Color of Compromise

Book: The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism
Basic Information : Synopsis :  Expectations : Thoughts : Evaluation : Book Group : New Words : Book References : Good Quotes : Table of Contents : References

Basic Information:

Author: Jemar Tisby

Edition: ePub on Libby from the Fresno County Library

Publisher: Zondervan

ISBN: 0310597269 (ISBN13: 9780310597261)

Start Date: January 10, 2021

Read Date: March 11, 2021

256 pages

Genre: History, Christianity, Interracial Understanding

Language Warning: Low-not so much for language, but for graphic descriptions of lynchings

Rated Overall: 4 ½ out of 5

History: 4 out of 5

Religion: Christianity

Religious Quality: 4 out of 5

Christianity-Teaching Quality: 3 out of 5

 

Synopsis (Caution: Spoiler Alert-Jump to Thoughts):

Taken from the first chapter of my thoughts: Tisby starts his book with the four black girls in a Birmingham church being blown up. Morgan, young white lawyer speaking to a white, young man’s business group recognized that no matter who had physically planted the dynamite, all the city’s white residents were complicit in allowing an environment of hatred and racism to persist. This sums up what Tisby will be saying throughout the book. White America, particularly churches which are predominately white, fostered an atmosphere where racism ruled in America. Tisby will go through church history in America to show that with limited objections, white churches would make it so blacks could be either enslaved or treated as second-class citizens.

But he does not leave the reader in guilt, at least two much. The final two chapters is a call to the Christian church to change its ways. He gives some practical paths for change as well.

Expectations:

• Recommendation: Donna H-a similar list of books to read. Later on a small group from my church also recommended reading this book.
• When: May 30, 2020
• Date Became Aware of Book: May 30, 2020
• How come I want to read this book: Because of the current times where there is heightened racial tensions. Paul Swearingen noted we need to understand how to communicate with each other,
• What do I think I will get out of it? Better understanding of a different view of our common world.?

Thoughts:

Is Tisby trying to guilt us into something? Is he being prophetic in his calling out past sin? Are we still guilty of this? How much reliance should we have on his interpretation of events? Does he cherry pick his information?

I have started reading a book called Divided by Faith by Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith. It seems like Tisby is expanding on their work in chapters 2 and 3. Tisby makes it about nine chapters.

Foreword / by Lecrae

Who is Lecrae? Lecrae Devaughn Moore (born October 9, 1979), mononymously known as Lecrae, is an American Christian hip hop recording artist, songwriter, music executive, actor, and entrepreneur. He is the president, co-owner and co-founder of the independent record label Reach Records, was the co-founder and president of the now-defunct non-profit organization ReachLife Ministries, is an investor and co-owner of the audio production software MXD, and is a co-founder of the film production studio 3 Strand Films From Wikipedia. His web site.

On July 4, 2016, as my social media feeds filled with images of American flags and friends’ backyard barbecues celebrating America’s independence, I took to Twitter and posted a picture seven African Americans picking cotton in a field with the following caption: “My family on July 4th 1776.” This shows a different perspective of how Black Americans view life in the United States. Can one say the same thing about Hispanics and Asains?

I like what Lecrae says: Education should lead us to informed action.... That is true in whatever sort of education we get. He lays out what Tisby hopes to accomplish in this book: to talk about the racial bias he has found in the United States church’s history. This should lead us to understand and change biases we currently find in our present day church structures. The second part of Lecrae’s statement is … and informed action should lead to liberation, justice and repair.

1 The color of compromise

Tisby starts his book with the four black girls in a Birmingham church being blown up. Morgan, young white lawyer speaking to a white, young man’s business group, recognized that no matter who had physically planted the dynamite, all the city’s white residents were complicit in allowing an environment of hatred and racism to persist. This sums up what Tisby will be saying throughout the book. White America, particularly churches which are predominately white, fostered an atmosphere where racism ruled in America. Tisby will go through church history in America to show that with limited objections, white churches would make it so blacks could be either enslaved or treated as second-class citizens.

The refusal to act in the midst of injustice is itself an act of injustice. Indifference to oppression perpetuates oppression. (My thought when I read this is that it sounded very much like the kings of Israel who withheld justice.)

Tisby says that the church’s failure to speak out provides the soil where violence against other races is grown. History and Scripture teaches us that there can be no reconciliation without repentance. There can be no repentance without confession. There can be no confession without truth.

Tisby asks: What do we mean when we talk about racism? He then goes on and has Beverly Daniel Tatum [providing] a shorthand definition: racism is a system of oppression based on race. Is this a universally accepted definition? When I started reading Robin D White Fragility, it seemed like she had a different definition which was broader. Hers was more if you have benefited from pracicities associated with race, you were a racist-at least that is what I understood. Tatum seems to leave more room, such as if you have not practiced oppression based upon race, you are not a racist. But taken with Tisby’s opening, I think it could be argued that if you do not stand up against racist actions, then you are aiding it. Which leaves the question of how have I aided racism? Tisby does go on and clarifies that racism [is also] prejudice plus power.

Tisby notes, and I agree, there is an element in comfort in doing the same. Change can be uncomfortable. It seems like the reason why a person reads a book like this is to understand where a person/group is heading and if they are heading wrong. Every book is an introduction, an invitation to further study.

Tisby points out that we could have changed things early, at certain critical points in time. That leads one to think, if we can identify a change now, where will it lead to? He points out that justice for one group can open pathways for equality to other groups

This is not a book to tear down the church, but to help the church understand the deep pain it causes African-Americans. He is writing with the idea of speaking Truth in Love. While part of the church has fought for blacks and against racism, that has not been the dominant theme for the 400 years of Blacks in America-an important point in Tisby’s argument.

He anticipates certain arguments:

• The book is too liberal
• Racial equality is equated with Marxism
• Talk like this reduces Blacks to a state of helplessness
• The material presented is not representative of the church in America
• The facts are wrong or misrepresented
• The discussion is abandoning the gospel

What Tisby wants to show and lead us out of is the complicity of the church in creating racism. This will be a troubling book even if you agree with the premise. Why? Because it will cause us to rethink and reconstruct things we take for granted. Like a surgeon’s scalpel, it will leave a scar to heal. The thrust is not guilt, but healing.

Minor repairs by the weekend-warrior racial reconcilers won’t fix a flawed foundation. The church needs the Carpenter from Nazareth to deconstruct the house that racism built and remake it into a house for all nations

A couple of notes to myself when I read this:

• Is he saying all whites have power or just some? I know some people who are white with little power.
• He makes the point that people will try to keep their comfortable settings. But do all whites have a comfortable existence?
• Tisby lifts up the Black churches as places which have given the gospel the true ring of freedom. Is the author saying black churches are the pinnacle? No faults?
• Tisby does say he is not looking for balance in this book. Just remember this as I read the book.
• About that last quote above, I wonder how much flame throwing he is going to do in this book? Seems like a cheap shot at people who are trying to make a difference. (I do not put myself in that category.)

