Kendi weaves his own life story into the story of racism in our country in the present day. Each progressive vignette sets up a key insight. The unique feature of this book is that most of these insights are gained through self-reflection. Kendi does not just castigate the world around him, but remains methodologically open to the way racism has pervaded his own life and consciousness.
Some time ago I confessed to a group of fellow-ministers that I did not believe in the actual existence of the devil. Some of my doubts had to do with life experience—I had never encountered anything “demonic” that didn’t have at least five more compelling explanations. But mostly my doubt was instigated by the empty, superstitious, and often destructive theology in which angels and demons and “The Devil” take center stage.
I submit that churches face a similar situation when it comes to race relations. We’re all staring at the same screen. We’ve got the same “information.” We read the same Bible; we have access to the same crime reports, police shooting data, and employment figures; we watch the same press briefings; we read similar newspapers and watch similar news programs (although this is becoming less the case than it used to be); we’re friends with each other on Facebook. But we’re seeing different things. A gorilla has ambled across our field of vision, but not everyone caught a glimpse of it. If the body of social science research is accurate, the United States has a problem with racial inequality, and this is the gorilla that many Evangelical Christians have missed.
Last week we faced a set of issues that seem to require us to think along the same lines. Is a deep, radical love compatible with an (albeit partially) socialized healthcare system? Is a deep, radical love compatible with a heritage haunted by racism and slavery? Is a deep, radical love compatible with embracing or excluding homosexual marriage—or indeed, homosexuals in the Church? I offer no answers here, and I’m not interested in hosting or sparking political debates. What I do suggest is that this book offers a great methodological starting-point for thinking through these questions. My suspicion is that, if we follow Jackson’s example of charitable thought, that our answers will resemble love in better and truer ways than they did before–no matter which side one lands on any given issue.
Vic McCracken, ed., Christian Faith and Social Justice: Five Views New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2014 In a society trapped in a two-party political system it may be surprising to many that there are at least five major streams of thought that can inform any given political discourse from the perspective of faith. I first met…
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