Brecht’s Book Explores Faith, Race, and Belonging
Brecht’s Book Explores Faith, Race, and Belonging
Mara Brecht, PhD, associate professor and chair of the Department of Theology in Loyola University Chicago’s College of Arts and Sciences, has published, The Habits of Race and Faith in a Religiously Diverse World, with Lexington Books.
In her most recent work, Brecht explores how race and religion shape each other in a world marked by diversity and interfaith interaction. She takes a close look at the idea of “whiteness” and how Christian identity, power, and privilege has influenced it throughout history. By examining these connections, Brecht offers fresh insights into Christian views of salvation and what it means to live out one’s faith within a racialized world.
“Dr. Brecht’s research demonstrates how theology can be a force for reflection and transformation,” said Peter J. Schraeder, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Her work encourages both scholars and students to engage religious difference with humility, courage, and care.”
“In this project, I bring together a few areas that are often held apart,” said Brecht. “We tend to think about interreligious encounters as one thing, and then whiteness and race as something entirely separate. I want readers to see that there’s a close, almost casual, connection between the Christian theological perspective on religious difference, on the one hand, and whiteness and white racial identity, with all the social meaning that ‘white’ carries, on the other.”
Brecht wrote the book in her teaching voice and worked to make big, difficult ideas accessible, to help readers find their way through lots of examples.
“I want readers to know that today’s theologians have a lot to say about issues of pressing social concern,” she added. “We’re not counting angels on the head of pins, but rather helping people better, more deeply grasp what’s ‘real’ and move better through the world.”
Brecht’s research centers on a guiding question: What does it mean to be formed as a Christian in a world of difference? Her scholarship explores how Christian theological self-understanding develops through engagement with religious diversity and, more recently, how it intersects with racialized embodiment and identity.
“As a teacher, I think a lot about helping diverse students encounter theology and especially the Catholic intellectual tradition and find something meaningful for meeting the challenges of their day-to-day lives,” said Brecht.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
Founded in 1870, the College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest and largest of Loyola University Chicago’s 13 schools and colleges, serving as the academic home for nearly 8,000 students (roughly 50 percent of Loyola’s total student population). It is academically diverse with twenty academic departments that span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. It is also highly interdisciplinary with thirty-one interdisciplinary programs and seven interdisciplinary centers, including the mission-centric Jesuit Heritage Research Center and the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage. The College is home to over 450 full-time, award-winning faculty, who are committed to teaching and research excellence. They teach nearly 2,000 classes each semester, including 88 percent of all Core Curriculum classes taken by undergraduate students across the university. They also contribute to eleven doctoral programs whose graduates have helped propel Loyola starting in 2025 to R-1 research status (the highest research status a university can achieve). Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our John Felice Rome Center in Italy, as well as at dozens of university-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the university’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever-deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.”
Mara Brecht, PhD, associate professor and chair of the Department of Theology in Loyola University Chicago’s College of Arts and Sciences, has published, The Habits of Race and Faith in a Religiously Diverse World, with Lexington Books.
In her most recent work, Brecht explores how race and religion shape each other in a world marked by diversity and interfaith interaction. She takes a close look at the idea of “whiteness” and how Christian identity, power, and privilege has influenced it throughout history. By examining these connections, Brecht offers fresh insights into Christian views of salvation and what it means to live out one’s faith within a racialized world.
“Dr. Brecht’s research demonstrates how theology can be a force for reflection and transformation,” said Peter J. Schraeder, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “Her work encourages both scholars and students to engage religious difference with humility, courage, and care.”
“In this project, I bring together a few areas that are often held apart,” said Brecht. “We tend to think about interreligious encounters as one thing, and then whiteness and race as something entirely separate. I want readers to see that there’s a close, almost casual, connection between the Christian theological perspective on religious difference, on the one hand, and whiteness and white racial identity, with all the social meaning that ‘white’ carries, on the other.”
Brecht wrote the book in her teaching voice and worked to make big, difficult ideas accessible, to help readers find their way through lots of examples.
“I want readers to know that today’s theologians have a lot to say about issues of pressing social concern,” she added. “We’re not counting angels on the head of pins, but rather helping people better, more deeply grasp what’s ‘real’ and move better through the world.”
Brecht’s research centers on a guiding question: What does it mean to be formed as a Christian in a world of difference? Her scholarship explores how Christian theological self-understanding develops through engagement with religious diversity and, more recently, how it intersects with racialized embodiment and identity.
“As a teacher, I think a lot about helping diverse students encounter theology and especially the Catholic intellectual tradition and find something meaningful for meeting the challenges of their day-to-day lives,” said Brecht.
About the College of Arts and Sciences
Founded in 1870, the College of Arts and Sciences is the oldest and largest of Loyola University Chicago’s 13 schools and colleges, serving as the academic home for nearly 8,000 students (roughly 50 percent of Loyola’s total student population). It is academically diverse with twenty academic departments that span an array of intellectual pursuits, ranging from the natural sciences and computational sciences to the humanities, the social sciences, and the fine and performing arts. It is also highly interdisciplinary with thirty-one interdisciplinary programs and seven interdisciplinary centers, including the mission-centric Jesuit Heritage Research Center and the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage. The College is home to over 450 full-time, award-winning faculty, who are committed to teaching and research excellence. They teach nearly 2,000 classes each semester, including 88 percent of all Core Curriculum classes taken by undergraduate students across the university. They also contribute to eleven doctoral programs whose graduates have helped propel Loyola starting in 2025 to R-1 research status (the highest research status a university can achieve). Our students and faculty are engaged internationally at our John Felice Rome Center in Italy, as well as at dozens of university-sponsored study abroad and research sites around the world. Home to the departments that anchor the university’s Core Curriculum, the College seeks to prepare all of Loyola’s students to think critically, to engage the world of the 21st century at ever-deepening levels, and to become caring and compassionate individuals. Our faculty, staff, and students view service to others not just as one option among many, but as a constitutive dimension of their very being. In the truest sense of the Jesuit ideal, our graduates strive to be “individuals for others.”