2 Making race in the colonial era

This chapter starts off with the contrast between custom in England and law in Virginia (1667) concerning blacks which had become Christian. It had been longstanding custom in England that Christians, being spiritual brothers and sisters, could not enslave one another. But to free the slave owner’s conscious, a Virginia law said that having a slave baptized does not free them. This lead to ministers and missionaries to advocate that slaves be content with their lot. Tisby cites Virginia. Is this true of all of the colonies?

A recurring theme of the book-if there had been a difference here, then today’s results were not inevitable.

Tisby contrasts the failed Viking settlements with the impact of Columbus’ discovery and the succeeding European colonization of America. Tisby looks at the colonies as a commercial venture. When looking at it from a corporate view point, the whole purpose was not discovery, but of maximizing returns. Is that the whole purpose behind Columbus’ sailing and the succeeding ventures? I suspect there are also military reasons as well as the drive for knowledge. Even later on Tisby points to Columbus’ report about the indigenous people making good servants (commercial) as well as the lack of obvious religion (evangelization). So I think that pointing to a commercial venture as being the sole reason is incorrect, it may have been the primary.

Tisby also points out that Columbus and subsequent explorers had a lack of understanding beyond their cursory observations of the native peoples they encountered. This seems to continue on for centuries.

He uses the term racial caste. This is written well before Isabel Wilkenson’s Caste book. This seems like it is the way people of race may be talking about things. Particularly when you get phrases like Race is a social construct. If it is a construct, not rooted in something more solid then why do Black social writers think in terms of race? You would think they would be the ones breaking out of the mold. I think that is what Wilkenson is trying to do with her book. Coates also makes this statement in his book Between the Word and Me. What do they have to base this on? Wilkenson does a fairly decent job of tracing back when racial terms began. The rest make these statements like it is true. As a note: as of March 27th, I am reading Caste another book which is a tough slog. Also when I have been reading through the Old Testament, there seems to be more about races there, not necessarily skin tone, but ancestral heritage. I am not sure how to reconcile statements like Tisby with what I am finding there.

He talks about Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography.

Then about John Newton.Tisby notes that Newton did become an abolitionist. But there was at least six years between his conversion and his retirement from being a sea captain. He then invested in the slave trade. It was not for another twenty years did he become the abolitionist in which he is noted for as a Christian. Tisby take on this is that it was not a normal part of being a Christian to regard slaves as anything except sub-human. But it was Newton which influenced William Wilberforce to push for laws abolishing the slave trade. I do not think Tisby really goes into why did Newton change after 26 years. Also

Tisby makes a statement that the abolitionists motives were not pure. He cites the rise of the Industrial Revolution about at the same time, making the need for slaves in England less. But he really does not connect the two.

Slavery was different in the Latin countries than in the northern colonies. More slaves were imported to the Latin countries, while North American slaves became very prodigious in childbirth. The average slave woman gave birth to 9.2 children.

Christian doctrine needed to adjust to who could be saved and what relationships there were between whites and blacks. The Christian message to Africans was that you could save your soul, but not break your bonds for freedom. Instead, racist attitudes and the pursuit of wealth increasingly relegated black people to a position of perpetual servitude and exploitation .

Tsiby goes on saying, Slave-owning colonists and European missionaries often clashed over the issue of proselytizing. Christianity had inherent ideas of human equality embedded in its teachings …. Missionaries carefully crafted messages that maintained the social and economic status quo. They truncated the gospel message by failing to confront slavery …. A corrupt message that saw no contradiction between the brutalities of bondage and the good news of salvation became the norm

3 Understanding liberty in the age of revolution and revival

Tisby notes the discrepancy between the whites' inalienable rights of liberty and independence and the fate of Africans who were not viewed with the same rights. He starts with the story of Crispus Attucks and how he died in the Boston Massacre.

Jefferson, as with so many of his day, did not consider black people equal to white people. Few political leaders assumed the noble words of the declaration applied to the enslaved. The question is why? Is it the nature of slavery? Or is it because of the nature of the enslaved? Tisby does not get into this. Tisby does point out that even if you do not consider the United States as being a Christian nation, it does recognize a higher power with things like One Nation Under God or The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.

It was not only Africans who did not have equal status, but also women, American Indians, and the poor.

In the mid-1700’s, the Great Awakening happened-Tisby said both great promise and contradiction. Africans preferred their own forms of faith to that of their white enslavers

Lemuel Haynes was the first non-white ordained minister in the United States. Blacks were only allowed to preach to blacks.

Tisby talks about the South Carolina Negro Act of 1740 which tried to regulate what punishments could be taken out on a slave. What is prohibited, but only through a fine, was pretty horrific. The sanctioned punishments seem only better if you compare it to the banned ones. But the purpose of the act was to create a caste system of the masters and slaves.

George Whitefield. Whitefield seemed to be more moderate, wishing there to be no slaves, but if there were, they were to be evangelized. When he started an orphanage in Georgia called the Bethesda Academy, he used slaves to make it financially viable. He advocated that Georgia allow slaves later on. It appears that economic concerns was Whitefields principle concerns. But some historians think that fear of blacks was also a reason. Tisby says The economic impulse for slavery can never be separated from the racist ideas that typecast enslaved Africans as dangerous and brutish.

Jonathan Edwards. In Tisby’s frame of reference, Edwards compromised his Christian principles by owning slaves. Tisby does not say that Edwards son was an abolitionist.

That in a nutshell is the weakness of a lot of Tisby’s argument in the book. He assumes it is not a Christian act to own slaves. I do not see where that is talked about in Scripture. Now I do see where if you are a Christian and a slave owner, there are certain things which you should do in your treatment of slaves-you are to treat them as a brother, not as sub-human. It does seem that eventually a revelation of what a human is would come around. But then again, do we have a full revelation now? Should we judge people by their own standards or the standards of their knowledge and morals?

Thus Baptists in Virginia declared slavery to be a civil issue outside of the scope of the church.

Harsh though it may sound, the facts of history nevertheless bear out this truth: there would be no black church without racism in the white church

4 Institutionalizing race in the Antebellum era

There is a stage where Tisby looks back at what might have been-if equal rights had been given to blacks both by the nation and church. He thinks it would have been a beacon to the rest of the world. But I wonder about that. Would the United States have been a beason? Or an absurdity of the times. You can always wonder what things might have been, but to my mind it seems to be more wishful thinking than a statement of fact.

Without question, the Constitution had the rights of wealthy, white men in mind while other groups like indigenous peoples, women, and enslaved blacks held a lesser status. Not sure if this was racist since it also excluded the impoverished from citizen status.

Of its eighty-four clauses, six are directly concerned with slaves and their owners. Five others had implications of slavery that were considered and debated by the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention and the citizens of the states during ratification. Tisby is arguing that the Constitution is a pro-slavery document.

Slavery was not open for debate again in the United States until 1808. At that time no more slaves could be brought into the United States, but there were more than enough slaves to breed more slaves. Also it did not completely stop the slave trade. Read Barracoon to see that more slaves were being brought in illicitly.

The chattel principle is the social alchemy that transformed a human being made in the image of God into a piece of property.

