Reparations
A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $3.99
Publisher Description
Christianity Today 2022 Book Award Winner (Politics & Public Life)
Outreach 2022 Resource of the Year (Social Issues and Justice)
Foreword INDIES 2021 Finalist for Religion
"Kwon and Thompson's eloquent reasoning will help Christians broaden their understanding of the contemporary conversation over reparations."--Publishers Weekly
"A thoughtful approach to a vital topic."--Library Journal
Christians are awakening to the legacy of racism in America like never before. While public conversations regarding the realities of racial division and inequalities have surged in recent years, so has the public outcry to work toward the long-awaited healing of these wounds. But American Christianity, with its tendency to view the ministry of reconciliation as its sole response to racial injustice, and its isolation from those who labor most diligently to address these things, is underequipped to offer solutions. Because of this, the church needs a new perspective on its responsibility for the deep racial brokenness at the heart of American culture and on what it can do to repair that brokenness.
This book makes a compelling historical and theological case for the church's obligation to provide reparations for the oppression of African Americans. Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson articulate the church's responsibility for its promotion and preservation of white supremacy throughout history, investigate the Bible's call to repair our racial brokenness, and offer a vision for the work of reparation at the local level. They lead readers toward a moral imagination that views reparations as a long-overdue and necessary step in our collective journey toward healing and wholeness.
Christians are awakening to the legacy of racism in America like never before. Reparations explores the church's responsibility for the deep racial brokenness at the heart of American culture, investigates the Bible's call to repair it, and offers a vision for the work of reparation at the local level. The authors lead readers toward a moral imagination that views reparations as a long-overdue and necessary step in our collective journey toward healing and wholeness.
This book won a Christianity Today 2022 Book Award (Politics & Public Life) and an Outreach 2022 Resource of the Year Award (Social Issues and Justice). It was also a Foreword INDIES 2021 Finalist for Religion.
"Kwon and Thompson's eloquent reasoning will help Christians broaden their understanding of the contemporary conversation over reparations."--Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this persuasive debut, Kwon, lead pastor of Grace Meridian Hill in Washington, D.C., and Thompson, research fellow at Lincoln University, argue that white supremacy's "enduring effect" in America is the theft of Black wealth and power, and that Christians must respond by participating in reparations. Christians, in their estimate, have a unique capacity to contribute to the project of reparations because the ideas at its core—the ethics of restitution and restoration—are a part of Christian beliefs and practices, specifically the stories of Zaccheus and the Good Samaritan. The authors present these scriptural models alongside theological treatises on theft that have informed Christian practice for centuries and firmly assert that "restitution for the thefts of White supremacy" is a goal "older than America itself," often explicitly rooted in Christian beliefs, as with the abolitionist movement. At the end, Kwon and Thompson provide "practices of repair" directed toward churches, including acknowledging and memorializing history; bolstering "vocational, relational, and financial power to our Black neighbors"; working with economic institutions to remove barriers to wealth; and transfers of wealth to "Black households, institutions, and communities." Kwon and Thompson's eloquent reasoning will help Christians broaden their understanding of the contemporary conversation over reparations.
