Christian Growth

Decrying the Racism Within

December 15, 2017

It’s easy to decry the racism that marches in on a city, unmasked and carrying torches. It’s much harder to identify the subtle, masked racism that dwells within my own heart, a racism I could otherwise be blind to. One rarely admits to being racist. Even the KKK has a code of conduct that sounds noble at first glance, interlaced with Scripture. It takes effort and intention to detach politics from your religion and examine what has become unrecognizably entangled. It takes vulnerability to admit that the problem isn’t “this is not who we are as a country,” but that we’ve whitewashed and retold those parts of our history to maintain a romanticized national narrative. It takes silence…to hear the voices of those who have been silenced for centuries, and to know that in the recording history, it is most often the people in power who get to tell the story; but that history is never only the voice of the dominant. It takes courage to realize that we naturally try to drift towards people who are most like us, but that there is a line that is easily crossed when we begin to believe that “different” means inferiority or reason to be feared as a threat. (In Christianity, we sometimes like to blame “conviction,” “a sensitive conscience,” or the Holy Spirit for what is in actuality, feeling uncomfortable with something that is unlike us. In both the secular and sacred worlds, it’s easy to become fearful of what we do not know, and to let that fear turn into something else.) As a wise man once said, “The enemy is fear. We think it is hate; but, it is fear.” And as another wise man — a survivor of the consummation of fear and hate, the Holocaust — also told us, “The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” I posted this on my personal Facebook all the way back in August, in the fallout of Charlottesville. But I felt it warranted being posted here, too. Photo: Unsplash

10 Books on Race That Every American Should Read

December 20, 2016

Racism is a loaded term, a buzzword that often creates an immediate barrier if one perceives it is in any way being negatively connected with them. As such, reading a list called “10 books on racism” might make you want to run, because the mere suggestion of such a list might make you feel that someone is accusing you of being racist. Or, it might make you want to run toward it, because perhaps like many of us, you’ve realized your initial understanding of race and racism in our world was missing important pieces, at best. The reality is that each of our prejudices, fears, and acceptance of people different than us – on both a personal and societal level– has been shaped by a number of things, and none of us can avoid this entirely. We would all do well to examine this issue from viewpoints outside of our own. Without further commentary, these are 10 of the books that shaped my understanding of race and racism in America: 1. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption (Bryan Stevenson) 2. Black Like Me (John Howard Griffin) 3. Twelve Years a Slave: The Autobiography of Solomon Northup (Solomon Northup, Sue Eakin) 4. Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism by James W. Loewen (Loewen, James W.) (My review on this, from 2012) 5. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II 6. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness 7. Buried in the Bitter Waters: The Hidden History of Racial Cleansing in America 8. Between the World and Me (Ta-Nehisi Coates) 9. The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., (Clayborne Carson) 10. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration (Isabel Wilkerson) Bonus Resources: 16 Books About Race That Every White Person Should Read 70+ Race Resources for White People 50 Books That Every African American Should Read

The Requirements for Coming

February 24, 2015

“Jesus does not say, “Come to me, all you who have learned how to concentrate in prayer, whose minds no longer wander, and I will give you rest.” No, Jesus opens his arms to his needy children and says, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy- laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28 , NASB). The criteria for coming to Jesus is weariness. Come overwhelmed with life. Come with your wandering mind. Come messy.” Paul Miller, A Praying Life (Goes along well with my post for the start of 2015: A Call to Stop Doing)

Reading 2015: What’s Best Next

February 10, 2015

Like many Evangelicals, I have grown weary of seeing Christian authors simply take secular books, concepts, and ideas, slap on the label “Biblical” (or “Gospel-centered,” “Christian,” “godly,” or other buzzwords), throw in a few (usually-out-of-context) Bible verses and call it their own, usually holding their version on a pedestal. When I first saw this book and started into it, I’m afraid both Daniel and I did a mental eye roll, thinking that’s what this book would be. But all those initial red flags quickly dropped as I delved further into this book. Is it possible to disguise a theology book as a productivity book? Or a productivity book as a theology book? If so, Matt Perman just did it in What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done. And actually, it seems he’s done better than simply disguising one as the other: he’s showed how the two are intrinsically linked together for the believer.

Reading 2014: Not a Fan

February 3, 2014

Kyle Idleman’s Not a Fan: Becoming a Completely Committed Follower of Jesus has been out for a few years now, and perhaps ironically, has since gained quite the following. (You can now buy the Not a Fan Student Edition, the Not a Fan: Teen Edition, or even a Not a Fan Follower’s Journal, among many other options, of which I’m sure there will be more to come.)