Jonathan,

Thanks for the link and the question.  Is "race" a fiction?  Well, I guess my perspective is obvious from the article.  Thanks for the link to Jeremy's response.  He raises some interesting concerns and reflections.  I'll try to respond to a couple of things.

1. Let’s stipulate that the imago Dei has historically been defined differently by different theologians, with people wrestling with the idea in various ways.  But let’s also grant that whatever it means all people are made in that image, male and female (unless we understand these terms not bodily but in some broader “gendered” way).  My point is not to argue that God is corporeal, but to argue that our physical realities do embody the image in some way and that no body denies that image.  What I’m interacting with there is the long history of racial prejudice and philosophy that argued otherwise. The main point is that it's theologically irresponsible to offer a theological anthropology that doesn't address the falsehoods about African humanity historically perpetrated under the banner of "race."

2. Jeremy seems to miss the fact that I’m trying to argue to something more than I’m trying to argue with something or accommodate current thinking about race.  I’m laying out a proposal for how we get to the sections that he likes, more than I’m trying to engage the wider body of literature on “race.”  Which I would easily agree does assume the reality of “race.”  My shelves are lined with such books.  Where he and I disagree is that I think the assumption typical of the wider literature (“race” exists) is precisely the problem!  At one point I would have listed myself with him as a “race scholar.”  My peer-reviewed published work is on the formation of “racial identity attitudes" and their intersection with things like group esteem, self-efficacy, etc.  Now, having done my share of research and writing in that arena, my personal view has become that once you start with the prism of “race,” you can’t escape it.  There’s no way into and out of that maze.  Now, if you want to remain in that maze, then you’re not worried about an exit strategy.  But if you want to exit, choosing the door marked “race” is doomed to failure from the start, imo.

3. Jeremy's argument that things like refrigerators aren’t in the Bible really sadly misses the point.  Of course there are tons of things that are real that are not in the Bible.  And so, too, there are tons of things that are not real that are not in the Bible.  Strangely, unicorns and Leprechauns come to mind.  But if we started defining and explaining reality based on our belief in Leprechauns, I'm afraid a padded room awaits us.  It would be a sign of poor mental health.  "Race" has about as much legitimacy as a construct for explaining reality as Leprechauns in our closets and under our beds.  Jeremy seems to want to say “race” is real in the same way that a physical object like a refrigerator is real.  Again, this is precisely the problem.  Folks start with a non-biblical social or philosophical construct, “race,” treat it as though it were as real as the computer we’re typing on, and then erect and explain an entire reality based upon the construct.  That’s building on sand.  IF (grant me the assumption for a moment) the way we think about “race” is unhealthy and unbiblical to start, then isn’t the appropriate strategy to at least re-think and probably jettison it altogether in favor of a real reality (human solidarity) instead of a socially constructed “reality”?  If not, I think we end arguing "let’s leave off the authority and perhaps sufficiency of Scripture" on this issue.

4. The fact that in some way people continue to root “race” in biology and assumptions about phenotype seems self evident to me.  Though he wants to deny that most people think of "race" as rooted in biology in any way, Jeremy’s own example (the one drop rule) actually proves the point.  One drop of black blood (there’s biology, race and blood) makes a person—no matter the phenotype—black according to the one drop rule.  In his example, the light- or white-skinned person of mixed parentage is defined as black, actually proving the rule.  And not incidentally provides flesh and bone reason for why we should re-think/abandon “race” as a category altogether.  Thinking of race in biological terms (whether in terms of blood or skin color) may, in fact, be on the decline.  But I think we need to hasten its death, sign the DNR, not sustain it by pretending the construct is real.

5. As for ethnicity, Jeremy thinks I’m playing word games a little bit.  He seems to think that my definition of ethnicity is, in fact, what “race” really is.  He understands “black people” to be the overarching identity for people of black skin, grouping them in a race.  (You see, again, how one can’t easily escape biological assumptions in this discussion.  At one point Jeremy writes, “Most race theorists who accept the existence of races do not think that races are a necessary implication of biological facts. They think social and historical factors have produced racial categories that rely on biological features in terms of how we classify people, but the root is in social and historical factors, not in biology.”  He seems to take away biology with one hand while replacing it with the other.).  He writes: “People discriminate against black people, not usually against black Africans or black Americans”.  I think this framework holds primarily in the States.  It’s far, far less applicable once you move outside the States and especially in contexts where Whites are not the majority and the history of “race” is not that of the U.S.  So black-skinned Barbadians and Jamaicans in the Caribbean don’t think primarily or overarchingly in terms of “black people,” unless they’re adopting a particular pan-Africanist political ideology (which has as much to do with the U.S.view of this idea as anything else).  Hausa and Ibo are clear about what it means to be Hausa and Ibo in Nigeria.  They think of themselves in ethnic, culturally distinctive ways… what I’ve labeled ethnicity.  Keep in mind, my article doesn’t argue that there are not any real differences among people, or necessarily that those differences don’t to some extent co-vary with things like skin color.  The argument is that you can’t root that difference in "race" (which invariable assumes some trait-level biological classification).  And second, a more biblical and precise way of explaining the differences we see is ethne/ethnos (nations, ethnicities).  So, to the extent he thinks I’m denying all differences, he’s missed the point.  I’m not.  I’m extending an alternative that is more nuanced, biblical, and, I think, useful for not only explaining the differences but doing the work of the church (missions, for example).  “Race,” which flattens everything into black, white, etc., is a far less useful construct, imo.  If I continued to use terms like Black and White throughout the piece, that’s inadvertent and evidence of my own continuing reform in this area.

6. I don’t understand that denying that “race” is real is tantamount to denying that racism and racial atrocities are real.  I very much believe that real things are done in the name of “race” and that those things need to be resisted, prosecuted, and so forth.  My concern is that those things are done based upon a perceived difference and corresponding valuations of “race.”  As long as we keep “race,” we’re likely to see those things continue.  Entrenching the perception of difference doesn’t help us with this fundamental problem of people acting out in ways that are harmful against others.
7. Finally, Jeremy has difficulty seeing why I associate "race" with idolatry.  "Race" is idolatry insofaras: (a) it does not really exist; and, (b) as people are so wed to it as a defining construct that they behave in ways contrary to the will of God.  The worship of the thing becomes apparent, imo, wherever people choose this way of viewing life over the ways prescribed in scripture.  It's not as though the Scripture is completely silent on "race."  Where God does speak, He says there is but one in Adam and another in Christ.  And the Scripture seems to me to prohibit thinking of ourselves and others in ways that suggest anything but that oneness in Adam and/or oneness in Christ.  That's the "idolatry" I'm thinking of… exalting "race," alienation and culture to the level of rivaling God's description of the world as it really is.

Anyway… this is longer than I’d intended.  I recognize that saying "race doesn't exist" to most people is a bit like saying to a secular scientist "evolution doesn't exist."  It disturbs the central organizing theory of social identity and interaction; without it, we feel ourselves ill-equipped to define and cope with life.  And yet, the Lord has not left us without witness and light in this area.  We need but walk in it. I hope this is helpful.