FrancisQuitoR.
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Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) September 15, 2023: Arguably the most important journey literature in Western cultural history includes the ancient Homeric epic account of Odysseus' journey around the Mediterranean and the underworld, the Odyssey; and Virgil's ancient derivative epic account of Aeneas' journey around the Mediterranean and the underworld; and Dante's medieval account of Dante-the-character and Virgil's colorful walking journey through the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso, The Divine Comedy; and James Joyce's twentieth-century modernist account of certain characters walking journey around Dublin one day, Ulysses.
Against this Western cultural backdrop of portrayals of different kinds of journeys, it strikes me that the white American Baptist religion scholar Robert P. Jones is constructing his own personal journey narrative ("my reeducation journey" [2023, p. 18]) through his three most recent books, all published by Simon & Schuster:
(1) The End of White Christian America (2016);
(2) White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity (2021);
(3) The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy: And the Path to a Shared American Future (2023).
Make no mistake about it, Jones' new 2023 book is designed to be a sharper entry in our current culture wars in the United States today than even his 2016 and 2021 books were. Consequently, I hope that Jones' new 2023 book becomes a blockbuster best-seller.
The word White appears in all three titles of Jones' most recent books. Jones appears to be excruciatingly self-conscious about being white -- not that this is the only thing about his life that he appears to be excruciatingly self-conscious. In Dante's Divine Comedy, Dante-the-character is Dante-the author's self-conscious construction of himself - or, perhaps more accurately, of his excruciatingly self-conscious, and at times humorous, self-deprecating portrayal of Dante-the-character, whose reeducation journey through the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso includes his being humbly instructed along the way by Virgil and then by Beatrice.
In any event, Jones' new 2023 book features five blurbs about it on the back cover of the dust jacket and seven more blurbs about it on the unnumbered pages in the book before the title page.
In Jones' noble subsection "Confession and Call: A Word to My Fellow White Christians" in Chapter Eleven: "Discovery and Democracy" in his new 2023 book (pp. 304-310), he uses italicized print for emphasis over three pages (pp. 304-306). As this subsection shows, he tends to see white Christians in the United States today as his fictional audience that he is addressing in his noble new 2023 book.
However, even though I see Jones' new 2023 book as a noble effort of his part to address his fellow white Christians in the United States today, I am not as sure as he seems to be about what exactly might bring about healing Pope Francis and Vatican officials (p. 278) -- and others, including Jones' fellow white Christians in the United States today.
In Jones' "Acknowledgments" in his new 2023 book (pp. 311-315), he says, "The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy, my fifth book, is a continuation of my journey to navigate the tumultuous currents of racial reckoning in America and to discern the possible courses we might chart toward a more inclusive future" (p. 311).
In Jones' "Prologue: Before America" in his new 2023 book (pp. 1-27), he includes a subsection titled "From 1619 to 1493: The Christian Doctrine of Discovery" (pp. 13-23). In it, he says, "I concede that, on its face, the claim the edicts by European popes and kings in the fifteenth century are vital for understanding our current [American] divides may seem strained. Indeed, to my knowledge, no mainstream American history textbooks have focused on the Doctrine of Discovery as critical for American self-understanding. Across my decades of graduate education in the 1990s, completing a seminary graduate degree [of M.Div. at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary] and a Ph.D. in religion [at Emory University], I never encountered the Doctrine of Discovery" (p. 17).
Full disclosure: Neither did I in the course of my studies.
Nevertheless, Jones now argues that a critical understanding of the Doctrine of Discovery is "critical for American self-understanding."
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