annotated bibliography
Modern Church Culture
The Color of Compromise – Jemar Tisby
Letters To a Birmingham Jail – Bryan Loritts
Woke Church – Dr. Eric Mason
Walls Can Fall – Bishop Kenneth Ulmer
Modern Secular Culture
The New Jim Crow – Michelle Alexander
How to Be an Anti-racist – Ibram X. Kendi
We Were 8 Years in Power – Ta-nehesi Coates
Just Mercy – Bryan Stevenson
Richard J Daley: Politics, Race, and the Governing of Chicago – Roger Biles
Theology
How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind – Thomas Oden
Ubuntu – Michael Battle
Fiction
The Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead
Washington Black – Esi Edugyan
Preaching
Doctrine That Dances – Robert Smith Junior
Crossover Preaching – Jared Alcantara
Say It! – Eric Redmond
MODERN CHURCH CULTURE
The Color of Compromise: The Truth About the American Church’s Complicity in Racism | Jemar Tisby
Jemar Tisby walks through American History, from the Pilgrims to President Trump, politely, but firmly showing the repeated refusal of the American church to take a stand against racism in either its interpersonal or systemic forms. What makes this work particularly potent is Tisby’s care in showing the sympathy church leaders often had for the plight of African-Americans. They often weren’t hateful, simply too self-interested to take on any substantive conflict for the sake of others. By refusing to allow his readers the all-too-easy self-justification that comes with ending their journey at personal dislike for racism, Tisby forces the reader to consider the degree to which passivity perpetuates the system. Full of vivid examples, the author disciplines himself to avoid hyperbole, allowing the facts laid out sequentially to make his points. This is a must read for any pastor in the 21st century.
From page 142 (on Billy Graham and the Watts Riots of 1965):
“Graham said that the nation needed ‘tough laws’ to crack down on such flagrant disregard for authority. This ‘law and order’ rhetoric resonated with white evangelicals as well, and it led many to be critical of civil rights activists in general. These Christians were not denying that blacks were discriminated against or that conditions in the inner city were troublesome. But they believed the solution to the problem was to trust the system. Christian moderates insisted on obeying the law, working through the courts, and patiently waiting for transformation. King and other activists took a different view. … The people living in this South Central Los Angeles neighborhood felt trapped by the forces of poverty, incarceration, failing schools, and racism. Though activists had been working for change over the course of many years, the cries of the people went largely unheard…. King saw a different remedy: “Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention. There is no other answer.”
_____________________________
Letters to a Birmingham Jail | Bryan Loritts (editor)
Bryan Loritts uses the motif and substance of Dr. King’s famous call to his Christian brothers to step out of passivity to form a clarion call to modern readers. While the most obvious overarching injustices in the United States have been legislated out, the subtler forms of bigotry that have arisen in their place still exist cause similar inequality. Loritts gathers essays from a variety of voices and backgrounds to call us towards something collectively as evangelicals. Although this book is relatively recent history, it reads potently, as it portends a variety of issues now in daily consciousness post the 2016 election. Many evangelicals were brought up as to see the pulpit and politics as oil and water, but Loritts contends that when the politics is basic human decency, all must be willing to get off the sidelines and get involved.
From Page 45:
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co-workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.”
_____________________________
Woke Church | Eric Mason
While some prominent evangelicals perpetuate the idea that social justice and gospel fidelity are mutually exclusive, Eric Mason flies the flag at full mast for both. Mason simply refuses the false dichotomy that fighting for justice softens or distracts from or inherently mutates the Gospel message of repentance and forgiveness. He brings his urban background and his evangelical relational experience to form an urgent call to ACT on issues of justice. Equal parts strategic and polemic, this book aims to push you out of your comfort zone. Mason uses his prophetic voice to keep the reader from stopping at ‘I agree’ and towards ‘I will do.’
