America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America
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ISBN: 9781587433429
Type: Hardcover
America's problem with race has deep roots, with the country's foundation tied to the near extermination of one race of people and the enslavement of another. Racism is truly our nation's original sin.
"It's time we right this unacceptable wrong," says bestselling author and leading Christian activist Jim Wallis. Fifty years ago, Wallis was driven away from his faith by a white church that considered dealing with racism to be taboo. His participation in the civil rights movement brought him back when he discovered a faith that commands racial justice. Yet as recent tragedies confirm, we continue to suffer from the legacy of racism. The old patterns of white privilege are colliding with the changing demographics of a diverse nation. The church has been slow to respond, and Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week.
In America's Original Sin, Wallis offers a prophetic and deeply personal call to action in overcoming the racism so ingrained in American society. He speaks candidly to Christians--particularly white Christians--urging them to cross a new bridge toward racial justice and healing.
Whenever divided cultures and gridlocked power structures fail to end systemic sin, faith communities can help lead the way to grassroots change. Probing yet positive, biblically rooted yet highly practical, this book shows people of faith how they can work together to overcome the embedded racism in America, galvanizing a movement to cross the bridge to a multiracial church and a new America.
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Contents
Foreword by Bryan Stevenson
Preface: June 17
Introduction: You Will Know the Truth, and the Truth Will Set You Free
1. Race Is a Story
2. The Parables of Ferguson and Baltimore
3. The Original Sin and Its Legacy
4. Repentance Means More Than Just Saying You're Sorry
5. Dying to Whiteness
6. A Segregated Church or a Beloved Community?
7. From Warriors to Guardians
8. The New Jim Crow and Restorative Justice
9. Welcoming the Stranger
10. Crossing the Bridge to a New America
Afterword
Index
Endorsements
"Jim Wallis marches among our hardiest and most steadfast pioneers on the path to a more perfect union and a more vibrant faith. America's Original Sin is a powerful act of Spirit-led truth telling and a loving disruption of the status quo. Wallis calls us to transcend racial categories and to see in one another the image of God. He points out the structural realities of sinful racism and makes clear that to be redeemed, we must do more than deny it. Like Joshua reporting from the land of Canaan, Wallis finds unseen hopes and rich fruit if we will walk as well as talk and cross the bridge to a new America. America's Original Sin is required reading for all who believe in the promises of God, who hope for the American democracy, and who long to see the power of a justice ethos grounded in love."
