It’s time for the #SST21 plenary panel on @AnthonyGReddie’s Theologizing Brexit, with @SelinaRStone & @harvmins with Dulcie McKenzie in the chair. Been looking forward to this for a while!

AR quotes his most popular tweet ’Brexit is the shingles to the chicken pox of empire’ - you can’t understand Brexit apart from the context of the British Empire. #SST21

AR: The migration to the UK of non-white people from the Commonwealth post-WWII, unanticipated by the Lab gov on 1948, is a matter that’s never been settled in the UK. #SST21

AR’s theology (like all theology) rooted in his biography, including his class background. How did working class come to be labelled as white, occluding black & brown working class people, framing them a competition & threat? #SST21

AR on the profound danger of cases like Shemima Begum & others, exposing the conditionality of British citizenship for black and brown people. Links this conditionality to the attacks online when black & brown people question whiteness. #SST21

AR’s book relates Brexit to the history of white English exceptionalism. Taking back control- self-determination, coexistent with a nostalgia for empire & regret for its retreat. A racialised contradiction. #SST21

AR: White working class people voting for Brexit as identity politics, black and brown people voting for Brexit as way of showing allegiance. #SST21

Importance of theology being not merely contextual but liberating. AR shout out to @hodgehillvicar & @ruth_hw’s Being Interruptive as exemplary of the work white theologians need to do. #SST21

Race a verb, not a noun. Deconstruction of whiteness has to be at heart of theological project if Pentecost & concept of the Body of Christ are to mean anything, AR concludes. #SST21 (I’m not doing this justice tbh)

. @SelinaRStone now responding on the impact of Brexit on black and brown women, esp Muslim women, & impact of notion of white Christianity, mandating racist misogynistic violence against them, in their lives. #SST21

Her paper looks at colonialism & Xn mission as racialised and gendered with an especial burden on Black and Asian women, to offer a perspective attentive to the experiences of Black, Asian & migrant women in Brexit Britain #SST21

Need for an intersectional analysis to avoid doing black liberation theology in respect of an imagined homogenous black male community, she argues. Delores Williams’ reading of the stories of Hagar is key theological resource for her here. #SST21

Next it’s @harvmins’ response to @AnthonyGReddie. His background in Malawi shaped by British mission & imperialism, starting with David Livingstone, but also the cruelty of the estate later owned there by the Livingstone family. #SST21

This history, and the experience of living for a while in Minneapolis, has shaped his theology. #SST21

His paper argues for the need to look at the issues raised in AR’s book also from African perspectives, & perspectives of Black African British Christians. #SST21

HK’s missiological perspective: Importance of Black Christian communities in UK church scene, which will only increase, yet marginalised in UK academic theology. How do we change that? #SST21

Presence of non-western Christians in Europe as gift to European Christianity, can help us understand God better from one another (faith seeking understanding). #SST21

Also @harvmins emphasises the importance of bridging the gap, in Black Theology in the UK, between African diasporas, American and Afro-Caribbean Christianities - they share common roots, history and contexts. #SST21

Lots to be learnt from their different experiences and responses to empire and whiteness #SST21

Xn understanding around the world often thinks of Christianity as inseparable from colonialism and empire. We need to undo this connection, think Christianity apart from empire. AR’s Theologizing Brexit helps us start that journey, concluded @harvmins. #SST21

. @AnthonyGReddie’s response affirms need for @SelinaRStone’s Womanist perspective, and points out - building on @harvmins - that church decline in UK doesn’t apply to black churches, but white Church leaders don’t ask why they are growing? #SST21

AR - on taking Black Theology in Britain & connect it to ordinary Black Xn? Do theology alongside marginalised communities that doesn’t speak down to them. Need to address homophobia, to encourage Womanist theology in Britain & a pan-Africanist intersectional approach. #SST21

. @SelinaRStone adds need to encourage holistic, intersectional theology in Black congregations with an integrated anthropology. @harvmins on the resources African theology can bring to these tasks. #SST21

Interesting critique from @AnthonyGReddie of liberationist theology collapsing the Kingdom into historical human projects. You need the distinction to critique present Utopianism as well as inherited systemic sin. #SST21

AR on need for blacks Xns to collaborate across denominations, drawing on their different strengths, & role of ecumenical initiatives like @CBTI. #SST21

How to engage with non-white Xns who align with whiteness? Respect how they identify themselves, their experiences & help them reflect critically on it, says @AnthonyGReddie. #SST21