White Too Long
The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity
-
- USD 13.99
-
- USD 13.99
Descripción editorial
“An indispensible study” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) drawing on history, public opinion surveys, and personal experience that presents a provocative examination of the unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy, and issues an urgent call for white Christians to reckon with this legacy for the sake of themselves and the nation.
As the nation grapples with demographic changes and the legacy of racism in America, Christianity’s role as a cornerstone of white supremacy has been largely overlooked. But white Christians—from evangelicals in the South to mainline Protestants in the Midwest and Catholics in the Northeast—have not just been complacent or complicit; rather, as the dominant cultural power, they have constructed and sustained a project of protecting white supremacy and opposing black equality that has framed the entire American story.
With his family’s 1815 Bible in one hand and contemporary public opinion surveys by Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) in the other, Robert P. Jones delivers “a refreshing blend of historical accounting, soul searching reflection, and analysis” (Publishers Weekly) of the repressed relationship between Christianity and white supremacy. White Too Long is “a marvel” (Booklist, starred review) that demonstrates how deeply racist attitudes have become embedded in the DNA of white Christian identity over time and calls for an honest reckoning with a complicated, painful, and even shameful past. Jones challenges white Christians to acknowledge that public apologies are not enough—accepting responsibility for the past requires work toward repair in the present.
White Too Long is not an appeal to altruism. It is “a powerful and much-needed book” (Eddie S. Glaude Jr, professor at Princeton University and author of Begin Again) drawing on lessons gleaned from case studies of communities beginning to face these challenges. Jones argues that contemporary white Christians must confront these unsettling truths because this is the only way to salvage the integrity of their faith and their own identities. More broadly, it is no exaggeration to say that not just the future of white Christianity, but the outcome of the American experiment is at stake.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sociologist Jones (The End of White Christian America), founder and CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, offers in this vociferous work a refreshing blend of historical accounting, soul-searching reflection, and analysis of white supremacy within the American Christian identity. "White Christian churches have not just been complacent; they have not only been complicit... as the dominant cultural power in America, they have been responsible for constructing and sustaining a project to protect white supremacy at the expense of black equality." He challenges white Christians to see how white supremacy operates in their religious lives; learn its history, theology, and physical presence; to understand how racism has become "constitutive of white Christian identity"; and to take antiracist action. Woven throughout is the author's personal story of growing up white in a Southern Baptist community in Jackson, Miss., his journey toward a fuller understanding of his family and faith history in relation to racism, and his efforts to chart a more just path forward. Only with honest assessment, followed by deliberate individual and collective reparative justice work, Jones argues, can white Christian Americans do the necessary work of addressing structural racism within their faith and nation. Jones's introspective, measured study is a revelatory unpacking of influence and history of white Christian nationalism.