Rather than defending the dignity of black people, American Christians at this time chose to turn a blind eye to the separation of families. To Tisby, it matters little what Christians at the time thought, the result was the same-blacks were slaves and could be used anyway their masters wanted them to be used, include raping the women.

To the Black, Christianity was a symbol of hope, the promise of freedom, if not in this world, in the next. It gave them the hope to resist either passively or actively their enslavement. They sang songs, such as Steal Away which encoded messages about how to escape. Tisby talks about various rebellions such as Gabriel, Vessey and Turner.

Charles Irons notes that the church became segregated only after the Civil War. Before that evangelical churches worshiped together.

Talks about Charles Finney. He was an abolitionist, but did not believe in equality. Blacks could worship with whites, but were in separate sections. They could not vote or hold office.

Tisby notes that Antebellum America was a time where the church was compromised and had complicity with racism. Consequently much of Christianity lost its prophetic voice.

5 Defending slavery at the onset of the Civil War

The Bible itself became a battleground. With the onset of the Civil War, the nation faced not only a political and economic crisis but a theological one as well.

Two facts about slavery:

• War was fought about slavery-states rights were a camoflague
• Christians fought to keep slavery (he does not include that Christian also fought against slavery.)

It is this second one which the author talks about. He goes through a history leading up to the Civil War. What Tisby wants to talk about: The three of the most influential denominations at the time—Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians—all divided and fought over whether Christians could own slaves and remain in good standing.

He notes that the Methodist’s founder John Wesley was very much against slavery. But in the United States, that got weeded out of Methodist teaching and governance.

To the Baptists, this issue divided the Northern and Southern Baptists. This issue was brought to the head on missions, where Southerners felt that if people was truly a matter of ecclesiastic indifference, then they should not object to slaveholders working in foreign or domestic missions?

The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully

five events stand out:

• five events stand out:
• The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
• The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
• The Dred Scott decision of 1857
•  John Brown’s raid in 1859
•  the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860

Lincoln was far from a racial egalitarian. He objected to the expansion of slavery, but he was not initially interested in abolishing it, nor did he advocate for civil or social equality. The president, later hailed as the “Great Emancipator,” made it clear that abolitionists who opposed the institution of slavery could also be antiblack and even racist.

With Presbyterians there was a set of resolutions called the Garner Spring Resolutions. This set the Northern congregations on the side of the Union; the Southern left the denomination. Probably the South was right about this. Christianity should not align itself with a particular state of government (my opinion).

The Bible itself is not clear cut on slavery. Tisby goes through some of the Biblical references used concerning Blacks. This includes the Curse of Ham (it was Canannan who was cursed), and there was no specific command condemning slavery, while much f the Old Testament talked about the regulations concerning slaves. Also Paul and the other Apostles did not speak against slavery. Southern white Christians, far from viewing slavery as wrong or sinful, generally affirmed that God sanctioned slavery in Scripture and that bondage under white authority was the natural state for people of African descent. (It is that second part which is the problem. If it was OK to put Blacks into slavery, would it have been Biblically OK to put whites in slavery by Blacks?)

James Henley Thornwell

Other items I picked out from the text:

• Dabney not only believed that slavery was morally acceptable; he viewed it as a positive for the African… He felt that it brought up the African to a level of civilization
• This passage from Genesis [the curse of Ham/Cannaan] not only provided a basis for slavery’s existence, but it was an indication for some that God decreed a specific race of people to be cursed and live their days in bondage.
• this argument was used to demonstrate that southern theologians gave virtually no consideration to the unique form of slavery that existed in America. This is an important point. The slavery in America did not resemble the slavery written in Jewish law.
• Thornwell’s vision of spirituality required the church, as an institution, to remain silent on the most critical social, political, and ethical question of the day.
• Historically, the doctrine of the spirituality of the church tends to be most strenuously invoked when Christians speak out against white supremacy and racism

6 Reconstructing white supremacy in the Jim Crow era

The point of this chapter is that Blacks were given the chance to show they could operate on their own after the Civil War until 1877 when the Reconstruction ended. It was a time of opportunity.

Headed [the Freedmen’s Bureau} by General Oliver O. Howard, the bureau’s capacious responsibilities included providing food and clothing to newly freed slaves, helping them locate family members who had been sold to other plantation owners, assisting the jobless in finding employment, setting up hospitals and schools. The idea was to get the Blacks started. The assumption by many was that a Black could not hold their own. Many ex-Slaves first task was to find their family which had been separated by slave owners.

Hiram Revels-first black Senator

P.B.S. Pinchback-black governor of Louisiana

Sherman understood the need to own land and gave Blacks 40 acres and a mule. But President Andrew Johnson reversed this.

Goes over the three amendments passed after the Civil War.

Then talks about The Lost Cause. The development of this thinking in terms to rationalize and understand why the South lost. Also to further the South’s cause, unifying whites to resist changes for the betterment of Blacks. President Johnson plays a part in making as few changes to benefit Blacks as possible. After emancipation, the white people in positions of power had to invent new ways to reinforce the racial hierarchy, and Jim Crow laws developed as a system of laws and customs to revive the older social order that slavery had enabled for much of US history.

Tisby talks about how there have been three iterations of the KKK. He shows how the film, The Birth of a Nation, fits into the KKK narrative. Also about the rise of Jim Crow as a name and then as a symbol. The KKK crafted a vision of a white America and, more specifically, a white Christian America. …. Many people believed that the KKK stood for the best of the “American way,” and in their minds, that meant the Christian way as well

Elizabeth Lawrence

Luther and Mary Holbert

Mary Turner-For anyone wanting to know about forerunners of the modern civil rights and black power movements, Turner will be of great interest.

Thomas Moss

Henry McNeal Turner

When you read these stories, you are revolted by how Blacks were treated. But the question then rises, wasn’t this in the past? Sort of. We read about how Blacks are killed by police all over the nation at a greater proportion than whites. While some of the horrificness of being described has gone, apparently it is not too deep to be resurrected. While some Christians spoke out and denounced these lynchings (just as some Christians called for abolition), the majority stance of the American church was avoidance, turning a blind eye to the practice. When you see the Church’s reaction to the the South and slavery and how the gospel is only spiritual, then you realize the need to speak out.

Theologically speaking, Jesus was the ‘first lynchee,’ who foreshadowed all the lynched black bodies on American soil.” It is pointed out that the commonality is the “strange fruit” on trees which Jesus and Blacks share with crucifixion and lynching.

The cross helped me to deal with the brutal legacy of the lynching tree, and the lynching tree helped me to understand the tragic meaning of the cross. James H Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, page xviii

7 Remembering the complicity in the North

Most of Tisby’s book has dealt with conditions in the South. Now he moves to the North starting with the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. And then about how the Catholics ordained their first black priest, but to get there, he had to attend seminary abroad. Then there was the Pentecostals who had a Black minister which started a major revival in Los Angeles, but then got excluded from the mainline Pentecostal denominations of his time.

Augustus Tolton

William J. Seymour

For their part, black Christians in the 1920s and 1930s did not fit neatly into either fundamentalist or social-gospel categories. Because of their background, there was a tendency to combine the two.

