It has been awhile since we had a book discussion but here we are. Our only discussion for 2012 is John Piper’s Bloodlines: Race, Cross, and The Christian.
As always, we will engage in book dialog on Tuesdays. We will begin next week discussing the book’s introduction—Our World: The Need for the Gospel, so go out and grab a copy. Looking forward to reading your comments and tweets (use the #RacialRec hashtag).
What I love about the Book
In addition to defining race and racism, the “white and black issue” in American history, personal accountability and structural or institutional interventions, and the urgency of racial harmony, Piper does his research and continuously points the reader to the gospel and hope of Jesus Christ. He writes:
The gospel is not an ideology. It does not come in as one idea alongside some others and make its contribution. The good news is that God sent his Son Jesus into the world to die in the place of sinners, and bear their punishment, and become their perfect righteousness, and absorb the wrath of God, and set us right with him through faith alone, and rise from the dead triumphant over every foe—that gospel does not come as an ideology but as supernatural power…The power of the cross of Christ, applied by the Holy Spirit, is not a new philosophy or a new methodology or a new political persuasion, but “a new creation” (Gal. 6:15) (pages 83-84).
Christ corrects wrongs, brings light where there is darkness, and makes all things new and for the most part, the American church (both individually and collectively) has not allowed the gospel to fully touch this topic of racism. When the Holy Spirit is released, the response is a miraculous “otherness.” When the gospel is fully at work in this area, we all humble ourselves, we don’t make assumptions about what we do not know, we ask a lot of questions, we listen well, we repent, we forgive, and we lovingly embrace. It is my hope that throughout this series, we continuously humble ourselves and invite the gospel in to this conversation.
For the first time, I will be engaging the book discussion in a question/answer form or online conversation with someone. That special someone is Trillia Newbell @trillianewbell who is a Christian freelance writer (fellow Redbud writer), fitness professional, and stay-at-home mom of two kids. Through the nine years of her interracial marriage, Trillia is consistently learning to live out the realities of this conversation.
Trillia writes about race and culture, the church, and womanhood. You can find her writing at www.trillianewbell.com and Women of God Magazine.
Get to know Trillia better through her articles Redefining Sisters, Abortion and the Black Woman, Interracial Marriage, The Lament of a Black Neo-Reformed Woman, Her Politics, and Diversity in the home.
Her book review of Bloodlines entitled, A Black Female in a White Man’s World can be found here.
I’m looking forward to begins our discussion on Tuesday. If you start reading before then, please let us know what resonates with you. Both Trillia and I will be developing questions while reading and responding to your comments here.
© Natasha Sistrunk Robinson 2012 @asistasjourney #RacialRec
A SISTA'S JOURNEY 