We can see the injustice and inequality in our lives and in the world. But how, exactly, does one reconcile? Based on her extensive work with churches and organizations, Rev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil has created a roadmap to show us the way. This revised and expanded edition shows us how to take the next step into unity, wholeness, and justice.
Foreword INDIES 2020 Book of the Year Award (BRONZE Winner for Religion) "[A] powerful work. . . . Provides a road map for any Christian seeking greater racial justice."--Publishers Weekly Reconciliation is not true reconciliation without justice! Brenda Salter McNeil has come to this conviction as she has led the church in pursuing reconciliation efforts over the past three decades. McNeil calls the church to repair the old reconciliation paradigm by moving beyond individual racism to address systemic injustice, both historical and present. It's time for the church to go beyond individual reconciliation and "heart change" and to boldly mature in its response to racial division. Looking through the lens of the biblical narrative of Esther, McNeil challenges Christian reconcilers to recognize the particular pain in our world so they can work together to repair what is broken while maintaining a deep hope in God's ongoing work for justice. This book provides education and prophetic inspiration for every person who wants to take reconciliation seriously. Becoming Brave offers a distinctly Christian framework for addressing systemic injustice. It challenges Christians to be everyday activists who become brave enough to break the silence and work with others to dismantle systems of injustice and inequality.
Racial and ethnic hostility is one of the most pervasive problems the church faces. What should our response be in a work torn apart by prejudice, hatred, and fear? In this book, Brenda Salter McNeil and Rick Richardson provide a model of racial reconciliation, social justice, and spiritual healing that creates both individual and communal transformation.
Evangelist and teacher McNeil thinks evangelism that only introduces people to Jesus is incomplete. The picture is much larger than that, she claims. Jesus' encounter with the Samaritan woman gives the full picture of reconciliation with God and with one another.
Bringing together leading scholars and practitioners from the worlds of leadership, followership, transitional justice, and international law, this research provides a blueprint of how people-led, bottom-up, grassroots efforts can foster reconciliation and a more peaceful world.
In her classic books The Courage to Heal and Allies in Healing, Laura Davis helped millions cope with the trauma of child sexual abuse. Her supportive guide Becoming the Parent You Want to Be taught parents to create a vision for their families. Now, in I Thought We'd Never Speak Again, she tackles another critical, emerging issue: reconciling relationships sundered by betrayal, anger, and misunderstanding. With her trademark clarity and compassion, Davis maps the reconciliation process through gripping firstperson stories of people who have reconciled under a wide variety of difficult circumstances. In these pages, parents reconcile with children, embittered siblings reconnect, estranged friends reunite, and war veterans and crime victims meet with their enemies. Davis weaves these powerful accounts with her own experiences reconciling with her mother after a long, painful estrangement. Making a crucial distinction between reconciliation and forgiveness, Davis explains how people can make peace in relationships without necessarily forgiving past hurts. Step by step, she clarifies the qualities needed for reconciliation-including maturity, discernment, determination, courage, communication, and compassion. To help readers gauge their own readiness, she includes a self-assessment entitled "Are You Ready for Reconciliation?" as well as a special section called "Ideas for Reflection and Discussion." On each page of this inspiring and instructive book, Laura Davis offers hope and help for reconciliation between individuals, and in the larger human family, sharing essential keys for resolving troubled relationships and finding peace.
“If reconciliation is the takeaway point for the civil rights story we usually tell, then the takeaway point for the more complex, more truthful civil rights story contained in Dear White Christians is reparations.” — from the preface to the second edition With the troubling and painful events of the last several years—from the killing of numerous unarmed Black men and women at the hands of police to the rallying of white supremacists in Charlottesville—it is clearer than ever that the reconciliation paradigm, long favored by white Christians, has failed to heal the deep racial wounds in the church and American society. In this provocative book, originally published in 2014, Jennifer Harvey argues for a radical shift away from the well-meaning but feeble longing for reconciliation toward a robustly biblical call for reparations. Now in its second edition—with a new preface addressing the explosive changes in American culture and politics since 2014, as well as an appendix that explores what a reparations paradigm can actually look like—Dear White Christians calls justice-committed Christians to do the gospel-inspired work of opposing racist social structures around them. Harvey’s message is historically and scripturally rooted, making it ideal for facilitating the difficult but important discussions about race that are so desperately needed in churches and faith-centered classrooms across the country.
Rosie’s sins were never difficult to recall; they lined themselves up like baby ducks in her mind’s eye. Her confession to Father Hart one day in 1974 went like this: “I didn’t finish all my chores. I stole the Halloween candy my mom hid in the pantry. And I let my Daddy touch my private places.” Though it begins as an all-too-common story of childhood sexual abuse, Fortunate Daughter gradually becomes a rare story of how one person heals from that early trauma. In this intimate first-person narrative, Rosie McMahan offers the reader a portrait of misery, abuse, and hurt, followed by the difficult and painful task of healing—a journey that, in the end, reveals the complicated and nuanced venture of true reconciliation and the freedom that comes along with it.
From the daughter of one of America's most virulent segregationists, a memoir that reckons with her father George Wallace's legacy of hate--and illuminates her journey towards redemption. Peggy Wallace Kennedy has been widely hailed as the “symbol of racial reconciliation” (Washington Post). In the summer of 1963, though, she was just a young girl watching her father stand in a schoolhouse door as he tried to block two African-American students from entering the University of Alabama. This man, former governor of Alabama and presidential candidate George Wallace, was notorious for his hateful rhetoric and his political stunts. But he was also a larger-than-life father to young Peggy, who was taught to smile, sit straight, and not speak up as her father took to the political stage. At the end of his life, Wallace came to renounce his views, although he could never attempt to fully repair the damage he caused. But Peggy, after her own political awakening, dedicated her life to spreading the new Wallace message--one of peace and compassion. In this powerful new memoir, Peggy looks back on the politics of her youth and attempts to reconcile her adored father with the man who coined the phrase “Segregation now. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever.” Timely and timeless, The Broken Road speaks to change, atonement, activism, and racial reconciliation.
Before white churches can pursue diversity, we must first address the faulty discipleship that has led to our segregation in the first place. Pastor David Swanson proposes that we rethink our churches' habits, or liturgies, and imagine together holistic, communal discipleship practices that can reform us as members of Christ's diverse body.
