What White People Can Do Next: From Allyship to Coalition


Emma Dabiri - 2021
    In this affecting and inspiring collection of essays, Emma Dabiri draws on both academic discipline and lived experience to probe the ways many of us are complacent and complicit—and can therefore combat—white supremacy. She outlines the actions we must take, including:Stop the DenialInterrogate WhitenessAbandon GuiltRedistribute ResourcesRealize this shit is killing you too . . . To move forward, we must begin to evaluate our prejudices, our social systems, and the ways in which white supremacy harms us all. Illuminating and practical, What White People Can Do Next is essential for everyone who wants to go beyond their current understanding and affect real—and lasting—change.

The Very Good Gospel: How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right


Lisa Sharon Harper - 2016
    Shalom is what the Kingdom of God looks like. Shalom is when all people have enough. It’s when families are healed. It’s when churches, schools, and public policies protect human dignity. Shalom is when the image of God is recognized in every single human.Shalom is our calling as followers of Jesus’s gospel. It is the vision God set forth in the Garden and the restoration God desires for every relationship.     What can we do to bring shalom to our nations, our communities, and our souls? Through a careful exploration of biblical text, particularly the first three chapters of Genesis, Lisa Sharon Harper shows us what “very good” can look like today, even after the Fall.   Because despite our anxious minds, despite division and threats of violence, God’s vision remains: Wholeness for a hurting world. Peace for a fearful soul. Shalom.

Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery


Eric Metaxas - 2007
    This accessible biography chronicles Wilberforce's extraordinary role as a human rights activist, cultural reformer, and member of Parliament.At the center of this heroic life was a passionate twenty-year fight to abolish the British slave trade, a battle Wilberforce won in 1807, as well as efforts to abolish slavery itself in the British colonies, a victory achieved just three days before his death in 1833.Metaxas discovers in this unsung hero a man of whom it can truly be said: he changed the world. Before Wilberforce, few thought slavery was wrong. After Wilberforce, most societies in the world came to see it as a great moral wrong.To mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the British slave trade, HarperSanFrancisco and Bristol Bay Productions have joined together to commemorate the life of William Wilberforce with the feature-length film Amazing Grace and this companion biography, which provides a fuller account of the amazing life of this great man than can be captured on film.This account of Wilberforce's life will help many become acquainted with an exceptional man who was a hero to Abraham Lincoln and an inspiration to the anti-slavery movement in America.

United: Captured by God's Vision for Diversity


Trillia J. Newbell - 2014
    Yet today our churches remain segregated. Can we reflect the beauty of the last day this day?United will inspire, challenge, and encourage readers to pursue the joys of diversity through stories of the author's own journey and a theology of diversity lived out.It’s time to capture a glimpse of God’s magnificent creativity. In the pages of United, Trillia Newbell reveals the deeply moving, transforming power of knowing—really knowing—someone who is equal yet unique. As we learn to identify in Christ rather than in our commonalities, we begin to experience the depth and power of gospel unity.

Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism's Looming Catastrophe


Voddie T. Baucham Jr. - 2021
    As riots rocked American cities, Christians affirmed from the pulpit and in social media that “black lives matter” and that racial justice “is a gospel issue.” But what if there is more to the social justice movement than those Christians understand? Even worse: What if they’ve been duped into preaching ideas that actually oppose the Kingdom of God? In this powerful book, Voddie Baucham, a preacher, professor, and cultural apologist, explains the sinister worldview behind the social justice movement and Critical Race Theory—revealing how it already has infiltrated some seminaries, leading to internal denominational conflict, canceled careers, and lost livelihoods. Like a fault line, it threatens American culture in general—and the evangelical church in particular. Whether you’re a layperson who has woken up in a strange new world and wonders how to engage sensitively and effectively in the conversation on race or a pastor who is grappling with a polarized congregation, this book offers the clarity and understanding to either hold your ground or reclaim it.

