The Post-Racial Church


Book Description

Essential guide for the church act as the agent of reconciliation between God and humanity and men and women to one another




The Ground Has Shifted


Book Description

8. Returning to the Little House Where We Lived and Made Do -- 9. Cultural Asylums and the Jungles They Planted in Them -- 10. Waking Up the Dead -- Notes -- Index -- About the Author




The Ground Has Shifted


Book Description

Honorable Mention, Theology and Religious Studies PROSE Award A powerful insight into the historical and cultural roles of the black church If we are in a post-racial era, then what is the future of the Black Church? If the US will at some time in the future be free from discrimination and prejudices that are based on race how will that affect the church’s very identity? In The Ground Has Shifted, Walter Earl Fluker passionately and thoroughly discusses the historical and current role of the black church and argues that the older race-based language and metaphors of religious discourse have outlived their utility. He offers instead a larger, global vision for the black church that focuses on young black men and other disenfranchised groups who have been left behind in a world of globalized capital. Lyrically written with an emphasis on the dynamic and fluid movement of life itself, Fluker argues that the church must find new ways to use race as an emancipatory instrument if it is to remain central in black life, and he points the way for a new generation of church leaders, scholars and activists to reclaim the black church’s historical identity and to turn to the task of infusing character, civility, and a sense of community among its congregants.




Race in a Post-Obama America


Book Description

Recent events in the United States have provoked not just a willingness to discuss issues of racism in this country but a desire to do something meaningful to confront it. Race in a Post-Obama America offers concerned Christians the chance to clarify terms and issues around racism and discern how to respond. The reader will learn the basic definitions and history around racism in the United States, be presented with current thoughts on institutional racism and what is to be done to end it, and learn about specific actions individuals and churches are taking. Designed for individual or group study, the book includes questions for reflection and discussion.




The Death of Race


Book Description

Brian Bantum says that race is not merely an intellectual category or a biological fact. Much like the incarnation, it is a Òword made flesh,Ó the confluence of various powers that allow some to organize and dominate the lives of others. In this way racism is a deeply theological problem, one that is central to the Christian story and one that plays out daily in the United States and throughout the world. In The Death of Race, Bantum argues that our attempts to heal racism will not succeed until we address what gives rise to racism in the first place: a fallen understanding of our bodies that sees difference as something to resist, defeat, or subdue. Therefore, he examines the question of race, but through the lens of our bodies and what our bodies mean in the midst of a complicated, racialized world, one that perpetually dehumanizes dark bodies, thereby rendering all of us less than God's intention.




Recovering from Racism


Book Description

Fred Davis: I was introduced to Larry Lloyd in 1975 when he was in the process of making history in Memphis. He was about to start the first Young Life program in an African American high school in Memphis. I was on the city council and the high school was in my district, as was my home and business. My home, and eventually, the Lloyd family's home was in Orange Mound, one of the largest black communities in the country. He and I knew that it would take some ?inside? help to get a white boy in a school like that! Larry has a heart for the inner city, which in Memphis has largely meant the African American community.Then, in 1987, he started the Memphis Leadership Foundation which now serves as an umbrella for a plethora of ministries that get at the real issues facing the inner city.Larry doesn't just ?talk the talk? but he ?walks the walk.' I am proud to be his mentor!Verley Sangster: After the assassination of Dr. King, Larry, a native of Memphis, TN, dedicated himself to be a healer in the city of Memphis. In order to fulfill his vision he has helped create multiple ministries to the marginalized, such as quality housing for the poor, a camp for inner city youth, jobs programs for individuals that have been incarcerated, training programs to educate leaders to work with youth in the urban community and many other such services. In my opinion, because of Larry's leadership for the past 40 years, Memphis now has the finest model in the nation of a holistic approach for reconciling the 'haves' and the 'have nots'. This book offers the roadmap to equip others to become healers in the communities they love




Racial Justice and the Catholic Church


Book Description

Examines the history of racism in the United States from the Civil War to the twenty-first century and discusses the teaching efforts of the Catholic Church to put a stop to racism and promote reconciliation and justice.




Be the Bridge


Book Description

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • ECPA BESTSELLER • “When it comes to the intersection of race, privilege, justice, and the church, Tasha is without question my best teacher. Be the Bridge is THE tool I wish to put in every set of hands.”—Jen Hatmaker WINNER OF THE CHRISTIAN BOOK AWARD® • Winner of the Christianity Today Book Award • A leading advocate for racial reconciliation calls Christians to move toward deeper understanding in the midst of a divisive culture. In an era where we seem to be increasingly divided along racial lines, many are hesitant to step into the gap, fearful of saying or doing the wrong thing. At times the silence, particularly within the church, seems deafening. But change begins with an honest conversation among a group of Christians willing to give a voice to unspoken hurts, hidden fears, and mounting tensions. These ongoing dialogues have formed the foundation of a global movement called Be the Bridge—a nonprofit organization whose goal is to equip the church to have a distinctive and transformative response to racism and racial division. In this perspective-shifting book, founder Latasha Morrison shows how you can participate in this incredible work and replicate it in your own community. With conviction and grace, she examines the historical complexities of racism. She expertly applies biblical principles, such as lamentation, confession, and forgiveness, to lay the framework for restoration. Along with prayers, discussion questions, and other resources to enhance group engagement, Be the Bridge presents a compelling vision of what it means for every follower of Jesus to become a bridge builder—committed to pursuing justice and racial unity in light of the gospel.




The Post-Black and Post-White Church


Book Description

The key to creating and growing a more unified and holistic church is the multi-ethnic and Christ-centered community that offers a strong connection between theology and practical ministry models, and that nurtures believers who are wrestling with what it means to be the church of the Bible today. Most books on racial reconciliation or multi-ethnic ministry center on the theological foundations, history, or social problem aspects of the topic. The Post-Black and Post-White Church offers a practical, hands-on blueprint for developing and sustaining a multi-ethnic and Christ-centered community. Written by Efrem Smith, an innovative and passionate African American leader of the Covenant Evangelical Church and founding pastor of Sanctuary Covenant Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota, this groundbreaking book shares his skills, experience, and wisdom for congregations who want to grow into a multi-ethnic, missional identity. The Post-Black and Post-White Church connects theology and practical ministry models for wrestling with what it means to be church in an increasingly multi-ethnic world that is polarized by class, politics, and race. The book embraces Jesus as one who was both Jewish and multi-ethnic and focuses on a theology of reconciled, multi-ethnic, and missional leadership.




Redeeming Mulatto


Book Description

The theological attempts to understand Christ's body have either focused on "philosophical" claims about Jesus' identity or on "contextual" rebuttals--on a culturally transcendent, disembodied Jesus of the creeds or on a Jesus of color who rescues and saves a particular people because of embodied particularity. But neither of these two attempts has accounted for the world as it is, a world of mixed race, of hybridity, of cultural and racial intermixing. By not understanding the true theological problem, that we live in a mulatto world, the right question has not been posed: How can Christ save this mixed world? The answer, Brian Bantum shows, is in the mulattoness of Jesus' own body, which is simultaneously fully God and fully human. In Redeeming Mulatto, Bantum reconciles the particular with the transcendent to account for the world as it is: mixed. He constructs a remarkable new Christological vision of Christ as tragic mulatto--one who confronts the contrived delusions of racial purity and the violence of self-assertion and emerges from a "hybridity" of flesh and spirit, human and divine, calling humanity to a mulattic rebirth. Bantum offers a theology that challenges people to imagine themselves inside their bodies, changed and something new, but also not without remnants of the old. His theology is one for all people, offered through the lens of a particular people, not for individual possession but for redemption and transformation into something new.