My dissertation begins with an examination of the concept of the enemy. Through a reading of Frank Wilderson’s Red, White, and Black, I contend that racial relations are, by definition, enemy relations. Engagement with Fred Moten creates space for the consideration of alternative modes of relation, while the work of James Baldwin suggests that such alternatives could be sought in the affective realm, specifically in how and who we love.

In search of such an alternative love, I turn to Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Cone, each of whom offers a theological vision of love that takes racial enemy relations seriously, and each of whom has been largely misread. King’s challenging love has been watered down, while Cone has been misinterpreted as rejecting love entirely.

To account for the failure of most U.S. Christian theology to understand love of the racial enemy rightly, I draw on affect theory, which suggests that feelings need to be taken seriously as constraining and motivating political and relational action. Robin DiAngelo’s work on white fragility—an inability to cope with racial tension that does not only affect those who identify as white—offers a framework for understanding the structures of feeling that work against a proper Christian understanding of love of the enemy, raising the question of what theological account of love of the enemy might work to promote feelings that aid in, rather than impede, the work of racial reconciliation.

In answer to this question, I cast a vision of love as acknowledgement of need for the other. Such love does not demand uncritical acceptance of the other’s privilege, but instead requires faithful critique and self-examination to the end of finding just and equitable modes of living with one another. The dissertation concludes with some thoughts about how this vision of love can be lived out as a way of discipleship in congregations that face concrete and challenging manifestations of the problem of the racial enemy.