The Spirit of Soul Food: Race, Faith, and Food Justice /// Rev. Christopher Carter, PhD

Soul food has played a critical role in preserving Black history, community, and culinary genius. It is also a response to–and marker of–centuries of food injustice. Given the harm that our food production system inflicts upon Black communities, what should soul food look like today?

Dr. Christopher Carter’s answer to that question merges a history of Black American foodways–an expression of identity and a way of maintaining connection to ancestors and ancestral homelands–with a Christian ethical response to food injustice. He reveals how racism and colonialism have long steered the development of US food policy. The very food we grow, distribute, and eat disproportionately harms Black people specifically and people of color among the global poor in general. Dr. Carter reflects on how communities can eat in a way that reflects their cultural identities while remaining true to the principles of compassion, love, justice, and solidarity with the marginalized.

An ordained clergy member whose family history is intertwined with Christianity, food justice, and food sovereignty, Dr. Carter explores how his cultural identity is reflected by his diet and reimagines what soul food can be for those who want to eat in a way that is consistent with their theological and social values. The book is an invitation to both religious and secular audiences to actualize a "beloved community" of love and justice and proposes three fundamental principles of eating practices: seeking justice for food workers, caring for the earth, and "soulfull" eating (Black veganism as practicing compassion for oneself and community).  Given the structural racism within the US food system, decolonization of diet offers a way to reclaim culinary history, agricultural practices, and human dignity for Black people.

BIO

Christopher Carter’s teaching and research focuses on philosophical and theological ethics, Black and Womanist theological ethics, environmental ethics, and animals and religion. He approaches religious studies as a liberation ethicist committed to exploring how the moral economy of U.S. religious thought and culture impact the everyday lives of marginalized populations, particularly African American and Latino/a communities. He is active in the leadership of the American Academy of Religion where he serves as a steering committee member of both the Religion and Ecology and the Animals and Religion Group. Professor Carter is also a pastor within the United Methodist Church and currently serves as an assistant pastor at Pacific Beach United Methodist Church.

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