Includes bibliographical references (pages 287-369) and index.

Library Journal, March 01, 2023

Publishers Weekly, March 06, 2023

Library Journal Starred Reviews

"Appalling events in recent years have brought home to us the pervasiveness of white supremacist views, practices, and structures in both the United States and in Europe. This stunningly ambitious, sweeping cultural and intellectual history explores their Christian origins. It also argues for the enduring importance of these origins -- even if contemporary white supremacists do not always rely on explicitly religious rationales for their ideas. Magda Teter's book traces modern day anti-Jewish and anti-Black prejudice back to pervasive notions of Christian superiority developed in the early Christian church. She thus connects anti-Jewish sentiments with anti-Black racism, without arguing that these are the same thing or that one led to the other. Based on an examination of primary evidence across a wide geographical and historical array of sources-theological, legal, artistic, and philosophical-Teter shows how the Christian claim of superiority emerged in a theological context in antiquity and was later implemented in a legal and political context when Christianity became a political power. And in the early modern era, when Europeans expanded their political reach beyond Europe with the establishment of commerce-driven slaveholding empires, Christian claims were transformed decisively into a racialized sense of superiority that became institutionalized in law and politics"-- Provided by publisher.

"A panoramic cultural and legal history that traces the roots of antisemitism and racism to early Christian theology. Since the earliest days of Christianity, theologians expressed pervasive anxiety about Jews as equal members of society and, with European expansion in the early modern period, that anxiety extended to people of color. This troubling legacy still haunts us today. Christian Supremacy demonstrates how theological and legal frameworks created by the church centuries ago laid the seeds of antisemitism and anti-Black racism, and reveals why Christian identity lies at the heart of the world's violent white supremacy movements. In a powerful historical narrative spanning nearly two millennia, Magda Teter describes how Christian theology of late antiquity cast Jews as "children born in slavery," and how the supposed theological inferiority of Jews became inscribed into law, creating tangible structures that reinforced a sense of Christian domination and superiority. With the dawn of European colonialism, a distinct brand of European Christian supremacy found expression in the legally sanctioned enslavement and exploitation of people of color, later taking the form of white Christian supremacy in the New World. Drawing on a wealth of primary evidence ranging from the theological and legal to the philosophical and artistic, Christian Supremacy is a profound reckoning with history that traces the roots of the modern rejection of Jewish and Black equality to an enduring Christian heritage of exclusion, intolerance, and persecution"-- Provided by publisher.