ANTI-RACIST RESOURCES
FOR CHRISTIANS

Many incredible anti-racist resource lists are going around (like this one, this one, and this one), but it can get overwhelming to be given hundreds of recommended books and projects and not know where to start!

Furthermore, none that I’ve seen have offered Christian-specific / church-specific resources.

So here’s a shorter list of resources - cultivated particularly for white Christians who want to do the work to recognize their own racism and strive towards anti-racism for themselves and for their communities.

If you have more suggestions for Christian-specific resources, please contact me at queerlychristian36@gmail.com 

Scroll to the bottom of this document for content visuals you are welcome to spread around.

REMINDER: While self-education and education of our communities is a vital step, it is only the first step in anti-racism. Being “woke” means nothing if we do not then take action. So check out some of these resources, educate yourself, educate your people, AND start doing the hard work of justice!! That means joining and supplying protests, and speaking out online and in real life, and elevating the voices of BIPOC within your church and elsewhere.

CONTENTS:

  • Anti-Racism 101
  • Terminology & basic concepts / questions
  • Talking to kids about racism, protests, etc.
  • Christian-specific resources
  • Christian responses to the current protests
  • Resources for recognizing our own racism, making practical changes, etc.
  • Racist applications of the Bible / church complicity in racism throughout history
  • Celebrating the theological wisdom of BIPOC
  • Books, websites, podcasts, social media
  • Protest / riot specific resources
  • Where can I go to find out what’s really happening?
  • Conversations around protests that escalate into violence / into riots
  • How can I help?
  • Preparing for protests
  • Donate to funds, sign petitions, etc.
  • Other resources
  • Support black businesses!!
  • More misc. articles for white people
  • Info about police & alternatives to police
  • Intersectional Solidarity, LGBT/queer/trans-specific resources
  • Lots of misc. Books, shows, documentaries, podcasts, articles

ANTI-RACISM 101

Terminology and basic concepts

  • Not sure what some of the vocabulary used in anti-racist conversations even means? The Racial Equity Tools Glossary can help you out, with explanations of concepts like “antiblack,” “cultural appropriation,” “decolonization,” “intersectionality,” “restorative justice,” and more!
  • Also check out Emmanuel Acho’s recent Facebook video (9 minutes) offering concise answers to basic questions white people ask him, including:
  • “Why are people rioting?”
  • “What is white privilege?”
  • “Why do you care more about white-on-black crime than black-on-black crime?”
  • “Why are you saying black lives matter when all lives matter?”

Talking to kids about racism, protests, etc:

CHRISTIAN-SPECIFIC RESOURCES

For those of us who are Christian, it can be helpful to hear what other faithful Christians have to say during times of crisis. We also need to debunk theologies that harm BIPOC and discover theologies that affirm BIPOC. Finally, it is vital for us to acknowledge how Christian institutions have been and continue to be complicit in racism and to consider the work of reparations ahead of us. Here are some resources to help in these endeavors.

Christian responses to the current protests

Christian resources for recognizing our own racism, making practical changes, etc.

  • A document put forth by the Presbyterian Church (USA) that offers materials for a 6-week discussion for church communities
  • an adult curriculum from the United Church of Christ that's designed to invite church members to engage in safe, meaningful, substantive, and bold conversations on race.

  • Book. 2016. 198 pages.
  • In this provocative book, theologian and blogger Drew G. I. Hart places police brutality, mass incarceration, anti-black stereotypes, poverty, and everyday acts of racism within the larger framework of white supremacy. He argues that white Christians have repeatedly gotten it wrong about race because dominant culture and white privilege have so thoroughly shaped their assumptions. He also challenges black Christians about neglecting the most vulnerable in their own communities. Leading readers toward Jesus, Hart offers concrete practices for churches that seek solidarity with the oppressed and are committed to racial justice.

