Jennifer Harvey - Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation

This powerful book displays the subversive possibilities of confession and calls the church beyond good intentions in the work of racial justice. A truly original work.

Brian Bantum
author of The Death of Race:
Building a New Christianity in a Racial World

A gospel for white people, this book calls for nothing less than laying down the trump card of reconciliation for the sake of true repentance and conversion. Jennifer Harvey is proclaiming truth. Listen to her.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
author of Revolution of Values:
Reclaiming Public Faith for the Common Good

One of the most valuable contributions to the work of antiracism in recent years. Harvey demonstrates with compelling accuracy and clarity why popular Christian dialogue about racial reconciliation does not work but in fact only serves to reinscribe historic, systemic problems.

Reggie L. Williams
author of Bonhoeffers Black Jesus:
Harlem Renaissance Theology and an Ethic of Resistance

A timely and indispensable contribution to the field of Christian social ethics. Harvey offers a reparations paradigm as the first step toward racial healing in the church.... An essential read for those who love the body of Christ and yearn for justice.

Eboni Marshall Turman
author of Toward a Womanist Ethic of Incarnation

A provocative analysis of the current state of race relations.... For those who are willing to look deeply into our historyto remember, to repent and to repairthis book is a most valuable resource.

The Presbyterian Outlook

Jennifer Harvey approaches faith-based work against racism with passion and clarity.

Anglican Theological Review

PROPHETIC CHRISTIANITY

Series Editors

Malinda Elizabeth Berry

Peter Goodwin Heltzel

THE PROPHETIC CHRISTIANITY series explores the complex relationship between Christian doctrine and contemporary life. Deeply rooted in the Christian tradition yet taking postmodern and postcolonial perspectives seriously, series authors navigate difference and dialogue constructively about divisive and urgent issues of the early twenty-first century. The books in the series are sensitive to historical contexts, marked by philosophical precision, and relevant to contemporary problems. Embracing shalom justice, series authors seek to bear witness to Gods gracious activity of building beloved community.

PUBLISHED

Bruce Ellis Benson, Malinda Elizabeth Berry, and Peter Goodwin Heltzel, eds., Prophetic Evangelicals: Envisioning a Just and Peaceable Kingdom (2012)

Jennifer Harvey, Dear White Christians: For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation, Second Edition, 2nd ed. (2020)

Peter Goodwin Heltzel, Resurrection City: A Theology of Improvisation (2012)

Johnny Bernard Hill, Prophetic Rage: A Postcolonial Theology of Liberation (2013)

Grace Ji-Sun Kim, Embracing the Other: The Transformative Spirit of Love (2015)

Liz Theoharis, Always with Us? What Jesus Really Said about the Poor (2017)

Chanequa Walker-Barnes, I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (2019)

Randy S. Woodley, Shalom and the Community of Creation: An Indigenous Vision (2012)

Dear White Christians

For Those Still Longing for Racial Reconciliation

SECOND EDITION

Jennifer Harvey

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

4035 Park East Court SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

www.eerdmans.com

2014, 2020 Jennifer Harvey

All rights reserved

First edition 2014

Second edition 2020

262524232221201234567

ISBN 978-0-8028-7791-8

eISBN 978-1-4674-5961-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Harvey, Jennifer, 1971 author.

Title: Dear white Christians : for those still longing for racial reconciliation / Jennifer Harvey.

Description: Second edition. | Grand Rapids, Michigan : William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2020. | Series: Prophetic christianity | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: The second edition of a book on American racial justice issues from a Christian perspective, advocating a reparations paradigm rather than an approach based on reconciliationProvided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020010244 | ISBN 9780802877918 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: RacismReligious aspectsChristianity. | Race relationsReligious aspectsChristianity. | ReconciliationReligious aspectsChristianity. | RacismUnited States. | Race relationsUnited States. | ReconciliationUnited States.

Classification: LCC BT734.2 .H275 2020 | DDC 277.3/083089dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020010244

Substantial portions of chapters 4 and 5 were previously published as White Protestants and Black Christians: The Absence and Presence of Whiteness in the Face of the Black Manifesto in Journal of Religious Ethics 39:1 (2011): 13146. JRE is published by Wiley.

Portions of chapter 6 were previously published and are excerpted from Buffalo Shout, Salmon Cry, copyright Herald Press, 2013, Waterloo, Ontario. Used with permission.

Substantial portions of chapter 7 were previously published as Which Way to Justice?: Reconciliation, Reparations, and the Problem of Whiteness in US Protestantism, Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics 31:1 (Spring/Summer 2011):5777, DOI: 10.5840/jsce201131130.

Contents

PART ONE
RECONCILIATION?
WHERE WE ARE AND WHY

PART TWO
REPARATIONS!
GOING BACKWARD BEFORE GOING FORWARD

PART THREE
STIRRINGS OF HOPE, PATHWAYS OF TRANSFORMATION

I count it an honor to write a foreword for the new edition of Dear White Christians. I became acquainted with Dr. Jennifer Harveys racial justice work with the church a few years ago through this book. A needed voice in progressive circles that are often prone to confuse open dialogue about the presence of racial inequity with the intimate work of dismantling racial injustice, Dr. Harvey moves beyond a critique of what is to a vision of what can become.

It is particularly poignant that I write this foreword while the world suffers in the midst of a global pandemic. I write this to followers of Jesus whom I very much see as essential workers of hope and care in a world reeling not only from the ravaging impact of the novel coronavirus, but also from the disproportionate number of African Americans dying of a virus that exposes the health disparities, fueled by racism and poverty, in this country. I write as the number of COVID-19related deaths exceeds one hundred thousand globally and twenty thousand nationally in less than two months. I write at a time when not only the ravaging effects of this novel coronavirus are being exposed, but also its disproportionate impact on Black communities, whose predisposition to generationally perpetuated racism has left us most vulnerable to this global crisis.

In the face of such horror, Dr. Jennifer Harveys prophetic challenge to white Christians is to move beyond the failed aspirations of racial reconciliation. She compassionately offers this challenge not as a critique of religious Christian progressives, but rather as an accompaniment in the pursuit of the vision of Jesus: that we may all be one (John 17:21). Such radical manifestation requires a shift from the widely held notion that reconciliation is possible without the deeper work of repentance and repair. Dr. Harvey is undaunted by resistance to this paradigm shift among Christian progressives, and she outlines a faithful path forward in this living out of the gospel.