White Supremacy as Counter-Telos: Pastoral Formation in the White Habitus

This paper develops a model of pastoral formation that acknowledges the relentless formative pull of whiteness and centers the work of dismantling white supremacy. It critiques three related framings of pastoral formation: excellence in ministry, pastoral imagination, and Christian practical wisdom. These framings orient pastoral formation around an a-contextual telos or goal, an approach that ultimately reinforces markers of white normativity. Teleological framings of pastoral formation need not be abandoned altogether, but they do require a more nuanced reckoning with white normativity. The paper offers a preliminary re-framing of pastoral formation as a process that requires an ongoing negotiation of the terms of pastoral formation even as practitioners deepen their pastoral expertise, wisdom, and imagination.