I Wonder What the Critics Will Say This Time?

"The Spirit of Justice" will likely garner bad faith reviews like "The Color of Compromise" did.

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Christian fundamentalists and hardline right-wingers despised my first book, The Color of Compromise.

They panned it as “selective” history that only told the bad parts of the story.

One review along these lines came from my alma mater, Reformed Theological Seminary. I got my MDiv from there.

In their journal Reformed Faith and Practice, the reviewer was S. Donald Fortson III, professor of church history.

The review was titled, “The Color of Incomplete History,” and Fortson wrote,

This is incomplete history, and not helpful for candid discussion of the full record of America’s dealing with slavery. Multitudes of antislavery texts affirm the full humanity and equality of Africans as divine image bearers. Were [White Christians] complicit in slavery? Absolutely. Were there multitudes of courageous contrary WC voices? Yes! And both voices need to be heard if accurate historical accounts matter.

All historical treatments are selective.

Every historian has a thesis and selects data and evidence to support it. The question is whether that selected information is strong enough to uphold the thesis.

I invite reasoned criticism. But tearing down a work just because the argument doesn’t fit your ideological narrative is not helpful.

Here’s how it’s supposed to work: one person presents their thesis and data. Another person presents theirs. Whoever has the strongest argument and evidence emerges as more persuasive.

My thesis in The Color of Compromise was that, on the whole, white Christians in the United States demonstrated complicity with racism instead of confronting it.

While exceptions exist, they are just that, exceptions. The rule remains—white Christians throughout history have not only failed to confront racism, they often fanned its flames.

My new book The Spirit of Justice: True Stories of Faith, Race, and Resistance, tells a different story of race and the Church.

Instead of focusing on the complicity of white Christians, it centers Black Christians and their courageous confrontations with racism.

It speaks of Black Christian history makers such as Jupiter Hammon, Jarena Lee, H. Ford Douglass, Anna Julia Cooper, Myrlie Evers-Williams and dozens more.

I even include some white folks like Charles Morgan, Jr. who became a civil rights lawyer and denominations such as the Quakers and the Methodists who had abolitionist stances early on.

I contend that racism, however horrific, is unsurprising. There are always people willing to count themselves superior in order to exploit others.

What is truly remarkable is that in every age and under egregious conditions, there have been people who tapped into the spirit of justice to resist racism.

These are the Christians who were on the right side of justice when it came to issues of racism.

So what will the critics say?

I have no doubt they’ll come up with something to criticize in The Spirit of Justice. Not because of the history itself, but because of what that history might do.

It is a subversive history.

A history that calls us today to take action against racism in all its forms. A history that reminds us of the power we have as a people. The power we have as the Church.

The unfairest critics also don’t happen to like me very much, so simply with me as the author people might dismiss and denigrate the book.

Please be clear. I do not care about the criticism. I’m simply curious.

There were also a multitude of glowing reviews for the book. Those ought not to be overlooked or devalued.

It’s simply a fact in racial justice work—the detractors will always be there. Some will have legitimate points. Others will use efforts at racial progress as fodder for their negativity.

Sadly, many of the people who most need to read The Spirit of Justice and be challenged by this history will never do so. Their narrative of history and Christianity is too narrow to let facts challenge their feelings.

What’s a book, article, idea, or person you wish more Christians would engage in order to foster racial progress. Comment below.