The Enduring Presence of White Supremacy in the U.S.
By John R. Connolly
July 10, 2025
Black Theology's Challenge for American Catholic Theology.
The recent republication of my article, Revelation as Liberation from Oppression: Black Theology’s Challenge for American Catholic Theology, has urged me to undertake a renewed reflection on the influence of the false doctrine of White Supremacy in the United States today, both in the Church and the State. This is particularly urgent when every day we see in the news signs of a re-emergence of the influence of White Supremacy in the political, social, legal, and economic decisions and policies of the present U.S. government often with the approval, sometimes with the silent acquiesce, of the institutional Christian churches, both Catholic and Protestant. All of this, of course, is being enthusiastically fueled by the fanatic support of many individual Christian believers. In fact, there are increasing signs that Trump and the Maga republicans along with their supporters are in engaged in a campaign to deliberately re-institutionalize White Supremacy disguised under the ill-conceived and false slogans of “Putting America First,” and “Making America Great Again.”
My article, which was first published in Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society, 26, no 2 (1999): 241, was republished by Horizons in December 2024 (Horizons 51, no.2 (2024): 346.
A Retrospective and Prospective
Roundtable on the Fiftieth Anniversary of Horizons
“My article was reprinted in Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society as one of four theological roundtables published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the journal. In introducing my article, the editor made the following comments. “There is a time and a season for everything, so the Qoheleth teaches. In 1999, John Connolly wrote in the pages of Horizons that James H. Cone admonished white Christians not to speak about the struggle for Black liberation but to be quiet and learn from Black Americans: Connolly further observed that Cone also urged ‘whites to speak out on the oppression of blacks in the United States.’ There is a time and a season to listen and a time to advocate.
The editors of Horizons conclude the commemoration of its fiftieth anniversary with a theological roundtable on Connolly’s article ‘Revelation as Liberation from Oppression: Black Theology’s Challenge for American Catholic Theology,’ which offered his theological response to the work of James H. Cone. Connolly was compelled to speak. Coincidentally, Connolly’s challenge to readers was published in the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of Horizons. This fourth anniversary roundtable affords the membership of the College Theology Society as well as the wider readership of Horizons (both historically predominantly white) an opportunity to reflect on Connolly’s challenges and to consider when we were vocal when we should have been silent and when we were silent when we should have been protesting for liberation.
M. Shawn Copeland (Boston College), winner of the 2024 College Theology Society’s Presidential Award and Karen Teel (University of San Diego) generously agreed to write analyses of Connolly’s work. Their clear-eyed and expert reflections invite readers to reevaluate their engagement or lack of engagement with the charges from Cone and Connolly’s [efforts] to reenvision white theology. Indeed, the shortcomings and sins of Horizons as complicit in structural racism and white theology necessarily emerge as a result of the roundtable. May the staff, authors, and readers of Horizons heed, ever so late, Cone’s challenges and Connolly’s example to us.”
My presentation on white supremacy continues with copies of my article and the two responses by M. Shawn Copeland and Karen Teel.
My article:
Revelation as Liberation from Oppression: Black Theology's Challenge for American Catholic Theology
Revelation as Liberation from Oppression: Black Theology's Challenge for American Catholic Theology
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Copeland's Response
Recalling Black Theology's Insistent Challenge to American Catholic Theology: A Response to John Connolly's "Revelation as Liberation"
Recalling Black Theology's Insistent Challenge to American Catholic Theology: A Response to John Connolly's "Revelation as Liberation"
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Teel's Response
The Good, Segregationist Catholics: A Meditation on John R. Connolly's "Revelation as Liberation from Oppression"
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