2. On the Non-Analogy between Black and Jewish Holocausts
C. Theologically Inflected Non-Analogy
IV. Law Incarnate as Logic of Humiliation and Suffering
A. Marriott on the Communal Desires of Lynching
V. Conclusion
Chapter Five - Luther’s Libidinal Hagar: An Afropessimist Reckoning for Lutheran Theology
I. Introduction
II. Luther on Christian Freedom: Simul Iustus et Peccator
III. An Afropessimist Reckoning for Lutheran Theology
A. Delores S. Williams on Hagar
B. Luther’s Interpretation of Hagar in Genesis 16
C. Luther’s Libidinal Hagar
1. Genesis 21
D. Implications of Luther’s Interpretation of Hagar
E. A Reckoning for Lutheran Theology
IV. Conclusion
Chapter Six - Proclamation in Black: The End of Civil Society and the Unimaginable New World
I. Introduction
II. The End of the Law and the Promise of the Gospel
A. Luther on the Necessity of the Law’s Proclamation
B. Paulson on the Necessity of the Law’s Proclamation
III. Transition to Proclamation in Black
A. Robert Jenson on the Perpetual Need for New Language
B. Paul Hinlicky on the Immanent Frame
C. Vitor Westhelle on the Utter Specificity of Contextual Proclamation
IV. Proclamation of the Law in Black
A. Wilderson on Black Desire’s Condemnation of Civil Society
B. João H. Costa Vargas on the Incommunicability of Blackness via Analogy
V. Proclamation of the Gospel in Black
A. Non-negated Negativity - David Marriott’s Proclamation
B. Not Emancipation but… Freedom! Rinaldo Walcott’s Proclamation
C. The Promise of the non-Human Animal - Joshua Bennett’s Proclamation
VI. Conclusion
A. Tarrying-with
B. Creative Destruction - Burning the Plantation
Conclusion - Implications, Limitations, and Final Thoughts
I. Implication of this Project: The Ethical Challenge
II. Limitations of this Project
III. Further Implications and Final Thoughts
Bibliography
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