On the Fall of the Angels: Economic Theology after the Middle Passage

Abstract

This article engages recent readings of Anselm of Canterbury’s Cur Deus homo that highlight the centrality of debt and indebtedness for his economy of salvation. In the rush to establish homologies between Anselm’s theological economy and neoliberal governance, readers have tended to focus on Anselm’s insistence that debt must be repaid. Highlighting the specifically involuntary character of the debt described by Anselm, as well as Anselm’s digression into the irredeemable status of damned angels, this article argues that Anselm’s continuing relevance is best understood not in light of the general predicaments faced by borrowers but in light of the racial calculus and moral economy that characterize the afterlife of Atlantic chattel slavery. The popularity and persistence of accounts of atonement modeled on Anselm’s, it claims, raise questions about both the Christianity of contemporary antiblackness and the antiblackness of contemporary Christianity.