More Than Serving Tea: Asian American Women on Expectations, Relationships, Leadership and Faith


Nikki A. Toyama - 2006
    Many grew up sensing that daughters were not as valuable as sons. Family expectations and cultural stereotypes assume that Asian American women can only have certain prescribed roles, as if our worth comes only through what we do for others.But God has good news for Asian American women. In his eyes, they are his beloved daughters, created for greater purposes than the roles imposed upon us. In this one-of-a-kind book, editors Nikki Toyama and Tracey Gee and a team of Asian American women share how God has redeemed their stories and helped them move beyond cultural and gender constraints. With the help of biblical role models and modern-day mentors, these women have discovered how God works through their ethnic identity, freeing them to use their gifts and empowering them to serve and lead.The contributors include writers of East Asian heritage (Chinese, Japanese and Korean) as well as Southeast Asian (Filipina) and South Asian (Pakistani). Their diverse perspectives shed light on common threads in the Asian American experience, providing encouragement and guidance to others on the journey.God has so much more in store for Asian American women than cultural norms, gender roles and old stereotypes of geisha girls or dutiful daughters. Experience the joy and freedom of becoming the Asian American Christian woman God intended you to be.

Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds


Adrienne Maree Brown - 2017
    Change is constant. The world is in a continual state of flux. It is a stream of ever-mutating, emergent patterns. Rather than steel ourselves against such change, this book invites us to feel, map, assess, and learn from the swirling patterns around us in order to better understand and influence them as they happen. This is a resolutely materialist “spirituality” based equally on science and science fiction, a visionary incantation to transform that which ultimately transforms us.adrienne maree brown, co-editor of Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements, is a social justice facilitator, healer, and doula living in Detroit.

Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century


Dorothy Roberts - 2011
    In this provocative analysis, leading legal scholar and social critic Dorothy Roberts argues that America is once again at the brink of a virulent outbreak of classifying population by race. By searching for differences at the molecular level, a new race-based science is obscuring racism in our society and legitimizing state brutality against communities of color at a time when America claims to be post-racial.Moving from an account of the evolution of race—proving that it has always been a mutable and socially defined political division supported by mainstream science—Roberts delves deep into the current debates, interrogating the newest science and biotechnology, interviewing its researchers, and exposing the political consequences obscured by the focus on genetic difference. Fatal Invention is a provocative call for us to affirm our common humanity.

The Third Option: Hope for a Racially Divided Nation


Miles McPherson - 2018
    It’s a topic that's widely recognized, yet rarely acknowledged. Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America today, and our preference for clinging to those who are like us leads to big problems in our country as a whole. Even Christians—who, if they claim to follow God, should be the people most outspoken against racism—fall short, and many of us feel obliged to choose sides. Us vs. them. Cops vs. protestors. Blacks vs. whites.Enough Is Enough is a plea on behalf of a brokenhearted God who, Scripture teaches, is frustrated with those of us who claim to believe in Him but are really “faking the faith.” McPherson argues that we must rise above the issues that divide us and be part of something bigger. Enough Is Enough challenges both believers and seekers to fully embrace God’s goodness and power. As senior pastor of Rock Church in San Diego, he doesn’t shy away from core issues that have caused a great divide both within the church and across the country. He believes that instead of choosing one of two sides, there is a third option—one that’s proven to bring people together, mend relationships, and promote genuine peace in communities. Miles exposes common misconceptions that keep people at a distance and encourages us to engage with those who look different from us and expand our world. Full of practical takeaways and exercises to help us understand the points of view of others, this book inspires, encourages, and equips us to make positive changes in our country—starting with ourselves.

Christians at the Border: Immigration, the Church, and the Bible


M. Daniel Carroll Rodas - 2008
    This accessible book provides biblical and ethical guidance for readers who are looking for a Christian perspective on the immigration issue. As both a Guatemalan and an American, the author has immersed himself in this issue and is uniquely qualified to write about it. Drawing on key biblical ideas, he speaks to both the immigrant culture and the host culture, arguing that both sides have much to learn about the debate. This timely, clear, and compassionate resource will benefit all Christians who are thinking through the immigration issue.

Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing


Emmanuel M. Katongole - 2008
    What makes real reconciliation possible? Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice work from their experiences in Uganda and Mississippi to recover distinctively Christian practices that will help the church be both a sign and an agent of God's reconciling love in the fragmented world of the twenty-first century.

Just Us: An American Conversation


Claudia Rankine - 2020
    Rankine's questions disrupt the false comfort of our culture's liminal and private spaces--the airport, the theater, the dinner party, the voting booth--where neutrality and politeness live on the surface of differing commitments, beliefs, and prejudices as our public and private lives intersect.This brilliant arrangement of essays, poems, and images includes the voices and rebuttals of others: white men in first class responding to, and with, their white male privilege; a friend's explanation of her infuriating behavior at a play; and women confronting the political currency of dying their hair blond, all running alongside fact-checked notes and commentary that complements Rankine's own text, complicating notions of authority and who gets the last word.Sometimes wry, often vulnerable, and always prescient, Just Us is Rankine's most intimate work, less interested in being right than in being true, being together.

The Evangelicals: The Struggle to Shape America


Frances FitzGerald - 2017
    A populist rebellion against the established churches, it became the dominant religious force in the country.During the nineteenth century white evangelicals split apart dramatically, first North versus South, and then at the end of the century, modernist versus fundamentalist. After World War II, Billy Graham, the revivalist preacher, attracted enormous crowds and tried to gather all Protestants under his big tent, but the civil rights movement and the social revolution of the sixties drove them apart again. By the 1980s Jerry Falwell and other southern televangelists, such as Pat Robertson, had formed the Christian right. Protesting abortion and gay rights, they led the South into the Republican Party, and for thirty-five years they were the sole voice of evangelicals to be heard nationally. Eventually a younger generation of leaders protested the Christian right’s close ties with the Republican Party and proposed a broader agenda of issues, such as climate change, gender equality, and immigration reform.Evangelicals have in many ways defined the nation. They have shaped our culture and our politics. Frances FitzGerald’s narrative of this distinctively American movement is a major work of history, piecing together the centuries-long story for the first time. Evangelicals now constitute twenty-five percent of the American population, but they are no longer monolithic in their politics. They range from Tea Party supporters to social reformers. Still, with the decline of religious faith generally, FitzGerald suggests that evangelical churches must embrace ethnic minorities if they are to survive.

What is the Mission of the Church?: Making sense of social justice, Shalom and the Great Commission


Kevin DeYoung - 2011
    Addressing mission, evangelism and social justice, two pastors draw readers to the Bible's teaching on some contentious matters.   Readers in all spheres of ministry will grow in their understanding of the mission of the church and gain a renewed sense of urgency for Jesus' call to preach the Word and make disciples.

I Think You're Wrong (But I'm Listening): A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations


Sarah Stewart Holland - 2019
    People sitting together in pews every Sunday have started to feel like strangers, loved ones at the dinner table like enemies. Toxic political dialogue, hate-filled rants on social media, and agenda-driven news stories have become the new norm. It’s exhausting, and it’s too much.In I Think You’re Wrong (But I’m Listening), two working moms from opposite ends of the political spectrum contend that there is a better way. They believe that we can choose to respect the dignity of every person, choose to recognize that issues are nuanced and can’t be reduced to political talking points, choose to listen in order to understand, choose gentleness and patience. Sarah from the left and Beth from the right invite those looking for something better than the status quo to pull up a chair and listen to the principles, insights, and practical tools they have learned hosting their fast-growing podcast Pantsuit Politics. As impossible as it might seem, people from opposing political perspectives truly can have calm, grace-­filled conversations with one another—by putting relationship before policy and understanding before argument.