Reparations

L. Kwon Duke

Description

"Kwon and Thompson's eloquent reasoning will help Christians broaden their understanding of the contemporary conversation over reparations."--Publishers WeeklyChristians 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.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 06 avril 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781493429578
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Cover
Endorsements
“We are at an inflection point in our nation. We can either continue with the racial status quo or earnestly engage in the long-overdue process of repair. Kwon and Thompson marshal deep research, theological acumen, and pastoral tenderness to make a timely call for reparations and the dignity of all people.”
— Jemar Tisby , CEO of The Witness Inc.; author of the bestselling book The Color of Compromise
“ Reparations is challenging in the best way: it challenges Christians to look squarely at our history, to take responsibility for our complicity in evil, and, most importantly, to take our mission as the church seriously. This book is a clarion call to understand the context of our mission and how that context must shape our work and community.”
— Tish Harrison Warren , Anglican priest; author of Liturgy of the Ordinary and Prayer in the Night
“How do we make things whole? That is the question Reparations helps us answer. Kwon and Thompson walk us through our complicated racial past and give us a glimpse of a future that is reconciled, just, and ultimately more like Christ. This book should be essential reading for every single believer who cares about justice and equality. The history is sound, the facts are compelling, and the ultimate case must not be ignored.”
— Joshua DuBois , CEO, media commentator, and former director, White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships
“Kwon and Thompson have listened to their African American brothers and sisters. They tell us the sad truth about the significant role the church has played in the problem of racism. They demonstrate that reparations is a thoroughly biblical concept and a work of the gospel. And most importantly, with empathy and hope, they show us how we can start repairing our racial brokenness through local and community-based efforts that every one of us can be part of.”
— Latasha Morrison , founder of Be the Bridge and New York Times bestselling author of Be the Bridge: Pursuing God’ s Heart for Racial Reconciliation
“Kwon and Thompson do a compelling job of laying out the historic legitimacy, the moral necessity, and the biblical urgency for reparations from slavery. With a kind of whiplash effect, they frequently let centuries-old voices speak into this very moment with shocking immediacy. May Christ’s loving reign over new hearts, minds, and systems reorder the powers of this world that all may freely and justly live.”
— Mark Labberton , president, Fuller Theological Seminary
“Arguments for reparations have often veered into emotional and moral appeals without careful theological, biblical, and historical reasoning. This book ends the era of poor pro-reparations arguments and silences the criticisms of those who suspect reparations as a kind of ‘reverse injustice.’ Kwon and Thompson have given us the careful yet daring, gracious yet trenchant, historical yet relevant, principled yet persuasive teaching the church and the world has desperately needed.”
— Thabiti M. Anyabwile , pastor, Anacostia River Church
“Writing in the prophetic tradition, Kwon and Thompson are unrelenting in indicting the American church for its complicity and collusion in keeping its relative silence regarding the ongoing cries of the African American communities in the Civil War, during the civil rights movement, and in contemporary contexts. However, along with stinging words of indictment come words of invitation. Kwon and Thompson invite the readers to reimagine the shape of human flourishing in the church if we were to seek ways to repent for past sins, repair the breaches of the present, and rejuvenate communities for a more beautiful future. By engaging with their pastoral counsel and prophetic courage, we will have a better understanding of what it means to see the image of God in every human person.”
— Paul Chang- Ha Lim , award-winning historian and professor, Vanderbilt University
“In a Nazi concentration camp, Dietrich Bonhoeffer pondered the future of the German church as it lay in the ruins of its fatal allegiance to Hitler. ‘What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today.’ Has the church so cheapened its witness to the gospel that it now seems incapable of speaking a redemptive word to humanity and the world? Kwon and Thompson give us a profound and urgent answer in the context of the American church crisis. Their book illuminates the costs and joys of discipleship in a nation marked by White privilege and its theological disfigurations—to which I can imagine Bonhoeffer replying, ‘Yes and amen.’”
— Charles Marsh , University of Virginia; author of Strange Glory: A Life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Admittedly, I am still working through what my own response will be to this convicting, sometimes disorienting book written by two pastors whom I respect greatly. Wherever you end up landing in relation to their message and conclusions, I pray that this book will stir you up as it has me.”
— Scott Sauls , senior pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church; author of Jesus Outside the Lines and A Gentle Answer
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
© 2021 by Duke L. Kwon and Gregory Thompson
Published by Brazos Press
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.brazospress.com
Ebook edition created 2021
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-2957-8
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. ESV Text Edition: 2016
Epigraph
The real cost lies ahead.
—Martin Luther King Jr.
To deepen your reading and reflection on the issues raised in Reparations , a study and discussion guide for individual or group use may be found at www.reparationsproject.com .
Contents
Cover 1
Endorsements 2
Half Title Page 3
Title Page 5
Copyright Page 6
Epigraph 7
Introduction: Generations without Recompense 11
1. The Call to See 29
2. Seeing the Reality of White Supremacy 49
3. Seeing the Effect of White Supremacy 71
4. The Call to Own 97
5. Owning the Ethic of Restitution 133
6. Owning the Ethic of Restoration 157
7. The Call to Repair 181
Epilogue 209
Acknowledgments 211
Notes 213
Index 247
Cover Flaps 256
Back Cover 257
Introduction
Generations without Recompense
An Overdue Response
On August 7, 1865, former slave Jourdon Anderson sat at a table in his Dayton, Ohio, home and dictated a letter to his former owner, Colonel Patrick Anderson. Jourdon was purchased as a boy by the colonel’s father, General Paulding Anderson, to be a personal slave and playmate for the general’s young son Patrick. It was a good investment: Years later, as the Civil War approached, Patrick owned not only Jourdon but also his wife Amanda and their children. But like many slaves, Jourdon Anderson saw himself and his family not as resources to be exploited but as human beings to be honored. And so, in 1864, with the help of Union soldiers, and after some thirty years of bondage, Jourdon Anderson and his family escaped to freedom.
One year later, shortly after the end of the Civil War, learning of his former slave’s whereabouts, Colonel Anderson wrote to Jourdon and requested his return. Lamenting that his thousand-acre estate was faltering and confessing his desperate need for Jourdon’s help with the coming harvest, Colonel Anderson promised that if Jourdon returned, he would treat him kindly. The request of the former master was audacious. The reply by the former slave was masterful.
Dayton, Ohio August 7, 1865 To My Old Master, Colonel P. H. Anderson, Big Spring, Tennessee
Sir: I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again, and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville Hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy,—the folks call her Mrs. Anderson,—and the children—Milly, Jane, and Grundy—go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. Sometimes we overhear others saying, “Them colored people were slaves” down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks; but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Colonel Anderson. Many darkeys would have been proud, as I used to be, to call you master. Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be t