Marcus Mosiah Garvey

World Wars was where Blacks fought and helped to strengthen their desires for equality. It also infuriated whites as well. Massive attacks, such as that which happened in St Louis and Tulsa occurred. Then the Great Depression set off competition for jobs. The social aid networks, particularly of churches, broke down as they were barely able to feed their own, let alone all the nation. This split Christian churches into those who wanted to help and supported any means, including government, and those who felt this was an invasion on their rights and not in keeping with preaching the gospel. But even government programs while not overtly racists, created racist situations.

America roared back, entering World War II. Yet the Roosevelt administration sought to exploit black people as soldiers while simultaneously maintaining racial segregation . Even the GI Bill had the effect of advancing whites, while leaving blacks behind. This was aided by redlining-stating where loans could be given on favorable conditions, set to exclude minorities. The church was compleicant in this as well. In examining the white flight, Mark Mulder argues that churches actively participated in the racial relocation of whites from the city to other locales. “In many cases, churches not only failed to inhibit white flight but actually became co-conspirators and accomplices in the action.” What I wonder was the church instigating or reacting to their members leaving an area? Such as a church we used to go to left an area because many of its members were moving out the area into another area. But then again, neither did we hear a message of stay and be ministers to an area. On the other hand, the church we go to knowly decided to stay in a downtown location rather than leave.

Compromised Christianity transcends regions. Bigotry obeys no boundaries. This is why Christians in every part of America have a moral and spiritual obligation to fight against the church’s complicity with racism.

8 Compromising with racism during the civil rights movement

Talks about how Emmitt Till was killed. And the involvement of Rosa Parks and the preparation at the Highlander Folk School. Which leads to Martin Luther King, Jr.

In this chapter, Tisby compares King and Billy Graham.

Highlander Folk School

Talks about Brown vs Topeka School Board. Notes that Billy Graham was a racial moderate. At his revival meetings, he would not allow seating based upon race. But neither did he push it on society. He felt racial relations fell under loving ones neighbor, He felt that relations would gradually and continually improve. He felt that his primary role was evangelism, not social action. It really seems like Tisby judges Graham by the standards of our times than of Graham’s times. I wonder what Graham would have been like in prime in 2021? (Note: Emerson in Divided By Faith gives a more fuller account of Graham and shows development of Graham’s thoughts rather than a point in time which Tisby does.)

Martin Luther King, Jr obviously was forcing the issue. Among those who were in the Civil Rights movement, he was a moderate. Tisby calls Letter from a Birmingham Jail the greatest piece of Christian political theology produced by an American.

King’s letter is a response to a letter he received from eight ministers. While he was incarcerated, eight white clergymen wrote a letter to King and his supporters advising them to depart and let the community handle race relations for itself. …. What comes through in the letter, more than anything else, is their reasonableness. Having read the letter these ministers sent, what I am seeing is that they also wanted change, but they wanted a slow and gradual change. They were not saying things were ok and “leave things alone”. Rather they were looking at different tactics. Is that what Tisby is really getting at in this book? Is the rate of change too slow? And well it could be. Tisby does rightly point out that They denounced the violence that direct action would supposedly incite, but they did relatively little about the countless lynchings, church bombings, and beatings black people across the nation suffered at the hands of segregationists.

King said that I think we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard.

Also: Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention. There is no other answer.

This is an interesting discussion about the methods and roles which each makes. What I understand Tisby saying, by having Billy Graham represent white Christianity is that there was not a dispute about the end, but rather the speed and disruption to society. Graham felt that the change would come through conversion and personal change. King wanted to see a quicker societal change. Tisby talks about the tension between moderation and activism. He definitely sides on the side of activism. Wouldn’t I if I had also been the subject of discrimination?

Tisby talks not only about the leaders, but the fears of individual Christians. This was evident in the zoning laws, but also the normal every person activities. Christians were being told not to sell to Blacks. Also as a neighborhood would become integrated, churches would leave to more white areas….few Christians publicly aligned themselves with the struggle for black freedom in the 1950s and 1960s …. Christian moderates may not have objected to the broader principles of racial equality, but they offered tepid support and at times outright skepticism.

These Christians were not denying that blacks were discriminated against or that conditions in the inner city were troublesome. But they believed the solution to the problem was to trust the system. Christian moderates insisted on obeying the law, working through the courts, and patiently waiting for transformation.

Head of Christ painting by Paul Salesman-reinforces the idea of Jesus as being a white male European.

Dolphus Weary - Friend and co-worker with John Perkins. Shown as an example of what it was like to be a black person in a Christian white school.

Some other thoughts: 

•  A century had passed since the Civil War, and it was the height of the civil rights movement, yet [Mohamad] Ali and many other black people still saw Christianity as the religion of the enslavers, the belief system of those who oppressed black people
• millions of everyday Christians saw no contradiction between their faith and the racism they practiced in subtle yet ubiquitous ways
• Many a well-meaning minister has been held hostage by the racial prejudices of the congregation.

9 Organizing the religious right at the end of the twentieth century

Talks about what color-blind conservatism means. You do not do things which are overt, but you want to help those of your electorate, which is predominately white and well off. (Of course, Trump appealed to whites who were not well-off.) This allows people can hold positions on social and political issues that disproportionately and adversely harm racial and ethnic minorities, but they can still proclaim their own racial innocence. Also see first chapter in the book Beyond Colorblind by Sarah Shin for a good discussion about the perspective from a person of color when someone says they are color-blind.

Tisby’s analysis is that From the late 1960s through the 1980s, conservative Christians coalesced into a political force that every major Republican politician had to court if they hoped to have lasting success. But there was also a cost to this influence; it meant that American evangelicalism became virtually synonymous with the GOP and whiteness.

You now combine what Tisby has been saying in previous chapters with this courting of political power, you get a corruption of Christianity to be one of issues not beliefs and character. You can only be a Christian if you hold certain political positions on issues. Instead of bringing a more Christian nation, you are faced with a more worldly-wise Christianity which may not be recognized by Christ.

Politics became a proxy for racial conflict

Bebbington’s quadrilateral

it seems reasonable to assume that when Americans self-identify as evangelicals today, many are identifying with the movement as it has taken shape in recent decades—a conservative politicized movement—and not with a static conception rooted in a centuries-old history-quote from Hannah Butler and Kristin Du Mez. I wonder how many evangelicals would agree with this. I am thinking that this is not a good equation, even if it is true. Not good in the sense that Christians are too closely associated with worldly power.

The mid 1960’s brought about many Civil Rights laws. But this did not do away with racism, it only made the overt acts illegal-a starting place.

The words black power proved controversial for black and white people alike. He goes on and talks about how it was colliding with how America thought of itself. Vietnam dissatisfaction, women’s rights, gay rights, and many other things were coming to a front.

.

Today, the United States has just 5 percent of the world’s population but 25 percent of its incarcerated persons. An ugly statistic.

