CO-SPONSORSHIP: History of Christianity Unit and Latina/o Religion, Culture, and Society Unit
Roundtable Book Panel on Reckoning with History: Settler Colonialism, Slavery and the Making of American Christianity by William Yoo (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2025)
The Latina/o Religion, Culture and Society unit and the History of Christianity units invite scholars to explore the theme of Freedom by engaging William Yoo’s Reckoning with History through the lenses of history, theology, and social justice. Panelists should discuss how the legacies of settler colonialism and slavery have shaped—and continue to shape—religious thought, practices, and institutions, particularly within the context of American Christianity. This session calls for critical engagement with the paradoxes of freedom in religious and national narratives.
We encourage panelists to address the following questions: How did Christian theology support systems of oppression such as land dispossession and enslavement while proclaiming a gospel that is inherently liberative? How did Indigenous, Black, or Latine Christians resist and reimagine freedom within these oppressive systems? What can contemporary communities, especially those struggling for dignity, learn from this history as they grapple with ongoing inequities in church and society?
We welcome submissions that focus on, but are not limited to, one of the following themes:
- Theological justifications and critiques of slavery and settler colonialism.
- Historical and contemporary intersections of race, religion, and nationalism in shaping American Christianity.
- Contributions of Black, Indigenous, Latine and other marginalized voices to constructing prophetic theologies of liberation.
- Modern-day implications of settler colonialism and slavery in Christian theology, ethics, and activism.
- The role of memoirs, sermons, and forms of public discourse practices in shaping narratives of freedom or exclusion.