While discussing politics, race, and religion may increasingly be seen as off-limits in a polarized society, religion publishers are not shying away from these culture-war issues. In Publishers Weekly (May 22), Cathy Lynn Grossman reports that upcoming titles “take on the trauma of racism past and present, the force of Christian nationalism, and the tensions between those who prioritize personal autonomy and those who assert traditional ideas about sexual and gender identity.” Grossman’s overview of new books shows several taking a radical approach on race, such as Michael Harriot’s Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America (Dey Street), where the author calls out spiritual practices and clerical politics that he says embedded racism in American life. Others are more conciliatory, such as Loving Your Black Neighbor as Yourself: A Guide to Closing the Space Between Us (WaterBrook) by journalist Chanté Griffin, “which offers readings and prayers designed to push people into action beyond superficial hashtags and tweets of support for their Black neighbors, coworkers, and church members in times of stress or tragedy.” The evangelical InterVarsity Press (IVP) has offerings blending critiques of racism with a “servant leadership” approach, such as Daniel Reinhardt’s Rethinking the Police: An Officer’s Confession and the Pathway to Reform. Several IVP books are encouraging churches to embrace racial diversity by confronting racism, such as Pastor Bryan Loritts’s book, The Offensive Church: Breaking the Cycle of Ethnic Disunity, and In Church as It Is in Heaven: Cultivating a Multiethnic Kingdom Culture by Jamaal E. Williams and Timothy Paul Jones. These books tend to focus on strategies for reaching younger Christians, who researchers have found want to see more diversity in their church.
Source: Book Riot.
Catholic presses are also encouraging churches to combat racism and foster reconciliation—from the Orbis Books anthology, Preaching Racial Justice, to a resource book for white Catholics from Liturgical Press, Racism and Structural Sin: Confronting Injustice with the Eyes of Faith, by theology professor Conor M. Kelly. Buddhist, secular humanist, and “New Age” takes on race can be seen in the books Home Is Here (North Atlantic), by Zen priest and Buddhists of Color cofounder Liên Shutt; A Master Class on Being Human: A Black Christian and a Black Secular Humanist on Religion, Race, and Justice (Beacon Press), by progressive theologian Brad R. Braxton and secular humanist Anthony B. Pinn; and How We Ended Racism: Realizing a New Possibility in One Generation (Sounds True), by Justin Michael Williams and Shelly Tygielski, which proposes inner-healing as a way to confront racism. Several forthcoming books “brand racism and Christian nationalism as a spiritual, social, and political threat to society,” Grossman writes.
Fortress Press executive editor Carey Newman describes three 2023 titles as delving into “racism, the root of Christian nationalism, as the most important theological issue of our day”: American Heresy: The Roots and Reach of White Christian Nationalism (Sept.), by historian John Fanestil; Ancient Echoes: Refusing the Fear-Filled, Greed-Driven Toxicity of the Far Right (May), by Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann; and Saving Faith: How American Christianity Can Reclaim Its Prophetic Voice (Sept.), by religion professor Randall Balmer. Another similarly themed book is sociologist Andrew Whitehead’s American Idolatry: How Christian Nationalism Betrays the Gospel and Threatens the Church (Brazos Press). While other culture-war issues such as abortion, sexuality, and family remain prominent in current and forthcoming titles, there are also a spate of new books, mostly from evangelical publishers, that seek to mend an increasingly polarized country, including public affairs consultant Denise Grace Gitsham’s Politics for People Who Hate Politics: How to Engage Without Losing Your Friends or Selling Your Soul (Bethany), and Joshua Ryan Butler and Jim Mullins’s The Party Crasher: How Jesus Disrupts Politics as Usual and Redeems Our Partisan Divide (Multnomah).
