White Lies considers African-American bodies as the site of cultural debates over a contested "white religion" in the United States. Rooting his analysis in the work of W.E.B. DuBois and James Baldwin, Christopher Driscoll traces the shifting definitions of "white religion" from the nineteenth century up to the death of Michael Brown and other racial controversies of the present day. He engages both modern philosophers and popular imagery to isolate the instabilities central to a "white religion," including the inadequacy of this framing concept as a way of describing and processing death. The book will be of interest to students and scholars interested in African-American Religion, philosophy and race, and Whiteness Studies.
Author(s): Christopher M. Driscoll
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2015
Introduction: Sighting white American religion in twilight times 1
PART I
Learning to die 23
1 In the shadows of whiteness: Giving life (through death)
to a White Lie 25
2 The white man’s god complex: Most Americans,
the (white) power of theism, and beginning to believe in
twilight 65
3 Battling white lies: Exaggerated identity and the twilight of
American religion 117
PART II
Learning to die with others 167
4 Accepting the hell of death: Narrating sources, methods, and
norms of a limited religious outlook 169
5 Rejecting the “gift of death”: White social responsibility in
twilight times 217
viii Contents
6 Requiem for whiteness: Mourning, freedom in uncertainty,
and the final embrace of twilight 257
Postmortem: A warning 307
Index 309
