Postcolonial Whiteness: Being-With in Worship

Abstract

I was leading a workshop on intercultural worship planning in a medium-sized urban mainline Protestant church a few years ago, and as we began our time together, I asked people to break into small groups and introduce themselves to each other by talking about their racial background and cultural heritage. As people milled about, settling into their small groups, a white woman came up to me and said, “I’m not sure what to say. I mean, I don’t really have a culture; I’m just American. Is that what you mean, just say that I’m American?” Another person, overhearing our conversation chimed in, saying, “Yeah, you know, I’m white; I don’t think I have a lot to contribute to a conversation on race.” These two sentiments illustrate what prompts me to write this essay. In the crucial work of developing the connection between liturgical studies and postcolonial criticism, attention must be paid to the intersections of dominance, privilege, and power centered in colonial whiteness. The tendency of colonizing whiteness to be “both invisible to itself and the norm by which everything else is measured,”¹ requires critical engagement, especially in the context of Christian worship, which affirms the equal citizenship of all people in the Body of Christ. Thus, the question that motivates this essay is “How can white North American Christians embody postcolonial whiteness in their liturgical practices, and what might that contribute to the transformation sought by postcolonial criticism?”