From page 18:
“One of the most difficult things for me to deal with is the refusal for many evangelicals to acknowledge the truths about what has happened in our country. Our history has been hard for people of color, and the church must be willing to acknowledge those hard truths if we are to move toward healing. Much of our history is shrouded in darkness because it is hard to talk about and even harder to understand from our vantage point today.”
_____________________________
Walls Can Fall | Kenneth C. Ulmer
Tracing his personal journey from a growing up in the Jim Crow Lower-Midwest through decades as a well-known pastor in LA, Bishop Ulmer deftly combines personal narrative and theological concepts to move the conversation about race forward. Rather than focus on the systemic or secular, he narrows in on the personal and the church. The reader is asked to not just think, but also feel the experiences of those different than them as a path toward a more just and kingdom reflecting church. Bishop excels at expressing the feelings of someone caught in forces outside their control and applying biblical principles to those moments.
From page 42:
“The other extreme is color blindness. I don’t want to live in a colorblind society. I don’t want you to be blind to my color, and I don’t want to be blind to yours. My color is part of my identity. Don’t just blindly look over me. Look at me and acknowledge our differences. (Maybe even celebrate them, as much as possible.) It’s a trick of the enemy to convince us that justification of the invisibility of an ethnic or racial class is the same as accepting differences. It’s not. Not having to acknowledge differences in others might allow us a certain level of personal comfort because we don’t have to engage on a deeper level, and if you merely see me, you might be prone to paint me some color – and you’ve suddenly engaged in subtle separation. Color blindness is not God’s goal. It’s about seeing us all as children of God under the love of God, under the power of God, under the protection and covering of God.”
_____________________________
MODERN SECULAR CULTURE
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness | Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander carefully and convincingly shows how the criminal justice system was reformed after the civil rights movement of the 1960’s into a new instrument of racial bias. Of her various compelling examples, the difference in criminal penalties between powder (more suburban and white) and crack cocaine (more urban). For many years, crack was punished at a 100x1 rate compared to powder, lowered by compromise in 2010 to ‘only’ 18x more aggressively penalized. Whether it’s racial profiling in traffic stops or the failure of the war on drugs or New York’s controversial ‘stop and frisk,’ Alexander brings data and narrative to bear on the system perpetuating the injustice it’s charged with eliminating. It may seem more obvious in 2020 with the way politicians both left and right are commenting and proposing criminal justice reform, but Alexander’s work was at the very beginning of bringing these realities to light and exposing many to what they hadn’t seen before.
From page 55:
“In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don’t. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”
_____________________________
How To Be An Anti-Racist | Ibram Kendi
When a humanist worldview tackles racism you can end up some pretty bleak places. Kendi’s primary contribution is to push the concept that you and I cannot have a neutral view of race relations in the world. He argues that the 1990’s era ‘I’m colorblind’ mentality subtly perpetuates an evil system, by not acknowledging the difference between people, you have insulated yourself from fighting for justice for them. You must choose a posture of ‘anti-racism’ which actively describes and works to destroy incidents and systems that perpetuate the evil. While Kendi takes his concept into some ultimately unhelpful directions and applications (particularly for the evangelical christian, when he transitions his racial politics into gender/sexual politics) his core diagnosis is helpful and brilliant. The first 100 or so pages of this book are the most incisive modern unfolding of the racial dynamics in America I have read.
From page 23:
“Racist’ and ‘anti-racist’ are like peel-able name tags that are placed and replaced depending on what someone is doing or not doing, supporting, or expressing in each moment. These are not permanent tattoos. No one becomes a racist or anti-racist. We can only strive to be one or the other. We can unknowingly strive to be a racist. Like fighting an addiction, being an anti-racist requires persistent awareness, constant self-criticism, and regular self-examination.”
