Christ the Mediator and the Idol of Whiteness: Christological Anthropology in T. F. Torrance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Willie Jennings

Abstract

This dissertation asks how the theological anthropologies of T. F. Torrance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Willie Jennings help Christians diagnose and subvert the idolatry of our current racial imagination. It concludes that an idol we can call “whiteness” competes with Christ to function as the mediator of social identity, our goal and ideal human, and the icon held between us. This idolatry interferes with our ability to become the people we are meant to be together in Christ by the power of the Spirit. This theological anthropology enables us to identify the idol of whiteness at work in popular media like blockbuster movies, and it equips us to undermine this idol through our engagement of the arts, popular or otherwise, so that we might together develop a new, healthier, and holier imagination.