Open Friendship in a Closed Society: Mission Mississippi and a Theology of Friendship

This dissertation is a study of Mission Mississippi, the largest model of intentional ecumenical church-based racial reconciliation work in the United States today. It examines Mission Mississippi's lived theology of racial reconciliation in dialogue with the work of theologians including Jürgen Moltmann, Miroslav Volf and John DeGruchy to understand the place of friendship in a Christian understanding of reconciliation. Founded in 1992, Mission Mississippi strives to facilitate relationships between individuals and partnerships between churches across racial and denominational lines. The work of sociologists Michael Emerson and Christian Smith suggests Mission Mississippi's emphasis on relationship building between individuals ignores the forces that perpetuate systemic issues of injustice in a racialized society. Mission Mississippi avoids talking about the demands of justice in racial reconciliation, but its African American leaders believe reconciliation starts with friendship before it can move to the weightier issues of justice.

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