Sunbelt ideology was a suburban value system. Rather than talking about a geographic area, mostly the South, Tisby is saying that racism seems to be more of an attitude brought by those fleeing the North into the more prosperous regions, which is mostly in the Sunbelt, including California. Law and Order replaced the fears of Black Power. But both concentrated on the same thing. In place of obviously racist policies, law-and-order rhetoric “had become a surrogate expression for concern about the civil rights movement.

Estrid Kielsmeier

But even a color-blind ideology is problematic since it “depended upon the establishment of structural mechanisms of exclusion that did not require individual racism by suburban beneficiaries. This is said in context with the activities of Kielsmeier who was signing up people to have Goldwater run for president. While not overtly racist, the undertones were fought against the kind of people Kielsmeier did not want.

...racism, since it is socially constructed, adapts when society changes.

W.A. Criswell, the pastor of the largest Southern Baptist church said in I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had life separate from its mother . . . that it became an individual person.” He further explained, “It has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.” Tisby is showing that the Religious RIght was more concerned with racial integration than abortion. But they could not lead with being anti-integration. So they used abortion as the hot topic. It was this topic which brought conservatives to Reagan. What changed their minds was Jimmy Carter’s intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation

10 Reconsidering racial reconciliation in the age of Black Lives Matter

Talks about how Promise Keepers had a theme of racial reconciliation. And that it lived up to that. But when the 2008 elections happened, that did not translate into acceptance of Obama as a viable candidate for Christians. A 2010 survey found that about 12.5 percent of churches could be considered multiethnic—meaning no single ethnic group comprises more than 80 percent of the congregation. Contemporary attitudes toward diversity in the church show a desire for even more integration.

On the Southern Baptists Convention’s 150th anniversary, they passed a resolution: The resolution went on to ask forgiveness from African Americans and pledged to “eradicate racism in all its forms” from their denomination.

Emerson and Smith’s definition: racialized” society which they defined as a society “wherein race matters profoundly for differences in life experiences, life opportunities and social relationships.”

Emerson and Smith introduced the term cultural toolkit. By this they mean the way a culture creates ways for individuals and groups to experience reality. It consists of the ideals, habits, skills and styles which the culture’s environment allows people to experience.

white evangelical cultural tool kit:

• Accountable individualism means that “individuals exist independent of structures and institutions, have freewill, and are individually accountable for their own actions
• relationalism, “a strong emphasis on interpersonal relationships
• antistructuralism refers to the belief that “invoking social structures shifts guilt away from its root source—the accountable individual.

There is a difference in how white and black Christians look at the differences in wealth. Whites tend to look at motivations or lack of it; blacks to racial discrimnation.

Tisby reviews how the Black Lives Matter movement started. The movement started in reaction to Trayvon Martin’s death. Then after Michael Brown, there follows:

Stephon Clark, Philando Castile, Freddie Gray, Walter Scott, Jamar Clark, Rekia Boyd, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice

Tisby notes there is a difference between the organization of Black Lives Matter and the movement recognizing that black lives do matter. The organization is not religious and does take in other movements which may be offensive to some Christian’s beliefs. But American evangelical church has yet to form a movement as viable and potent that addresses the necessary concept that black lives do indeed matter.. What a lot of white Christians do not understand is that the organization spoke to black people who sensed those words addressing a deep and painful longing—the longing for others to recognize their full, unqualified humanity. Whites look at the killings by police as isolated instances while blacks see a pattern.

Lecrae-Christian hip-hop artist. Wrote the introduction. You can find his works on his YouTube channel In response to how Christians responded to Black Lives Matter and his praying for the Black community, there was some response with #Pray4Police. Lacrae’s slide into a state where “I’d seen so much fakeness from those who claimed to be my brothers and sisters that I didn’t even know how to talk to my Heavenly Father.

Thabiti Anyabwile-He is a conservative Christian when it comes to culture, but when he spoke about justice, his voice was not heard by Christians. He was accused of forsaking the gospel.Men who worked as fellow combatants in the traditional ‘culture war’ begin to suspect and even attack one another when ‘justice’ becomes the topic.

Many others who spoke in favor of justice for blacks, equal treatment in the legal system including the police, were either ignored, rebuked or cut off. Some of the most pointed debates among Christians about black lives matter came in the wake of the triennial Urbana missions conference organized by the evangelical organization InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. This is a group I support and appreciate.

Black lives matter is not a mission of hate. It is not a mission to bring about incredible anti-Christian values and reforms to the world.

Michelle Higgins - She was on a panel at the 2015 Urbana conference.

Many Christians may agree with the principle that black lives matter, but they still wonder whether they should get involved with an organization that espouses beliefs contrary to his or her religious convictions. This is a major question in today’s world. There are very few good/evil situations. We have both shadings and multiple converging issues. Where to do when human and civil rights overlap with what is not good in a Christian’s eyes-such as gay rights? Tisby does not come up with a one size fits all answer. Some people decide that they can participate in certain actions but not others. Ultimately, the organizations with which one chooses to affiliate in the cause of antiracism is a matter of conscience. But he does state rather than shrink back, there needs to be engagement in the arena. To him The only wrong action is inaction

Speaking about Trump and how he viewed race, Tisby comments on the Charloteesville demonstrations that Many viewed his[Trump’s] comments as creating a false equivalency between white supremacists and those who assembled to oppose them. Tisby goes one and lays out how come Evangelicals were supporting Trump. His conclusion is that Trump tapped into the latent sense among some evangelicals that they were losing their influence in American culture and politics.

COLOR OF COMPROMISE-both book and section title.

Christian complicity with racism in the twenty-first century looks different than complicity with racism in the past. It looks like Christians responding to black lives matter with the phrase all lives matter. This may be one of the more important statements which Tisby makes in the whole book. It is very easy to say I have never been a slave owner, nor have my ancestors, and I doubt that my wife’s were either. But as I have read books, I have an understanding of how I have benefited. Also how being who I am allows me more freedom with less fear of authority than my minority brothers and sisters.

From what I am understanding is that I cannot just have good feelings and accept my minority friends and sing Kumbaya or We Are One In The Spirit by the campfire with them. It means that as a Christian, I need to see their world as they see it and try to make it so that they are able to have similar freedoms and access as I have had.

If the church hopes to see meaningful progress in race relations during the twenty-first century, then it must undertake bold, costly actions with an attitude of unprecedented urgency.

11 The fierce urgency of now

This is the chapter which I have been waiting for. And maybe I have been looking for many of the books I have read. What should I do?

He starts this chapter off with an excerpt of Martin Luther King, Jr’s August 28, 1968 I Have A Dream speech: We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy; now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood; now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

This is where you really have to judge Tisby’s intentions. Is it to cast stones at white Christians or is it to promote ways of reconciliation. Depending how you view this next statement is how the rest of the chapter will seem to you: The reluctance to reckon with racism has led to a chasm between black and white Christians in theology, politics, and culture. Is Tisby widening the chasm or trying to close it?

He quotes John Hope Franklin: I think knowing one’s history leads one to act in a more enlightened fashion. I cannot imagine how knowing one’s history would not urge one to be an activist.”

