Race gained social hegemony as religion declined, becoming a secularized civic theology

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

• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that race inherits religion’s structural role — origins-accounting, rationality-circumscribing, cruelty-liberating — is a dense functionalist hypothesis with wide reach.
• XREF: connects to: Race emerged as a civic religion filling the void of lost communal intimacy; Race became a secular theology as scientific authority replaced religious justification — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 1345; Race emerged as a civic religion responding to urbanization and collapsing kinship intimacy. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 222 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Race became a secular theology as scientific authority replaced religious justification #corroborates (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1345
• Race emerged as a civic religion filling the void of lost communal intimacy #corroborates (0.82)
• Race emerged as a civic religion responding to urbanization and collapsing kinship intimacy. #corroborates (0.80) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 222
• Modern scientific racism displaced religion from the race concept. #corroborates (0.80) — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 156
• Secularization replaced religious doctrine with pseudo-natural racial criteria for exclusion. #corroborates (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 206
• Race is counter-historical in displacing theological modes of rationality and sociality #complicates (0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1825
• Race was co-constituted with religion in European history. #qualifies (0.75) — Nasar Meer, Racialization and Religion, 31
• Race operates as a political theology underpinning sacrifice of groups #expands (0.74) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1883
• Racial secularization removes absolutist racial rule without ending race’s social force #complicates (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1612
• Racial secularization displaces sovereign control from state to privatized economic forces #expands (0.72) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1628