_____________________________
We Were 8 Years In Power | Ta-nehesi Coates
Coates is America’s foremost secular writer on the African-American struggle. This book contains a long essay from each year of President Obama’s presidency along with Coates’ reflections on progress hoped for and reversed. His writing is devastatingly precise and illuminating. For me, his writing is able to do what 10,000 Facebook posts are not: carefully move your thinking down a pathway towards a new viewpoint. Because these essays were published originally in real time, the development from the great hope of the election of 2008 to the great anger at the outcomes in the fall of 2016 is earned and haunting. Coates central argument is that systemic racism is a feature not a bug in American society. Meaning it’s not a tumor that can be cut out, but a central organ that would cause cultural death if removed. He shows how we have carefully cultivated our telling of history to hide it. You may not agree with the fullness of Coates arguments, but I would be surprised if your opinions don’t move a step or two towards his after reading.
From page 77:
“We invoke the words of Jefferson and Lincoln because they say something about our legacy and our traditions. We do this because we recognize our links to the past--at least when they flatter us. But black history does not flatter American democracy; it chastens it. The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter. Black nationalists have always perceived something unmentionable about America that integrationists dare not acknowledge --that white supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it.”
_____________________________
Just Mercy | Bryan Stevenson
Every problem in the American system is significantly worse as indexed for poverty and race. When conservative evangelicals struggle to understand the political leanings of their different colored brothers and sisters, this is a core reason why. You can’t understand modern African-American Christians without understanding their fraught relationship with the criminal justice system. Not just the well-publicized issues of police brutality, but the way those caught in the system are victimized by slow and selective justice, when it exists at all. Bryan Stevenson’s work freeing those unjustly on death row shines a bright and impossible to ignore personal light on these issues. He isn’t a social media crusader, he does methodical rigorous work that brings new freedom to those who never should have lost it in the first place. I was tremendously challenged personally about my longstanding beliefs about crime and punishment as I read, you will be too.
From page 32:
“Proximity has taught me some basic and humbling truths, including this vital lesson: Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. My work with the poor and the incarcerated has persuaded me that the opposite of poverty is not wealth; the opposite of poverty is justice. Finally, I’ve come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice, the character of our society, our commitment to the rule of law, fairness, and equality cannot be measured by how we treat the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected among us. The true measure of our character is how we treat the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned.”
_____________________________
Richard J. Daley: Politics, Race, and the Governing of Chicago | Roger Biles
The primary way most middle class families build wealth is through home ownership and appreciation. Post-World War II, in many US cities, systems were built to keep African-American from the most desirable neighborhoods, often called ‘red-lining’ blocking them from building this generational wealth. Nowhere was this more well organized or brutally effective than Chicago under Mayor Richard Daley. His confrontations with Martin Luther King Jr. were less about prejudiced feelings and more about threats to his consolidation of power. Chicago under Daley excelled in using redlining to control where ethnicities would be approved for loans and zoned for businesses. This created more homogenous neighborhoods, easier to control and more efficient to maximize political support. The great injustice in this system is that African-American homeowners were blocked from in the neighborhoods where their dollars would be the best investment. This book shows how the lives of everyday people (especially African-Americans) were used as pawns on the chessboard of political power, echoing the experience and feelings many have about Wall Street and Washington today.
From page 84:
“Daley’s adamant refusal to recognize the state of race relations in his city was not at all remarkable for a white Chicago politician. It merely reflected a longstanding and highly successful strategy for dealing with African-Americans. Like the vast majority of his predecessors, Daley consigned blacks to life in rigidly segregated residential pockets and ratified their second class economic status. At the same time, he benefited from and relied on the overwhelming vote pluralities that the black wards turned in for Democratic candidates.”
_____________________________
THEOLOGY
How Africa Shaped the Christian Mind | Thomas Oden
Oden takes a historical look at early Christianity to develop an often forgotten trajectory. Before Christianity migrated from the Middle East to Europe, much of its initial formation happened in Africa. Trying to draw a contrast to the oft-rejected paternal missionary culture, Oden compellingly shows a 2000-year flame of Christianity burning in Africa. He helpfully explains how the differences in perception between oral tradition and written word cultures have allowed those without a fuller understanding to dismiss African theology as lacking rigor or depth. Of particular worthwhile note, Oden shows that more than simply the substance of ecumenical councils, African leaders and cultures irrefutably influenced the style of these critically important events. Oden’s ultimate purpose is for those with African heritage to see the primacy of their theological tradition so as not to be swayed towards popular modern arguments about ‘white man’s religion.’ He also hopes that those from other heritages will serve his kingdom purpose by when celebrating the contributions of Athanasius, Augustine, Tertullian, and the rest, to properly set them in their African context.
