Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair

by Duke L. Kwon, Gregory Thompson

Overview

Christianity Today 2022 Book Award Winner (Politics & Public Life)

Outreach 2022 Resource of the Year (Social Issues and Justice)

Foreword INDIES 2021 Finalist for Religion

"Kwon and Thompson's eloquent reasoning will help Christians broaden their understanding of the contemporary conversation over reparations."--Publishers Weekly

"A thoughtful approach to a vital topic."--Library Journal

Christians are awakening to the legacy of racism in America like never before. While public conversations regarding the realities of racial division and inequalities have surged in recent years, so has the public outcry to work toward the long-awaited healing of these wounds. But American Christianity, with its tendency to view the ministry of reconciliation as its sole response to racial injustice, and its isolation from those who labor most diligently to address these things, is underequipped to offer solutions. Because of this, the church needs a new perspective on its responsibility for the deep racial brokenness at the heart of American culture and on what it can do to repair that brokenness.

This book makes a compelling historical and theological case for the church's obligation to provide reparations for the oppression of African Americans. Duke Kwon and Gregory Thompson articulate the church's responsibility for its promotion and preservation of white supremacy throughout history, investigate the Bible's call to repair our racial brokenness, and offer a vision for the work of reparation at the local level. They lead readers toward a moral imagination that views reparations as a long-overdue and necessary step in our collective journey toward healing and wholeness.

Christians are awakening to the legacy of racism in America like never before. Reparations explores the church's responsibility for the deep racial brokenness at the heart of American culture, investigates the Bible's call to repair it, and offers a vision for the work of reparation at the local level. The authors lead readers toward a moral imagination that views reparations as a long-overdue and necessary step in our collective journey toward healing and wholeness.

This book won a Christianity Today 2022 Book Award (Politics & Public Life) and an Outreach 2022 Resource of the Year Award (Social Issues and Justice). It was also a Foreword INDIES 2021 Finalist for Religion.

"Kwon and Thompson's eloquent reasoning will help Christians broaden their understanding of the contemporary conversation over reparations."--Publishers Weekly

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493429578
Publisher:	Baker Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	6 MB

About the Author

Duke L. Kwon (MDiv, ThM, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is the lead pastor at Grace Meridian Hill in Washington, DC. He is active in public conversations around race, equity, and racial repair in the American church.

Gregory Thompson (PhD, University of Virginia) serves as executive director of Voices Underground (an initiative to build a national memorial to the Underground Railroad), research fellow in African American heritage at Lincoln University (HBCU), and visiting theologian for mission at Grace Mosaic Church in Washington, DC.
Duke L. Kwon (MDiv, ThM, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) is the lead pastor at Grace Meridian Hill, a neighborhood congregation in the Grace DC Network committed to building cross-cultural community in Washington, DC. Kwon is active in public conversations around race, equity, and racial repair in the American church, and he lectures on these topics around the country. His work has appeared in the Washington Post, Christianity Today, and The Witness.
Gregory Thompson (PhD, University of Virginia) is a pastor, scholar, artist, and producer whose work focuses on race and equity in the United States. He serves as executive director of Voices Underground (an initiative to build a national memorial to the Underground Railroad outside of Philadelphia), research fellow in African American heritage at Lincoln University (Historically Black College and University), and visiting theologian for mission at Grace Mosaic Church in Washington, DC. He is also the cocreator of Union: The Musical, a soul and hip-hop-based musical about the 1968 sanitation workers' strike. Thompson lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Table of Contents

Contents
Introduction: Generations without Recompense 
1. The Call to See
2. Seeing the Reality of White Supremacy
3. Seeing the Effect of White Supremacy
4. The Call to Own
5. Owning the Ethic of Restitution
6. Owning the Ethic of Restoration
7. The Call to Repair
Epilogue
Index

Editorial Reviews

01/18/2021

In this persuasive debut, Kwon, lead pastor of Grace Meridian Hill in Washington, D.C., and Thompson, research fellow at Lincoln University, argue that white supremacy’s “enduring effect” in America is the theft of Black wealth and power, and that Christians must respond by participating in reparations. Christians, in their estimate, have a unique capacity to contribute to the project of reparations because the ideas at its core—the ethics of restitution and restoration—are a part of Christian beliefs and practices, specifically the stories of Zaccheus and the Good Samaritan. The authors present these scriptural models alongside theological treatises on theft that have informed Christian practice for centuries and firmly assert that “restitution for the thefts of White supremacy” is a goal “older than America itself,” often explicitly rooted in Christian beliefs, as with the abolitionist movement. At the end, Kwon and Thompson provide “practices of repair” directed toward churches, including acknowledging and memorializing history; bolstering “vocational, relational, and financial power to our Black neighbors”; working with economic institutions to remove barriers to wealth; and transfers of wealth to “Black households, institutions, and communities.” Kwon and Thompson’s eloquent reasoning will help Christians broaden their understanding of the contemporary conversation over reparations. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

04/01/2021

In the wake of unending racist injustices in the U.S., how should predominately white churches respond? Two evangelicals, Kwon (pastor, Grace Meridian Hill) and Thompson (executive dir., Voices Underground), urge churches to take seriously the imperative for reparations. Their conclusion is based on the conviction that white supremacy has been ingrained in the U.S. from its founding to the present day, and that slavery is theft that has gone unaddressed. Kwon and Thompson explain how white supremacy is maintained and reinforced by structures and institutions; they particularly emphasize that white churches have benefited from white supremacy. The book also explains that Christianity has a history of making reparations as a means of reconciling wrongs. Regardless of the nation's response to racism, Kwon and Thompson say, white-led churches are obligated to repent of all three aspects of racist theft, which is explicated in terms of labor, heritage, and power. Neither Kwon nor Thompson are Black, but their ministries have worked for this kind of reconciliation. Black people also tell their own stories throughout this book and make recommendations. VERDICT A thoughtful approach to a vital topic. It will especially appeal to fans of Jemar Tisby's The Color of Compromise.—James Wetherbee, Wingate Univ. Libs., NC

Library Journal