Emily A. Holmes

Race, Religion, and Justice: From Privilege to Solidarity in the Mid-South Food Movement

This chapter examines the growth of the food justice movement in Memphis and the Mid-South in light of the problem of food insecurity experienced in this region. Although food insecurity disproportionately affects low-income people of color, the good food movement is primarily led by white middle-class individuals. Drawing on critical race theory and liberation theologies, this paper offers a critique of (race and class) privilege within organizations dedicated to food justice and suggests that humility and solidarity are the key virtues needed for those working in the food justice movement from a position of white privilege and economic security. Humility shapes our self-understanding and ability to listen to others, while solidarity promotes the work of justice as an expression of love. The chapter concludes by arguing for the cultivation of these virtues through religious narratives, communities shaped by a diverse range of experience, and concrete, on-going practices of shared commitment.

Introduction: On Maternality, Between Theology and Sexuality

Abstract The introduction to the special issue situates the five following essays in the context of historical and contemporary theological reflection on maternality. It addresses the fraught connection between sexuality and maternality in the Christian theological imagination and argues that the maternal body has often functioned as a bridge between the opposed arenas of Word and flesh, God and humanity, and eternity and time. The introduction concludes by using the figure of the Virgin Mary as a lens to consider the theological themes of birth, grief, the incarnation, sacrifice, and Eucharist. Mary’s body, site of the incarnation, allows connection, mediation, contiguity, and congress to occur. As such, it also functions as a bridge between theology and sexuality.The introduction to the special issue situates the five following essays in the context of historical and contemporary theological reflection on maternality. It addresses the fraught connection between sexuality and maternality in the Christian theological imagination and argues that the maternal body has often functioned as a bridge between the opposed arenas of Word and flesh, God and humanity, and eternity and time. The introduction concludes by using the figure of the Virgin Mary as a lens to consider the theological themes of birth, grief, the incarnation, sacrifice, and Eucharist. Mary’s body, site of the incarnation, allows connection, mediation, contiguity, and congress to occur. As such, it also functions as a bridge between theology and sexuality.