From page 26:
“The resulting problem is one that Kwame Bediako calls a ‘crisis of African identity.’ It is the subtle but profound self-perception, especially in sub-Saharan African traditional religion, that Africa lacks intellectual subtlety and substance. Having seemingly no firm textual history, it unconsciously treats itself as if standing intrinsically at a hopeless disadvantage. This has spawned a dilemma of self-esteem. The oral traditions of the African traditional religion have seemed to have less value or authority than the written texts. The comparison of orality to textuality always seems tilted and unfair. The cultural and intellectual richness of native African religion is wrongly thought to be largely primal and oral. So it imagines itself burdened as burdened with a desperate disadvantage in relation to written traditions. This is not a fair level playing field. Africa has enough experience of real disadvantage that it is hardly useful to add another one unnecessarily.”
_____________________________
UBUNTU | Michael Battle
Michael Battle articulates the vision of Archbishop Desmond Tutu through an ancient African concept. It envisions a culture opposing rugged individualism, instead radically communal thinking. Ubuntu thinking sees no possibility for personal success without the flourishing of others. Without realizing it, many evangelical Americans have incorporated whole heartedly the system of America without examining each element for biblical fidelity. Battle compellingly unveils the problematic aspects of western competition mindset on faith. For the purposes of studying the black church, Battle establishes the divide between systemic thinking and individual thinking. This helps illuminate not only why racism has had such a dynamic hold on American culture, but critically, why discussing the issues has proven so elusive and toxic.
From page 76:
“Ubuntu also has the potential to ‘bless the west’ precisely because of what it is not. Ubuntu is not humanism in the Western sense in that it does not favor Enlightenment notions that truth claims are located in the rational capacities of individuals. Western Humanism tends more toward materialism whereas Ubuntu seeks to balance material and spiritual realities.”
_____________________________
FICTION
The Underground Railroad | Colson Whitehead
A historically fictional story of slave escape from the antebellum south, Whitehead brings an element of fantasy (the passage is made literally on trains) and streamlining (the system was not nearly as cohesive as modern history or the novel present it) to the underground railroad. By anchoring the work in the setting most palatable to white audiences (easier to hear a story if it includes white heroes), Whitehead is able to bring strong and intensive critique to the fault lines in the American origin story. The book also eloquently describes the confusing nature of hearing of America as a home of freedom while experiencing it as the opposite, from the perspective of a young slave. This fiction on a mission at its finest.
From page 24:
“But nobody wanted to speak on the true disposition of the world. And no one wanted to hear it... The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as the Freeman had fled theirs. But the ideals they held up for themselves, they denied others. Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the words, most of them at any rate, but created equal was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if all men did not truly mean all men. Not if they snatched away what belonged to other people, whether it was something you could hold in your hand, like dirt, or something you could not, like freedom.”
_____________________________
Washington Black | Esi Edugyan
One of the persistent forces perpetuating systemic injustice is the soft racism and status quo of the sympathetic. Often, those who are not the worst of society do more to personally hurt those of color than the easily self-identified villains. This is the beautifully wrenching theme of Esi Edugyan’s stunning novel. By setting the novel outside of the familiar Antebellum South, we are able to see how individuals who consider themselves progressive or enlightened are not truly helping the cause of justice simply by being not quite as harsh. As beautifully described, the title character struggles to understand whether his value is as a person or a useful pair of hands or existential help as someone able to be saved. This persists to mutli-ethnic friendships today, they often are useful for agenda or ‘diversity’ but not often altruistic. This following the ‘slacktivism’ trend of using social media in the absence of true justice engagement would do well to understand these concepts.
