Racism, Reconciliation, and the Modern Church

This resource list examines racism and reconciliation within the Christian church. It explains the role of the church in historical and modern-day racism, reviews wide-ranging perspectives on the meaning and process of reconciliation to Christians, and illuminates the potential role of the church in building beloved community. It includes a detailed list of podcasts and ecumenical and denominational organizations that can be support resources for individual Christians committed to antiracism.

I will be the first to admit that the Church generally sucks at understanding and living into racial reconciliation. Christian attempts at racial justice and reconciliation - especially intersectional justice and reconciliation - are often marked more by brokenness than hope. This brokenness is evident in some of the resources here. I do not agree with the perspectives of all of the authors, speakers, or organizations here. Some of these organizations have histories marked by racial and gender oppression. Some of the books gesture toward the sort of reconciliation that I critique as anemic. But I - like all of us - now see in a mirror dimly lit. And even amidst the brokenness and division, there is hope in the fact that these writers and organizations are taking up a topic that the Church would often rather ignore, and I want to honor that here by listing Christian organizations that have a significant emphasis on antiracism and racial reconciliation.

Read

  • I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation

  • I'm Still Here

  • Forgive Us: Confessions of a Compromised Faith

  • The Cross and the Lynching Tree

  • Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America

  • Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation

  • Reconcile: Conflict Transformation for Ordinary Christians

  • The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

  • The Death of Race

  • Reconciliation: The Ubuntu Theology of Desmond Tutu

  • The Church Enslaved

  • Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery

  • A Black Theology of Liberation

  • Stand Your Ground: Black Bodies and the Justice of God

  • Ferguson and Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community

  • Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice That Restores

  • Trouble I've Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism

  • White Awake

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

  • Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World

  • Be the Bridge: Pursuing God's Heart for Racial Reconciliation

  • Lynched: The Power of Memory in a Culture of Terror

  • Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide

  • Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys: A Native American Expression of the Jesus Way

  • America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America

  • The Myth of Equality: Uncovering the Roots of Injustice and Privilege

Watch

Listen

  • Combing The Roots with Ally Henny

  • Freedom Road Podcast

  • HER With Amena Brown

  • Hope & Hard Pills

  • Parenting Forward

  • Pass The Mic

  • Profane Faith

  • The Prophetic Resistance Podcast

  • Truth's Table

Organizations