Thandeka is a

Unitarian Universalist Unitarian or Unitarianism may refer to: Christian and Christian-derived theologies A Unitarian is a follower of, or a member of an organisation that follows, any of several theologies referred to as Unitarianism: * Unitarianism (1565–present) ...

minister, an American liberal theologian, Dorrien, Gary. ''The Making of American Liberal Theology: Crisis, Irony, and Postmodernity, 1950-2005''. John Knox Press, 2006. and the creator of a contemporary affect theology. Thandeka's affect theology grounds religious knowing in human feeling,"Thandeka"
Harvard Square Library. Retrieved 2020.01.01. combining concepts from nineteenth-century theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher with insights from

affective neuroscience Affective neuroscience is the study of how the brain processes emotions. This field combines neuroscience with the psychological study of personality, emotion, and mood. The basis of emotions and what emotions are remains an issue of debate withi ...

."Contemporary Affect Theology"
RevThandeka.org. Retrieved 2020.01.01 Thandeka is the founder and CEO of Love Beyond Belief, a non-profit organization.

Biography

Thandeka was born Sue Booker to Emma (Barbour) Booker, an artist and teacher, and Merrel D. Booker, a Baptist minister and seminary professor who had studied with Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich at Union Theological School in New York City. She was drawn to the Unitarian church in the 1960s, and was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister in 2001. She received her name from Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1984; it means "beloved" or "one who is loved by God" in

Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...

."Thandeka"
Westar Institute. Retrieved 2020.01.01 She studied journalism at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, and went on to earn an M.A. in history of religions at UCLA. She earned a Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University in 1988, where she studied with John Cobb and Jack C. Verheyden.

Career

Thandeka is a former television producer and an Emmy award winner."Thandeka"
Unitarian Universalist Association. Retrieved 2020.01.01 She has taught at San Francisco State University, Williams College, Meadville Lombard Theological School, Harvard Divinity School, Lancaster Seminary, and Brandeis University.

Theology

Thandeka's theological work considers the role of feeling or emotion in human religious and spiritual experiences. Her book ''The Embodied Self'' is based on a close reading of Schleiermacher's ''Dialektik'', focusing on his idea that feeling is primary in human experience, and exploring how feeling enables people to connect mind and body, or thinking and organic being.Lamm, Julia A
Book review
The Journal of Religion Vol. 77, No. 3 (Jul., 1997), pp. 482-483 Her work considers the religious significance of neuroscientific understandings of emotions, such as those of

Jaak Panksepp Jaak Panksepp (June 5, 1943 – April 18, 2017) was an Estonian-American neuroscientist and psychobiologist who coined the term " affective neuroscience", the name for the field that studies the neural mechanisms of emotion. He was the Baily End ...

. Thandeka's affect theology centers affective consciousness, as opposed to belief, in religious experience.

White racial identity

Thandeka also critiques some popular approaches to anti-racism work, and takes a different approach to understanding white racial identity. She considers the concepts of racism and

white privilege White privilege, or white skin privilege, is the societal privilege that benefits white people over non-white people in some societies, particularly if they are otherwise under the same social, political, or economic circumstances. With root ...

to be terms needing further exploration.V. Denise James
"Playing the Race Game: A Response to Thandeka's "Whites: Made in America""
The Pluralist. Vol. 13, No. 1, SAAP 2017 Conference Proceedings (Spring 2018), pp. 51. Retrieved 2020.01.05 She affirms explorations begun by James Baldwin, using insights from neuroscience and complex post-traumatic stress disorders. Thandeka analyzes the psychology of white identities were constructed in America to hide a profound sense of betrayal by one's own white kith and kin, white community, and white government. This sense of betrayal injures persons' ability to be "relational beings."Sturm, Douglas
Book review
The Journal of Religion Vol. 80, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), pp. 371-372 While Thandeka is hopeful that her insights into this will help white Americans discover their common ground with other groups who are suffering so that mutual advance are made, others disagree. Pappas, Gregory Fernando
"What Is Going On? Where Do We Go from Here? Should the Souls of White Folks Be Saved?"
The Pluralist Vol. 13, No. 1, SAAP 2017 Conference Proceedings (Spring 2018), pp. 67. Retrieved 2020.01.05 In 1999, Thandeka criticized the anti-racism program adopted by the Unitarian Universalist Association for its reliance on ideas of original sin and human helplessness, which are rejected by Unitarian Universalism. Her program for congregational spiritual revitalization includes efforts to address racial and economic injustice through the love, care, and compassion of small group ministries networking together to heal themselves and the world.

Love Beyond Belief

The application of Thandeka's contemporary affect theology is operational in her non-profit organization, Love Beyond Belief. It organizes small group "Universal Connections" workshops, consultations, and programs for religious and spiritual organizations.

Publications

Thandeka's book ''The Embodied Self: Friedrich Schleiermacher's Solution to Kant's Problem of the Empirical Self'' (1995), undertakes a major re-reading of the philosophical analysis of F. D. E. Schleiermacher's theological claims, namely, his ''Dialektik''. In ''Learning to be White: Money, Race, and God in America'' (1999), Thandeka reaffirms W.E.B. DuBois's view that American slavery was first and foremost a labor issue. She also affirms the work of social critic

W. J. Cash Wilbur Joseph Cash (May 2, 1900 – July 1, 1941) was an American journalist known for writing ''The Mind of the South'' (1941), his controversial interpretation of the history of the American South. Biography Early life Cash was born and grew u ...

who calls the results of the white exploitation a white pathology in his 1941 book ''The Mind of the South''. Her essays have appeared in ''The Oxford University Handbook on Feminist Theology and Globalization'' (2011) and ''The Cambridge Companion to Schleiermacher'' (2005). In ''Love Beyond Belief: Finding the Access Point to Spiritual Awareness'' (2018), Thandeka tracks how Christian theology lost its original emotional foundation of love through a linguistic error created by the first-century Apostle

Paul Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

when he introduced a new word "conscience" 'Greek'', 'syneidesis'to discourse on

Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

. This discourse became the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chri ...

emotional foundation for handling gentile pain and suffering that generated almost 2000 years of anti-Jewish and anti-Judaic Christian sentiment and activity, (2) Paul's error was initially justified, explained and compounded by Augustine and then

Martin Luther Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...

, (3)

Schleiermacher Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (; 21 November 1768 – 12 February 1834) was a German Reformed theologian, philosopher, and biblical scholar known for his attempt to reconcile the criticisms of the Enlightenment with traditional ...

tried but failed to correct the error by reaffirming love as the affective foundation of Christian faith, (4) the nineteenth-century American enlightenment of Common Sense moral values reaffirmed the false foundation for Christian faith of pain and suffering accidentally created by Paul, and (4) liberal Protestants abandoned the errant emotional foundation without retrieving the original emotional foundation for Gentile faithfulness to Christ that Paul tried to establish, (5) the critique of the compromised legacy of Protestantism by

Reinhold Niebuhr Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of Ameri ...

and John B. Cobb Jr., (6) and the successful reaffirmation by Thandeka of the original Pauline foundation of love for faithfulness to Christ.

Personal life

Thandeka's partner is Naomi King, the daughter of novelist Stephen King.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control 1946 births Living people African-American religious leaders American Unitarian Universalists Claremont Graduate University alumni Female Unitarian Universalist clergy African-American theologians White culture scholars Members of the Jesus Seminar African-American television producers 21st-century African-American academics 21st-century American academics 20th-century African-American academics 20th-century American academics