Then Tisby states that he wants more than friendship and dialogue-there is a need for action. To be clear, friendships and conversations are necessary, but they are not sufficient to change the racial status quo. Christians must also alter how impersonal systems operate so that they might create and extend racial equality.

Tisby says this was a brief survey illustrating the complicit racism of the American churches. If this was brief, I wonder how much more there was? But he says here is his goal in writing this book: to have the American church change course in the 21st century, to break down barriers. The chapter presents practical ways to create change.

ARC: a useful framework to think about. Not steps or formula. Nor are they sequenced.

• Awareness
• Relationships
• Commitment

When you think about things to be done or information received, think in terms of context rather than isolated instances.

Start by understanding the issues and people involved. I would guess on the local side would be worthwhile-even though I suspect it is the national which gets attention. Also learn about the history and culture which has cultivated the current situations.. Things which you can do to raise awareness:

• Watch documentaries about the racial history of the United States.
• Diversify your social media feed by following racial and ethnic minorities and those with different political outlooks than yours.
• Access websites and podcasts created by racial and ethnic minorities.
• Do an internet search about a particular topic instead of always asking your black friend to explain an issue to you

Steps to widen your interracial relationships:

• Start with the people you know. Most of us know someone of a different race or ethnicity. Have you talked with them specifically about their experiences and perspectives of race and justice?
• Find new places to hang out.
• Join a sport, club, or activity with people who are different

Commitment is the hardest to do as it requires a long term focus.

• Create something
• Join an organization that advocates for racial and social justice
• Donate money to organizations that advocate for racial and social justice
• Speak with candidates
• Vote

Then he brings up a series of issues which both America and American Christians need to confront:

Reparations: One of the big questions is why? Some thoughts are: 2011 study revealed that a typical white household had sixteen times the wealth of a black one. … The reasons for these gaps include redlining in real estate, denying bank loans to people of color, and higher unemployment rates among black people, just to name a few. These gaps will persist unless a broad-based reform effort takes hold. There is also the damage done during the Jim Crow laws.

Duke Kwon notes that Reparation is not a matter of vengeance or charity; it’s a matter of justice. Before there is talk that reparation is principle while reparations is the act. Also that reparation is a sense of repairing injustice. The injustice includes that which is listed above as well as the slaves who were not paid for their labor, leaving their successors less well off. Zacchaeus is an example of reparations.

Kwon distinguishes between “civic reparations” and “ecclesiastical reparations. Civic is similar to what Germany did for the Jews or the US for the Japanese who were in internment camps. While ecclesiastical is much more It would be church centered, reaching out to ease the burdens on blacks, such as maybe a church pooling money to pay off a family's debts. Or funnelling funds into enterprises focused on the black community. Still this does not seem to be spiritual in nature, more of a different way to funnel funds to blacks. One place with Tisby notes is that Much of the American church has not yet considered racism to be a serious enough sin to interrupt their regularly scheduled worship, at least not much beyond conversations and symbolic gestures, to repair the relationship

Do Not Celebrate the Confederacy:

While the monument, flags and symbols of the Confederacy may be heritage, it is a heritage which should not be honored, rather should be treated as a lesson to be learned what not to do. In the sense Germany does not honor its former heroes of World War II, we should not honor those of the Confederacy. Removing Confederate statues and symbols from public places will not eradicate racism. Indeed, even some black people express indifference at the endeavor. But statues and symbols are supposed to represent the community.

Learn from the Black Church

In many white Christian contexts, theology produced by racial minorities comes with an assumption of heresy and heterodoxy. I have also seen this on theology coming from SOuth America as well. I think this comes about from a sense that Euro-centric learning has better ideas and thoughts. For example, the American church can learn from the black church what it means to lament. Our praise songs, which seem to be most of worship is on feeling good about God. But where do we come before God, as sinners in our worship? Usually about a minute or so of confession of mostly general sin. The Black spirituals have a mixture of praise and sorrow. Sort of like what Israel may have felt when God was far from them in feeling. Also there is a sense of celebration.

Tisby says that Black people have somehow found a way to flourish because of faith. It is a faith that is vibrant and still inspires black Christians to endure and struggle against present-day forms of racism. The entire church can learn from believers who have suffered yet still hold onto God’s unchanging hand.

Also Those who have suffered much find much joy in God’s salvation

Start a New Seminary

The idea is that current theological schools fit black students into white thought rather than form and sharpen blacks thinking into God’s ways. Is there no predominately black seminaries now?

Host Freedom Schools and Pilgrimages

Tisby starts this section by saying: The acquisition of knowledge should not result only in personal enlightenment but also the alleviation of oppression.

There were Freedom Schools started in the 1960’s during Civil Rights movement with the idea of teaching history and culture with a black slant. New Freedom Schools would also teach everyday Christians how to get involved in activism.

Pilgrimages would allow hands own to the sites which affected Blacks. Reading and viewing can only go so far. Being there catches more of the flavor. This would be for all peoples, not just Blacks. It could be done with churches, small groups, or individuals. Suggested recommended places : Christians should visit Emanuel AME Church in Charleston and touch the white walls that have stood for decades and seem to breathe with life. They should travel to the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis and see the wreath hung on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in the exact spot where Martin Luther King Jr. stood when an assassin’s bullet stole his life. Also look into places in ur own community.

Make Juneteeth A National Holiday

That was done today, June 17, 2021.

Participate in the Modern Civil-Rights Movement

One question, if I was old enough, would I have been supportive or even been willing to march in the 1960’s Civil Rights Marches? If the answer is yes, then, Many Christians today say they would have been active participants in the civil rights movement fifty years ago. Now, in the midst of a new civil rights movement, is their chance to prove it. So what is stopping me today (pandemic of course, but what else?)? How do I know when or what is being marched upon? How do I know if they are something I would support?

Rev William J Barber, Jr says that we are in the middle of the third reconstruction.

First-after the Civil War

Second-the Civil Rights movement

Third is Now with the catalyst being the George Floyd killing.

Some people who Tisby recommends include:

Kimberly Bryant

Erica Garner

Tarana Burke

Brittany Packnett

Bryan Stevenson

Bernice King

The question is whether the broader American church will recognize and participate in today’s civil rights movement

While he gives that Christians need to pay attention to how their educational choices for their own children reinforce racial and economic segregation in schools. I think that is too narrow of a focus. We need to understand what effects our actions, even things which we think of as individual choices, might have. I think he takes this example from a book by Emerson and Smith called Divided by Faith.

Denounce Publicly Racism

Tisby calls for calling out racism. Not just generally, but in terms of actual events and people. Also not supporting people who are racist. I think there is a lot to what he says, but I am thinking that this may be us cutting off from other good things, because of this one bad item. I would want to see where this is leading.

Start a Civil Rights Movent … Towards the Church

He thinks that there should be a Civil RIghts Movement against the Church. I have a hard time with the “against” part.

Faith Without Works Is Dead

Tisby says that the Church has compromised with racism. It is time for the Church to uncouple itself from this. Will the Church do it?