From page 97:
“You took me on because I was helpful in your political cause. Because I could aid in your experiments. Beyond that I was of no use to you, and so you abandoned me.” I struggled to get my breath. “I was nothing to you. You never saw me as equal. You were more concerned that slavery should be a moral stain upon white men than by the actual damage it wreaks on black men.”
_____________________________
PREACHING
Doctrine That Dances | Robert Smith Jr.
There is a strand that winds its way through conversations about different ethnic traditions of preaching. In its most synthesized form, it’s that white preaching is good at facts and black preaching at feelings. A more cynical version might be that black preaching is good at style and white preaching at substance. Robert Smith Jr. does the conversation a great service by not allowing an either/or when there is a need for a both/and. Smith describes his vision of doctrinally rich and rigorous preaching, with a style that makes the content unforgettable. He refuses to allow a ‘you must choose a side’ ideology into his writing, which ultimately makes the book more enticing than combative. He helpfully calls us to balanced preaching, which isn’t defined as middle of the road, but rather strong towards every biblical edge.
From page 8:
“Preaching is both cranial and cardiological; it involves the head and heart, fact and feeling. It is important to proclaim ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ This is the prophetic signature of one sent from the God; but one cannot proclaim ‘Thus saith the Lord’ until that person knows, ‘What saith the Lord.”
_____________________________
Crossover Preaching: Intercultural-Improvisational Homiletics in Conversation with Gardner C. Taylor
Jared Alcantara wants to argue that as the world becomes more diverse and influenced by the Global South, preachers must adapt and learn an inter-cultural style of preaching. Rather than do this philosophically, he uses the practical work already done by Gardner Taylor in the mid-to-late 20th century as an example to build upon. A mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Gardner Taylor pastored one of the Brooklyn’s largest churches for 30 years, while also moving in a variety of political and religious leadership circles. Alcantara hones in on two critical components of what he terms ‘crossover preaching,’ namely performative improvisation and cultural adaptability. Essentially, this is to tailor your delivery and illustrative material to the audience you are speaking to, without pandering or losing your own identity. This book is a must read for any minister aspiring to increase diversity in their ministry.
From page 309:
“Crossover preachers take the risk of transgressing fronteras (borders). They become border crossers by virtue of their commitment to gospel fidelity, in obedience to the one who was and is a border crossing pro nobis, namely Jesus Christ. What is needed now more than ever is women and men who are willing to take this risk, to be improvisational and intercultural not only in the strategic but the dispositional sense of these words – women and men who are eager to be and to become crossover preachers.”
_____________________________
Say IT! Celebrating Expository Preaching in the American Tradition | Eric Redmond (editor)
Editor Eric Redmond has combined two worthwhile elements into one strong book. He aims to show that expository preaching is an important part of the historical African American preaching tradition. He also aims to give current examples so as to inspire an increase in attachment to this particular style and mindset. By taking care to show and not simply tell, Redmond and his writers broaden both the readers sense of what expository preaching can be and the degree to which the style of African-American preaching fits inside it. The examples of said exposition really show well in written form as 10 different preachers exposit various texts.
From page 51:
“Historically, African-American expositors have understood that people are not pure spirits, but embodied beings. As such, the implications of the gospel express themselves in ministries that address the needs of the whole person – spiritual, social, and physical. As a result of this biblical exposition, churches develop banks, credit unions, insurance companies, and colleges. They embrace the larger implications of the gospel for life. By and large, the African american expositor does not approach scripture in a surgical and detached way, but from the vantage point of the African american interpretive location. The preacher engages the imagination as a vital part of the interpretive process. In the preaching moment, the African American expositor will sometimes appeal to the imagination of the congregation, inviting them to engage their imagination as the message is preached. Thus, the use of the imagination in the study and the appeal to the listener’s imagination in the pulpit play key roles in African american exegesis and exposition.”
