Confronting Confederate Monuments: Place-Based Pedagogy for Anti-Racist Preaching

Abstract

“Space wins” is a long-held homiletical maxim. Usually, this means that architecture and pulpit style influence how sermons are delivered and heard. What is less frequently considered is how monuments and memorials affect proclamation in space. Among other things, Confederate monuments make claims on space, communicate idealized aesthetics, and preach about hopes for a particular eschatological community. This essay examines pedagogical approaches to preaching that confronts Confederate monuments. It is based upon courses I offered in 2022 at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and through the Association of Chicago Theological Schools D.Min. program in Chicago, Illinois. After articulating a pedagogy drawn from the work of Leonora Tubbs Tisdale and Willie James Jennings, I examine three approaches to place-based pedagogy that serve anti-racist preaching by (1) analyzing monuments within the teaching location, (2) fostering reflective participation in pilgrimage to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and (3) inviting students to research monuments in their home community and confront them through preaching. These approaches can foster preaching that is better attuned to addressing localized histories, better able to identify and confront specific aspects of white supremacy that are concretized in a community, and more adept at offering a gospel proclamation that is finely tuned to the transformative needs of a particular place.