Even thought this occurs under the Towards the Church heading, this seems to express Tisby’s frustration: At what point will Christians who are fed up with racism take more decisive action?

Conclusion : be strong and courageous.

Tisby takes God’s command to Joshua in Joshua 1 as the churches command-In much the same way, the church today must receive God’s command to show strength and courage to combat racism. He raises the question about why doesn’t the Church speak out? Fear. He then goes into some of the causes of fear:

• We fear what others will say or do. Such as Peter and the Galatians. Gal 2
• Also fear of material loss
• Another type of fear that may affect some of us is the fear of getting it wrong. Tisby says that reading and learning is not enough. Advocacy is a skill to be learned. The way to get that skill is to act.

Evaluation:

There are two ways in which you can look at this book. What your viewpoint is will influence your reaction. The first is that Tisby is putting a guilt trip on Christians, he is trying to say how bad white Christians are. The second way is to see it as a prophetic message saying that Christians and particularly white Christians need to confess, repent, and make amends for their complicity in the racism in America.

To bring us to this point, he sets the stage about current events. Then goes through 9 chapters working through how the American Church has sometimes resisted slavery and/or prejudice. But many more times, it has been a willing accomplice in subjugating minorities. Not all white Christians, but how he writes, those who opposed the subjugation usually did not think of Blacks as equals. Rather they should not be treated how they were.

To me one of the draw backs of Tisby’s book is the lack of recognition of growth in people. Abraham Lincoln is one example where Tisby points out that Lincoln did not run on abolishing slavery, just restricting it. What Tisby does not recognize is the growth which Lincoln had in office. There is similar treatment of Billy Graham. Tisby recognizes the early refusal of Graham to to segregate his rallies. But then condemns Graham for not being as active in the movement as Martin Luther King, Jr. In another book, Divided By Faith written in 2001, Emerson and Smith trace Graham’s career and note how he changed.

The strength of the book, which other writers who make a similar case against the dominate force in America, is that Tisby does not leave you with just guilt. Rather after making his case, he then has the final chapters giving concrete actions to take. Whether they are things which you are comfortable in doing or not, is up to you to decide. His overall framework is called ARC: Awareness, Relationship, Commitment. He leaves us with the charge of do something.

If you are an American Christian, particularly white, it is well worth your time to read this book.  But as fair warning, it is not an easy book to read. First, for the background about your heritage. Next to understand our situation today. Then to have ideas about where to go from here.

 
Notes from my book group:

To start the book, Tisby talks about the Birmingham bombing He notes that all of the city’s white residents were complicit in allowing an environment of hatred and racism to persist. Is this true? In what ways? How would you dispute this? Can you carry this statement forward to the rest of the United States in how racial attitudes are? Is there a sense of “we are all at fault” for the situation today? Or do you think there is a sense that I am not contributing to today’s issues?

Tisby goes through a pretty extensive discourse on the American Church where whites are the predominant members. Is his discussion convincing? Why or why not? Why does he take so much of the book going through this history?

What difference does it make if the early settlements were for commercial advantage?

What do you think about Tisby’s, and others, statement that Race is a social construct? What are the implications of it? Is that true? In what terms do you find that race is spoken of in the Bible?

What is racism? Does this match the one which Tisby gave? One of the definitions Tisby gives is that racism is prejudice with power. If a person is prejudiced, but without power, can they be racist?

When Tisby talks about John Newton, he notes that it took Newton 26 years to become an abolitionist. Why did it take Newton so long to change? What does this say about how our views should be formed? Also how do we evaluate people’s progress towards understanding God's good purpose for us?

When we look back at historical figures, should we judge people by their own standards or the standards of their knowledge and morals? Should we be judged by the morals of some future generation?

There are several different models for slavery. Such as the indentured servant, the temporary slave of the Old Testament, the slaves in Latin America and how slavery was done in the South. Are there differences between these models? What are they? Are any of them acceptable models? Are any of them unacceptable? Why?

There was much talk that slavery was elevating the Africans. What was the theory behind this talk of elevation. Did the implementation of slavery in America match the rhetoric? Could it? Would that have been acceptable?

Many abolitionists while against slavery also felt Africans were not worthy of equal rights. Explain their position. What impact did that have on their outlook concerning blacks? Does their thinking impact our views today?

When Tisby says The refusal to act in the midst of injustice is itself an act of injustice, what injustices do you think of? What injustices is he speaking about? How have you reacted to injustice you have seen?

When Tisby cites current day racism, is it really economic power? If so, if a white is of lower economic status, do they fit within Tisby’s area of concerns? Or is Tisby only concerned with Blacks?

Tisby wants to show and lead us out of the complicity of the church in creating racism. Does his book help you in this process? What concrete things are you interested in doing?:

After the Civil War there was a divide with Blacks and Whites having different churches. Why did this division arise? Why did it not arise before? Are there reasons why today Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America?

Theologically speaking, Jesus was the ‘first lynchee,’ who foreshadowed all the lynched black bodies on American soil.” How do you react when you read this statement? If you were Black how do you think you would react to this statement? How does this statement bring the horror of the Cross into perspective?

Tisby notes that black Christians in the 1920s and 1930s did not fit neatly into either fundamentalist or social-gospel categories. Can evangelism/fundamentalism and a social-oriented gospel coisist in the same organizational structure? If so, how? What does it look like? What issues do you see arising?

Tisby says that during the Great Depression government programs were not overtly racist, but the effects were. What examples does he give? How do they lead to benefits being divided among racial lines? Are there programs like that today? How can we be on guard for these effects? What can we do about them?

When a church leaves an area, what happens to its members? Are the effects on an area to be taken into consideration when considering a move? If a church’s members leave to another part of the region, should the church’s physical structure follow?

Compromised Christianity transcends regions. Bigotry obeys no boundaries. This is why Christians in every part of America have a moral and spiritual obligation to fight against the church’s complicity with racism. Comment on this statement

When Tisby talks about Martin Luther King, Jr’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he also talks about the letter from the eight ministers which King was responding to. Do you think the ministers were against what King was doing or the pace of change? Do you think the rate at which racial parity is progressing in our society should be immediate? About right? Faster or slower?

Also the ministers asked King to renounce violence. Do you think they had a platform to talk about violence> Why did they (and/or the church) talk about the violence done to Blacks through the police, lynchings, burnings, ….? How should Christians respond when there is violence when protesting? Is violence ever the right response?

Tisby says that Politics became a proxy for racial conflict. How does Tisby support that? Is this ture? To what extent? If you were to ask a political person concerning race, how do you think they will answer?

A phrase which occasionally gets used is color-blind. What does this trm mean? In what ways should we be color-blind? In what ways is this a negative? If you are color blind when you talk to a person, is there something you are saying about the person?

How can a colorblind approach lead to situations which are detrimental to those of color?

Emerson and Smith in Dividing the Faith and referenced by Tisby talks about a cultural toolkit. What is it? How would you describe the toolkit of various factions in our society today? How would you describe your own? Your own place of worship?

Tisby notes that wealth is a motivational factor for many white Christians. While the lack of wealth among blacks is seen as evidence of systemic discrination. How do each set of people get to this point of view? Is one more legitimate than the other?

