BODY POLITICS AND THE POLITICS OF BODIES Racism and Hauerwasian Theopolitics Derek Alan Woodard-Lehman ABSTRACT Today dominative power operates apart from, and exterior to, those state governmentalities that the “body politics” of Stanley Hauerwas disavows as “constantinian” entanglements such as military service, governmental office, and conspicuous expressions of civil religion. This is especially true with respect to those biopolitical modalities David Theo Goldberg names as “racelessness,” by which material inequalities are racially correlated, thereby allowing whiteness to mediate life and ration death. If, as Hauerwas contends, radical ecclesiology is indeed a theopo- litical alternative to the nation–state’s politics of violence, then it must prove itself resistant to such racialized violence. However, inasmuch as the (largely) uncontested fact of ecclesial segregation recapitulates these broader stratifications and exclusions, the church functions as a passive civil religion and itself participates in the politics of “nonviolent violence.” Thus, Hauerwas must do something that he has been reluctant to do. He must talk about race and racism more directly, specifying how his ecclesiological theopolitics resists such forms of violence; more impor- tantly, he must demonstrate how actual ecclesial congregations instan- tiate such resistance. In short, to be truly nonviolent, Hauerwas’s body politics must become a politics of bodies. KEY WORDS: ecclesiology, David Theo Goldberg, Hauerwas, pacifism, racism, radical democracy, Stout, Rowan Williams 1. Democratic Conversation and/as Missionary Dialogue RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THEORY AND THEOLOGY have reinvigorated dialogue between politics and religion. Of particular interest is the ongoing conversation between Jeffrey Stout, a radical democrat, and Stanley Hauerwas, a radical Protestant. 1 Although sharing a common 1 There is some debate as to whether Stout ought to be classified as a radical democrat. His assertion of the practice of politics over and against state theory and bureaucracy certainly places him outside the realm of liberalism. Yet his commitment to JRE 36.2:295–320. © 2008 Journal of Religious Ethics, Inc.