Resources for Churches Addressing Racial Justice

Last week, Redeemer City to City’s CEO, Steve Shackelford, released a statement acknowledging the several ways our organization has failed to live up our own best ideals of diversity, trans-denominational unity, and the importance of mercy and justice in ministry. We have failed, in short, to grant equal voice to Black and Latino/a partners in our strategy decisions, resources, and training materials.

As director of content development for CTC, I confess that while we have made efforts to diversify the voices we publish, we still operate from predominantly white evangelical mental frameworks, publishing agendas, ministry models, and power structures that exclude most marginalized voices. The truth is, it’s much easier to celebrate global diversity than to listen to brothers and sisters at home whose perspectives challenge and convict us.

City to City is committing to repentance, understanding how the gospel affects racial reconciliation and justice, and continued education about America’s—and the church’s—history of discrimination, segregation, and oppression.

We have compiled a list of resources below, created or recommended by leaders in our networks who we are listening to and learning from. We trust they can help you and your church to take this journey of repentance and discovery with us.

REPENTING OF OUR PERSONAL AND CORPORATE SIN

• Paul Tripp confesses the limitation of his own understanding of the gospel after getting to know black brothers in his church.

• Daniel Hill has great resources on the stages of white identity in his excellent book, White Awake. 

• Jordan Rice, pastor of Renaissance Church NYC, has posted a helpful contrast between what white evangelical churches often do, and what they should do.

• Larry Lin explores how Asian-Americans have been complicit in racism towards African-Americans.

UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT RACE, JUSTICE, AND RECONCILIATION

Race and Ethnicity

• Tim Keller has compiled a number of biblical texts in this recent article.

• Duke Kwon identifies four ways racism violates God’s law in this talk.

• Abe Cho, lead pastor of Redeemer East Side, explains how God purposely created people to be both different and interdependent.

Justice

• A 6 minute video summarizes what the Bible says about justice, courtesy of The Bible Project.

• Tim Keller expands on this subject in this sermon on justice and in his book Generous Justice.

Reconciliation

• Won Kim believes that reconciliation is an essential aspect of the Christian life.

• Rich Villodas explains that racial reconciliation may not be what you think it is.

• Bryan Stevenson’s talk following Tim Keller’s provides a few guiding principles for healing our nation’s historic divides.

• Latasha Morrison has a wonderful book and ministry on racial reconciliation.

• David Swanson’s new book suggests moving the white church “from cheap diversity to true solidarity.”

UNDERSTANDING OUR HISTORY OF DISCRIMINATION, SEGREGATION, AND OPPRESSION

• Tim Keller unpacks what corporate evil looks like in the Bible and in our world.

• Vermon Pierre explains how the recent “incidents” in the news are no accident but a result of how black people are seen in America.

• Bryan Stevenson describes the long history of race-based injustice in the criminal justice system in a recent interview.

• Jemar Tisby has written a book about racism in the history of the American church. (It has a companion DVD and Amazon Prime series.)

• Redeemer’s Formed for Justice conference in 2018 makes the case for the sinful underpinnings of American exceptionalism and racism. This is a deeper dive that can be shown to a congregation, with proper preparation and debrief.

• The documentary 13th on Netflix and the film Just Mercy are not explicitly Christian, but are powerful and informative.

This journey will require us—individually and as churches—to lament, confess, repent, and have hard conversations. The gospel compels us to take it.