  • Book. 2019. 138 pages
  • Part manifesto, part confession, and all love letter, Dear Church offers a bold new vision for the future of Duncan's denomination and the broader mainline Christian community of faith. Dear Church rejects the narrative of church decline and calls everyone--leaders and laity alike--to the front lines of the church's renewal through racial equality and justice.
  • Book. 2017. 234 pages.
  • Trouble the Water is a resource for individuals and congregations endeavoring to take seriously the ever-increasing necessity of work toward racial justice while attending to the intersections of our identities and the intersecting nature of oppression, injustice, and violence. Trouble the Water is shaped by a multitude of voices that make it unique among resources for individuals and congregations working toward racial justice. The authors address theory and theology that is foundational to the work of racial justice, provide praxis-oriented chapters helping readers conceive of ways to engage in the work of racial justice as individuals and as congregations, and render inspiring narratives from churches that have been doing the work of racial justice for many years.

  • This monthly publication often broadcasts issues of racism and activism. See its June 2020 issue for a conversation around reparations, for example

Racist applications of the Bible / church complicity in racism throughout history

  • Book. 2020. 256 pages.
  • An acclaimed, timely narrative of how people of faith have historically—up to the present day—worked against racial justice. And a call for urgent action by all Christians today in response.
  • Book. 2012. 112 pages.
  • White privilege and racial injustice persist in the Church; and despite a commitment to promote justice for all, racism is a reality of life, and has been since before the founding of our nation. In addition throughout most of our nation’s history, theology, as a discipline, has remained silent about racism and, at its worst, overtly supported racist practices.  This book, examines: 1) what racism is and how it functions, especially in the contemporary setting; 2) how the United States has claimed to be God’s chosen nation, yet systematically disadvantages persons of color; 3) how theology’s silence sustains racial injustice in the Church, rather than excises it; and 4) how reformulating theological discourse can contribute to racial justice within ecclesial communities and the larger landscape of society.        

Celebrating the theological wisdom of BIPOC

It is critical that we all decolonize our theologies. When you hear about famous Christians of the past and their contributions to theology and church, how many are white? How many are African, African American, Latin American, Indigenous, Asian, Asian American? Probably far fewer.

Yet people of color were the first spreaders of the Gospel -- Christianity originated in the Middle East, and some of its earliest outreach led into Ethiopia, India, and Syria as well as north into Italy. Their wisdom and insight into the Divine and into what it means to be human beings made in God’s image is vital to Christianity. So here are some resources to get you started on expanding your theology with the help of theologians of color, especially Black theologians.

  • Basics:
  • Note: the language of this piece is a bit more academic than most resources shared in this doc; but it does a good job of summing up some foundational Black theologians’ work and bringing it into conversation with the BLM movement post-Ferguson.
  • “Using the framework of black theological thought on the body, this paper identifies the many ways that racism, as Ta-Nehisi Coates writes, ‘lands, with great violence, upon the body’ across multiple domains and levels throughout history and across the life course. The paper closes with some initial recommendations for historically predominantly white churches to offer an anti-racist response to this violence, as informed by black theology.”
  • Websites/articles online
  • “Uplifting believers of all stripes”
  • I cannot recommend this app enough! Its founder is Crystal Cheatham, a Black Christian LGBTQ+ rights activist, and is a space where Christians of various marginalized groups are invited to submit their theological reflections, Bible studies, devotionals, and more.
  • If you’re looking for a devotional for personal or communal use, search the Our Bible app and you might just find something incredible written by a POC.

  • Books:
  • The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone (and anything else by James Cone)
  • 158 pages.
  • Reconciling the gospel message of liberation with the reality of black oppression and suffering during the lynching era.
  • Book. 2008. 232 pages.
  • Monica A. Coleman articulates the African American expression of "making a way out of no way" for today's context of globalization, religious pluralism, and sexual diversity. Drawing on womanist religious scholarship and process thought, Coleman describes the symbiotic relationship among God, the ancestors, and humanity that helps to change the world into the just society it ought to be. Making a Way Out of No Way shows us a way of living for justice with God and proposes a communal theology that presents a dynamic way forward for black churches, African traditional religions and grassroots organizations.

