Race became a secular theology as scientific authority replaced religious justification

Evidence

The force of race begins to take hold among Europeans as the social hold of religion shifts in face of increasing individualization and the emerging power of scientific rationality, epistemological auto-foundationalism, and the grounds of moral self-generation. Race assumes increasing social hegemony as monogenism gives way initially to speculations around polygenesis, differentiated origins, and species proliferation from the later sixteenth century on, then to elaborations of evolution and eugenicism in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The thick resonances of the theological are evident in the underlying referent points of both monogenism (Adam as the source of all humanity, differentiation thus the effects of environmental determination) and polygenism (there are human beings whose origins predate Adam, which accounts for their more animal-like characteristics). Over time, race comes to generate a secularized theology and a civic religion, underpinned initially by appeals to God’s dictum but increasingly resorting to claims to scientific validation. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1345

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the monogenism-to-polygenism conceptual shift as a key historical mechanism.
• XREF: connects to: Race gained social hegemony as religion declined, becoming a secularized civic theology — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1345; Race gives bodily power a secular license that still draws humanism’s boundaries at kin — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1347; Race and gender replaced religion as Supreme Court appointment concerns — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 532