Tisby says that the organization of Black Lives Matter takes stands which offends many Christians. What stands does the organization make which offends you? Are they obstacles in standing with the organization? Can you work with an organization which you cannot fully support? If not, what organization can you work with which will stand with people of color? Is Tisby right in saying The only wrong action is inaction.

Explain why the statement all lives matter does not resonate with blacks. When you hear that phrase, what is your reaction?

Why does Tisby say there is a need for reparations? Do you agree? What form of reparations would you support? If any? Why?

Do you think Tisby’s purpose in writing this book is to cast stones at white Christians or is it to promote ways of reconciliation? How does he promote reconciliation?

Tisby says this is the time for action. Friendship is good, but will only do so much to remove the barriers blacks feel they have. Tisby names several actions which can be taken. Which one interests you? What do you think the benefits will be in engaging in those acts?

Where are in the ARC framework (awareness, relationship, commitment)?

How would you eliminate racism?

After reading the book, look back at your answer to the first question. Would you answer that question differently now?

Many of these questions are either from or adapted from LitLovers.

Why the title of Color of Compromise?

Does this book work to motivate you to change?

Does Tisby’s charge motivate you?

Every book has a world view. Were you able to identify this book’s world view? What was it? How did it affect the story?

Why do you think the author wrote this book?

What would you ask the author if you had a chance?

What “takeaways” did you have from this book?

What central ideas does the author present?

Are they personal, sociological, global, political, economic, spiritual, medical, or scientific

What evidence does the author use to support the book's ideas?

Is the evidence convincing...definitive or...speculative?

Does the author depend on personal opinion, observation, and assessment? Or is the evidence factual—based on science, statistics, historical documents, or quotations from (credible) experts?

What implications for you, our nation or the world do these ideas have?

Are these idea’s controversial?

To whom and why?

Are there solutions which the author presents?

Do they seem workable? Practicable?

How would you implement them?

Describe the culture talked about in the book.

How is the culture described in this book different than where we live?

What economic or political situations are described?

Does the author examine economics and politics, family traditions, the arts, religious beliefs, language or food?

How did this book affect your view of the world?

Of how God is viewed?

What questions did you ask yourself after reading this book?

Talk about specific passages that struck you as significant—or interesting, profound, amusing, illuminating, disturbing, sad...?

What was memorable?

New Words:

• Monogenesis (2): the theory that humans are all descended from a single pair of ancestors.
• Excoriated (3): censure or criticize severely.
• Quotidian (6): of or occurring every day; daily.
• Keryx (8): inviolable ancient Greek messenger. In Homer's time, the kēryx was simply a trusted attendant or retainer of a chieftain

Book References:

• The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa by Olaudah Equiano
• Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade by John Newton
• The Baptism of Early Modern Virginia by 
• Two Treatises of Government by John Locke
• Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God by Jonathan Edwards
• Religious Affections by Religious Affections
• Some Observations upon the Slavery of Negroes by
• Soul by Soul by Walter Johnson
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
• The Confessions of Nat Turner by Nat Turner
• The Origins of Proslavery Christianity by Charles F. Irons
• A Defence of Virginia, [and through Her, of the South] by Robert Lewis Dabney
• Baptized in Blood by Charles Reagan Wilson
• The Gospel According to the Klan by Kelly J. Baker
• The Leopard’s Spots by Thomas Dixon Jr.
• The Clansman by Thomas Dixon Jr.
• The Traitor by Thomas Dixon Jr.
• Ku Klux Klan in the City, 1915–1930 by Kenneth T. Jackson
• Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization by Theodore G. Bilbo
• The Reason Why the Colored American Is Not in the World’s Columbian Exposition by Robert W. Rydell
• Christianity and the Social Crisis by Walter Rauschenbusch
• The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth by R.A. Torrey
• Returning Soldiers by
• Quadragesimo Anno by Pope Pius XI
• Up South, Matthew Countryman by
• Christian View of Segregation by
• White Flight by Kevin Kruse
• Blood Done Signed My Name by Timothy B. Tyson
• The Color of Christ by Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey
• The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsay
• The Emerging Republican Majority by Kevin Phillips
• Fundamentalism in American Culture by Adam Laats
• Listen, America!l by Jerry Falwell
• Divided by Faith by Micheal Emerson, Christian Smith
• Prophetic Lament by Soong-Chan Rah

Good Quotes:

• First Line: Four young girls busily prepare for their big day.
• Last Line:
• ducation should lead us to informed action and informed action should lead to liberation, justice and repair.. Chp Forward. By Lecrae
• The refusal to act in the midst of injustice is itself an act of injustice. Indifference to oppression perpetuates oppression. Chp 1 The color of compromise
• History and Scripture teaches us that there can be no reconciliation without repentance. There can be no repentance without confession. There can be no confession without truth. Chp 1 The color of compromise
• Every book is an introduction, an invitation to further study. Chp 1 The color of compromise
• The cross helped me to deal with the brutal legacy of the lynching tree, and the lynching tree helped me to understand the tragic meaning of the cross. James H Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, page xviii
• Compromised Christianity transcends regions. Bigotry obeys no boundaries. This is why Christians in every part of America have a moral and spiritual obligation to fight against the church’s complicity with racism. Chp 7 Remembering the complicity in the North
• I think we’ve got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. Martin Luther King, Jr, 60 Minute Interview with Mike Wallace, Sept. 27, 1966
• Social justice and progress are the absolute guarantors of riot prevention. There is no other answer. Martin Luther King, Jr, The Other America Speech, April1 4, 1967 at Stanford
• ...racism, since it is socially constructed, adapts when society changes. Chp 9 Organizing the religious right at the end of the twentieth century
• Those who have suffered much find much joy in God’s salvation. Chp 11 The fierce urgency of now

Table of Conents:

• Foreword / by Lecrae --
• 1 The color of compromise --
• 2 Making race in the colonial era --
• 3 Understanding liberty in the age of revolution and revival --
• 4 Institutionalizing race in the Antebellum era --
• 5 Defending slavery at the onset of the Civil War --
• 6 Reconstructing white supremacy in the Jim Crow era --
• 7 Remembering the complicity in the North --
• 8 Compromising with racism during the civil rights movement --
• 9 Organizing the religious right at the end of the twentieth century --
• 10 Reconsidering racial reconciliation in the age of Black Lives Matter --
• 11 The fierce urgency of now --
• Conclusion : be strong and courageous.

References:

• Publisher's Web Site for Book
• Author's Web Site
• Amazon-Book
• Amazon-Author
• Barnes and Noble
• GoodReads-Book
• GoodReads-Author
• First Presbyterian Church, Berkley - Their study guide
• The Gospel Coalition
• Christian Scholars Review
• ViaLogoue Study notes
• Carver Project hosted a dialogue with Tisby-Video of event
• OnScript interview of Tisby
• Providence - an argue against Tisby’s book
• RightNow Media - Tisby’s video series. You need a subscription to view
• YouTube - Tisby’s video series. This is the link to the first session