11/16/2023 0 Comments Beyond racial gridlock bookAs Englewood Book Review founder Chris Smith put it in the title of one of my favorite books, we should be Reading for the Common Good. We should be critical thinkers in generous ways so we can promote the gospel’s healing and hope. We are free, the Bible says, so we can read what we want, but our freedoms should be used for the building up of the community. People of faith should agree in our mutual efforts to be wise and good. We’ve been trying to help customers get books they need (and we’ve earnestly tried to serve those on various sides of the culture wars) and we always remind readers to “think Christianly” and to exercise discernment. Authors and publishers who should have known better blasted away, often on Fox News or on loud, right-wing websites (although also from more respected sources which did breathy and illogical hit pieces.) These alarmist tirades often came with meager insight and seemingly not much compassion, and the books sold, I’m told, by the tens of thousands. A few fair concerns and a lot of truly awful nonsense was spread alongside the disinformation about vaccines and the so-called “stolen” election about something called critical race theory. It was a season we will never forget and for which we are grateful.Īnd, then, the push back began. We, here, have much to learn, but we felt like we were somewhat well-positioned to serve a growing interest among our customers. Those wanting to go deeper worked through Matthew Kaemingk’s Christian Hospitality and Muslim Immigration in an Age of Fear or even Willie James Jennings Yale University Press title, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race. New authors captured our attention - within the religious publishing world, at least authors like Lisa Sharon Harper, Karen Gonzalez and Chanequa Walker-Barnes and Kaitlin Curtice and Kat Armas and Hak Joon Lee were in demand, and we were grateful. We sold memoirs and novels and poetry by people of color. Those that could, dug a little deeper some were intentional about framing the conversation by the light of Biblical doctrine while others just wanted to read, listen and learn from others, graciously. Non-controversial books like Living In Color: Embracing God’s Passion for Ethnic Diversity or Learning from the Stranger: Christian Faith and Cultural Diversity by David Smith or Gr acism:The Art of Inclusion by David Anderson were eagerly studied by church groups who had not previously taken up issues of social ethics or public justice. Within a year or so all sorts of newer authors invited white Americans (including white Christians of all sorts) into their world to read about First Nations/indigenous, Latino, Asian American experience, spirituality, and theology. We sold books on the immigrant experience, too - again, we had a section on immigration and refugees since our store opened but interest from publishers and the book buying public and some churches grew noticeably. It was an exciting time for booksellers almost everywhere, at least those who cared about these things. In 2020 we sold lots of Reading While Black, Be the Bridge, I’m Still Here, My Grandmother’s Hands, Stamped from the Beginning, White Fragility, How to Be an Anti-Racist, The Color of Compromise, Healing Racial Trauma, The Warmth of Other Suns, Bonhoeffer’s Black Jesus, Just Mercy, Me and White Supremacy, Anxious to Talk About It, The Cross and the Lynching Tree, and older classics, from authors like John Perkins and Brenda Salter McNeil to Martin Luther King, Jr., Howard Thurman and John Lewis to Oscar Romero and James Cone. Who knew that in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic and the quarantining two years ago there would be a huge, nation-wide uptick in interest in books by and about black culture, about white privilege, social justice, racial equity, cultural diversity? For a while we could hardly keep some key titles in stock. Not many people bought these sorts of books (except, maybe, evangelicals involved in campus ministry through IVCF or CCO who have been on the cutting edge of speaking about this stuff for years.) But, like a few other categories of books we enjoy showing off, we have them because we should. Maybe that is why we got a very scary message under our door from the KKK one fine day decades ago, a threat that I wear as a badge of honor. We have always had a dedicated section about diversity, racial reconciliation, the history of the civil rights movement, and the like. Well, friends, I’ve been wanting to offer this list for a while, bringing you up to speed with some of the fascinating and often very important books on race and racism that we have for sale here at Hearts & Minds.
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