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The late great James Hal Cone (1938–2018) challenged white Christians to confront the sin of white supremacy. This article contends that white Catholic theologians collectively have yet to accept Cone's righteous challenge. A scrutiny of the programming of the annual meetings of the Catholic Theological Society of America and publications in Theological Studies provides the evidence. Having made the case that white US Catholic theologians have not adequately processed Cone's challenge, the article argues that an important reason for this failure is fear and proposes specific, concrete action steps for professional societies and scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that an attitude of whiteness characterizes conventional methodological approaches in the fields of theology and religion. Using examples drawn from the discipline of Christian theology, I contend that scholars have a responsibility to address white supremacy; I describe whiteness as an attitude and expose it in theological method by deploying the concept of racist thinking to analyze Terrence W. Tilley's argument in The Disciples' Jesus ; and I compare M. Shawn Copeland's Enfleshing Freedom as a work that exhibits antiracist thinking. Positing that the problem of whiteness pervades the disciplines of theology and religious studies generally, I conclude that, to construct adequate and relevant arguments, we must critically engage whiteness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]