Skot Welch - Plantation Jesus: Race, Faith, and a New Way Forward

Plantation Jesus is a healing triumph. It exposes white Christian supremacy with fearless urgency. Then it invites broken believers to dare dismantle the worship of racism in exchange for surrender to the reconciling Christ. A courageous call; may all Gods people respond in kind.

Patricia Raybon , author of My First White Friend

Plantation Jesus provides a raw, unflinching, and yet ultimately hopeful survey of white supremacy in the church, complete with stories, conversation starters, and practical ideas to help turn conviction into action. A must-read for those ready to confront racial bias in their church and in their lives but arent sure where to start.

Rachel Held Evans , author of Searching for Sunday and Inspired

Ive long felt that churches, filled with people of faith, ought to be the vessels within which the difficult, transformative conversations about race could be held. Yet for the most part, this has not been the case. Plantation Jesus boldly shows us why not, and then shows us a path forward. Read this book. Then get busy.

Thomas Norman DeWolf , executive director of Coming to the Table and author of Inheriting the Trade

Plantation Jesus is a unique book that is real and raw about the challenging nature of conversations about race, ethnicity, faith, and the role of the church. The examples and stories provide a practical view of the long-term implications of the church when it unwittingly perpetuates racism. Plantation Jesus also provides hope that an authentic view of Jesus can reemerge if people are willing to have the difficult conversations.

Kyle Ray , lead pastor of Kentwood Community Church

Plantation Jesus is a well-researched and straightforward work that will contribute to the dismantling of racism if readers will heed the authors words.... Please read this book, give a copy to somebody in your church, and then put the words into practice.

Dennis Edwards , senior pastor of Sanctuary Covenant Church

America is in deep trouble. White supremacy should not be the guiding principle of an enlightened society, and people of faith need to be at the forefront of changing the paradigm, just as they were during the periods of abolition and civil rights activism. The only way to transcend the past is to confront it honestly, and Plantation Jesus is a powerful guide for doing just that.

Sharon Leslie Morgan , coauthor of Gather at the Table and founder of Our Black Ancestry

Skot Welch and Rick Wilson imagine a church that floods both sanctuary and streets with Christs love. Anything less would be a failed life. Plantation Jesus will challenge you. You may not like what it says. But please ask the Lord for help as you read. Then ask Jesus to use you as a neighbor and healer, as one who binds up the wounds of the brokenhearted.

Scott Hagan , president of North Central University

Herald Press
PO Box 866, Harrisonburg, Virginia 22803
www.HeraldPress.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Welch, Skot, author.

Title: Plantation Jesus : race, faith, and a new way forward / Skot Welch and Rick Wilson, with Andi Cumbo-Floyd.

Description: Harrisonburg : Herald Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017057682| ISBN 9781513803302 (pbk. : alk. paper) |
ISBN 9781513803319 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Race relations--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Racism--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Race--Religious aspects--Christianity. | United States--Race relations. | Racism--United States.

Classification: LCC BT734.2 .W54 2018 | DDC 241/.675--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017057682

PLANTATION JESUS

2018 by Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia 22803. 800-245-7894.
All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017057682

International Standard Book Number: 978-1-5138-0330-2 (paperback);
978-1-5138-0332-6 (ebook); 978-1-5138-0331-9 (hardcover)

Printed in United States of America

Cover and interior design by Merrill Miller

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the copyright owners.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture text is quoted, with permission, from the New Revised Standard Version , 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

22 21 20 19 18 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Rick Wilson,
friend, brother, truth-teller.
You are missed.

AUTHOR NOTE

I VE HEARD IT SAID that you can see Gods heart for you by the people God brings into your life. Such is the case with my brother from another mother, Rick Wilson (19442014). Ricks presence in my life showed me that God not only loved me, but liked me too.

Always curious, consistently open to learning something new, and ever eager to have an honest and transparent conversation, Rick never met a stranger. Through our friendship, he often found himself in rooms where he was the only white person. Yet his desire to display Gods heart for the mosaic of Gods people made him absolutely comfortable in those settingseven more so than in a room where all the people looked like him and nobody looked like me. Skot, he would say to me whenever we were together in mostly white spaces, TMWP. That was his code for too many white people. This room dynamic actually made him very uncomfortable. If only more of us felt that way: most comfortable where Gods mosaic is best represented.

Revelation 7:910 articulates the makeup of such a room: After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying, Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!

This was the apostle Johns vision, and this was Ricks vision too. Once, when someone wrote a letter to the editor of our local newspaper about protecting the sacred nature of the Warner Sallman portrait of Jesus, Rick called me. He asked if I had read it, and I said no. I told him that I had to choose my battles carefully, and that although that picture is offensive to me, this letter to the editor wasnt an occasion on which I wanted to expend any energy. Rick quickly responded, You dont have toIve got this one.

Because of our relationship with the religion editor of the paper, Rick was asked to be the guest columnist, and he accepted. Rick did his thing. He wrote a response to the original piece, citing history and asking questions of the person who made the initial comments, questions that spoke to the foundations of truth as a Christian. He wrote about the part that racism played in the artists approach to making the infamous piece of propaganda.

What blessed me most about the article wasnt Ricks spot-on response, or the irrefutable facts, or Ricks anointed understanding of the awful coiling together of racism and church history. No, it was none of those. It was the fact that his heart for me as his friend began to feel what I felt.

It wasnt Rick being completely comfortable with being misunderstood or even shunned by people who said they were his friends, as was often the case, that showed his courage. To me, it was his pursuit of the truth, first as a follower of Jesus and second as a journalist of the rarest integrity.