Resources for Understanding Justice and Reconciliation

One of the greatest needs at this moment is for our church family to listen to the voices of those who are mourning, who cry out for justice. When we seek understanding by listening to people of color, we’re able not only to grieve with those who grieve, but to seek justice for the suffering and oppressed.

Check out the written, video, and audio resources below that share perspectives on racial justice and reconciliation of the black community.  Please note that these resources share a spectrum of opinions meant to help us engage, act, lament, and think. We understand that these resources are fallible and do not always perfectly align with our leadership’s varied opinions. However, we still want to measure all things against the truth of the Word of God, and that we enter this conversation with humility and charity.  Let us be a people who are living as we are admonished in Micah 6:8, to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

Read

• One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race and Love – John Perkins
• Woke Church: An Urgent Call for Christians in America to Confront Racism and Injustice – Eric Mason
• Roadmap to Reconciliation 2.0: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice – Brenda Salter McNeil
• The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration – Isabel Wilkerson
• Multiethnic Conversations: An Eight-Week Journey toward Unity in Your Church – Mark DeYmaz & Oney Fennell Okuwobi
• From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race – J. Daniel Hays
• Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and the Christian – John Piper
• The Secular Creed – Rebecca McLaughlin
• The Healing Power of Justice & The Longing for Eternity – Senior Pastor Chris Brooks
• I Can’t Breathe: George Floyd, The Gospel, & Our Response (Part 1) – Senior Pastor Chris Brooks
• Moving from Lament to Leadership: George Floyd, The Gospel , & Our Response (Part 2) – Senior Pastor Chris Brooks
• Talking to Children About Race -Thabiti Anyabwile

For Kids

• God’s Very Good Idea: A True Story About GOD’s Delightfully Different Family – Trillia Newbell
• Creative God, Colorful Us by Trillia J. Newbell

Watch

• Selma – Amazon Prime
• Just Mercy – Amazon Prime
• The African Americans: Many Rivers to Cross – PBS
• MLK 50 Conference Keynote Videos – The Gospel Coalition
• One Thing White Evangelicals Should Understand About Racial Reconciliation – Thabiti Anyabwile
• Color Blind or Color Brave? – Mellody Hobson
• The Link: Season 2, Episode 1: What’s Your Legacy? – Woodside Bible Church
• The Link – Episode 8: Ahmaud Arbery & A Response to Race and the Gospel – Woodside Bible Church

Listen

• One Blood – Parting Words on Race with John Perkins – Equipped with Chris Brooks
• God’s Very Good Idea with Trillia Newbell – Equipped with Chris Brooks
• Let Justice Roll Down Like Waters: Racism and our Need for Repentance – David Platt
• Racial Justice and the Uneasy Conscience of American Christianity – Russell Moore

If you have questions about CTR and how Christians should respond, here are some articles to review. Again, not every article aligns perfectly with our leadership’s varied opinions. However, we want to give you a starting place. If you have any questions, please reach out to us [click here], and one of our Campus Pastors is more than willing to process this alongside you.

• We Must Find A Better Way to Talk About Race – Kevin DeYoung
• How the American Evangelical Race Discussion Went Off the Rails, and How to get it back on Track – Justin Taylor
• The Incompatibility of Critical Race Theory and Christianity – Neil Shenvi