Racial Reconciliation & Justice Resources
This resource list is an evolving document created by leaders and pastors at Mosaic who have responded to the Holy Spirit’s leading to engage in racial reconciliation and justice. Our hope and intention as a church is to humbly listen, learn, empathize, repent, and then act. We believe that our nation is experiencing a critical moment and that we are compelled by the love of Jesus to participate in a way that will contribute to healing and wholeness–rather than the continued denial of the Black experience in our nation and the historical impact, personal pain, and systemic un-health caused by slavery.
The resources here have been helpful in our learning of the racial complexity of our nation, specifically between black and white. While we do not agree with everything written, spoken, sung, or performed below, we do believe they have something to offer to inform our understanding and challenge our assumptions. It’s our hope that you will engage these resources with an open mind and submit your heart to the Holy Spirit’s guidance as you listen, watch, think, and process. He will guide us into all truth. (John 16:33)
— Tim Osborn, Lead Pastor
Be the Bridge Groups
The work of justice and reconciliation is right in line with being a disciple of Jesus. As a church family who is learning to follow Jesus in authentic community for the world, we must continue to emphasize the need to participate in bringing about racial justice and reconciliation. Simply put, this is part of following Jesus. Naming the sin of racism, lamenting with our brothers and sisters of color, repenting, and moving in step with the Spirit of our God of justice is difficult but necessary work.
Jesus came into the world to reconcile the world to himself and to reconcile formerly hostile communities to one another (Ephesians 2; 2 Corinthians 5). Jesus entrusted this ministry of reconciliation to the church. Racial reconciliation is not an optional aspect of the church or a niche issue reserved only for more “liberal” congregations; racial reconciliation is central to the church’s gospel mission.
We believe that as Mosaic actively engages with aligning to be in step with Jesus and fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit, it will require us to have a robust merger of Good Theology, Good History, and Good Praxis guiding the way. This evolving list of resources can be used to help guide us along the way. Dive in with a spirit of humility, self-reflection and learning.
Definitions
Racial Reconciliation
Reconciliation involves three ideas. First, it recognizes that racism in America is both systemic and institutionalized, with far-reaching effects on both political engagement and economic opportunities for minorities. Second, reconciliation is engendered by empowering local communities through relationship-building and truth-telling. Lastly, justice is the essential component of the conciliatory process—justice that is best termed as restorative rather than retributive.
Racial Justice
The proactive reinforcement of policies, practices, attitudes and actions that produce equitable power, access, opportunities, treatment, impacts and outcomes for all.
Racism
Racism is a belief that different races possess distinct characteristics, abilities, or qualities, especially so as to distinguish them as inferior or superior to one another. It is also a system of advantage based on race, involving cultural messages, misuse of power, and institutional bias, in addition to the racist beliefs and actions of individuals.
Prejudice
Prejudice is a preconceived judgment or opinion about a person or group of people, usually based on limited information and stereotyped generalizations.
implicit Bias
The Kirwan Institute defines implicit bias as “the attitudes or stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner…activated involuntarily, unconsciously, and without one’s awareness or intentional control.”
Books
Faith
- Divided by Faith: Evangelical Faith and the Problem of Race in America by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith
- Be the Bridge by Latasha Morrison
- White Awake by Daniel Hill
- Being White by Paula Harris
- Trouble I’ve Seen: Changing the Way the Church Views Racism by Drew G. I. Hart
- Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman
- Let Justice Roll Down by John M. Perkins
- I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
- Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church by Barbara Holmes
- The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race by Willie Jennings
- The Prophetic Lament: A Call for Justice in Troubled Times by Soong Chan-Rah
- Bridging the Diversity Gap: Leading Toward God’s Multi-Ethnic Kingdom by Alvin Sanders
- Roadmap to Reconciliation: Moving Communities into Unity, Wholeness and Justice by Brenda Salter McNeil
- The Cross & the Lynching Tree by James H. Cone
Historic
- The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
- Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
- The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson
More
- How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
- Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Me & White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, & Become a Good Ancestor by Layla F. Saad
- The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
- I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation by Chanequa Walker-Barnes
- White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard For White People To Talk About Racism by Robin Diangelo
- Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Videos / Movies / Documentaries
- 13th by Ava DuVernay (Netflix)
- Justice – Bible Project
- I Am Not Your Negro (Amazon Prime)
- Local Color – History of Racism in Oregon (OPB)
- Portland: Race against the past – (CBS)
- The Color of Compromise (Amazon Prime)
- Selma directed by Ava DuVernay
- When They See Us (Netflix)
- Just Mercy (Amazon Prime)
- Be The Bridge (Courses, resources)
- Hair Love – Oscar winning short film (Youtube)
Podcasts
- Code Switch from NPR
- Ibram X Kendi on Stamped from the Beginning
- Truth’s Table
- Be The Bridge