  • Womanist Midrash by Wilda C. Gafney
  • 340 pages.
  • Womanist Midrash is an in- depth and creative exploration of the well- and lesser-known women of the Hebrew Scriptures. Using her own translations, Gafney offers a midrashic interpretation of the biblical text that is rooted in the African American preaching tradition to tell the stories of a variety of female characters, many of whom are often overlooked and nameless.
  • Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
  • Reading While Black: African American Biblical Interpretation as an Exercise in Hope by Esau McCaulley
  • Book. 2020. 200 pages
  • Growing up in the American South, Esau McCaulley knew firsthand the ongoing struggle between despair and hope that marks the lives of some in the African American context. A key element in the fight for hope, he discovered, has long been the practice of Bible reading and interpretation that comes out of traditional Black churches. Ultimately McCaulley calls the church to a dynamic theological engagement with Scripture, in which Christians of diverse backgrounds dialogue with their own social location as well as the cultures of others.

  • Book. 2009. 176 pages
  • Being human is neither abstract nor hypothetical. It is concrete, visceral, and embodied in the everyday experience and relationships that determine who we are. In that case, argues distinguished theologian Shawn Copeland, we have much to learn from the embodied experience of black women who, for centuries, have borne in their bodies the identities and pathologies of those in power.
  • 2015. 128 pages.
  • Our Lives Matter uses the tenor of the 2014 national protests that emerged as a response to excessive police force against Black people to frame the book as following the discursive tradition of liberation theologies broadly speaking and womanist theology specifically. Using a womanist methodological approach, Pamela R. Lightsey helps readers explore the impact of oppression against Black LBTQ women while introducing them to the emergent intellectual movement known as queer theology.

  • Popular narratives cite religion as the driving force behind homophobia in Africa, portraying Christianity and LGBT expression as incompatible. Without denying Christianity’s contribution to the stigma, discrimination, and exclusion of same-sex-attracted and gender-variant people on the continent, Adriaan van Klinken presents an alternative narrative, foregrounding the ways in which religion also appears as a critical site of LGBT activism.

  • Book. 224 pages.
  • A New Uprising for God's Glory: In this captivating chronicle of the Native American story, Richard Twiss of the Rosebud Lakota/Sioux sifts through myth and legend to reveal God's strategy for the nation's host people.

  • Podcasts
  • Fruits of the Spirit Podcast, hosted by Enrique Cintrón
  • Modern Faith is a womanist podcast that exists to spiritually nourish today's millennial Black woman. This show provides all the good of the Gospel (such as encouragement, empowerment, renewal and truthfulness), without the toxicity of religion. By discussing issues that matter to us, Neichelle Guidry is helping her sisters keep the faith.

  • Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook

PROTEST / RIOT SPECIFIC RESOURCES

Where can I go to find out what’s really happening?

  • Most news stations are skewing towards sympathy for the police and other state forces in this event. I saw one tweet that noted that this would be like only interviewing tobacco companies about the negative impact their products are having on people, without also talking to the people impacted. It is imperative to seek out the perspectives of those who are part of the protests, not just police and political leaders.
  • https://blacknewschannel.com/ 
  • as the nation’s only provider of 24/7 cable news programming created “by people of color, for people of color,” BNC can be trusted to uphold the perspectives and share the evidence of protestors of color.

Conversations around protests that escalate into violence / into riots

How can I help?

  • If you attend a protest…

  • Bring supplies to protestors even if you can’t stay and protest with them

  • Donate to bail funds!! Sign petitions!! Contact officials!!

OTHER RESOURCES

Support Black businesses, always!!

“Mental health resources for black people trying to cope right now”

“Talking about Race” Web portal with the National Museum of African American History and Culture

More articles for white people

Resources about the corruption of the US police system & alternatives to police

Intersectionality / Addressing Multiple Oppressions

A whole bunch of miscellaneous books, articles, movies, and podcasts!

  • The same google doc also has a list of videos to watch online free, and a list of tv shows and movies to watch, and a list of podcasts! Some of my faves:

GOOGLE DOC VISUALS: