Who We Are
It is more important than ever that people in the church and our nation confront the hard realities of racial injustice, repent of our own attitudes and actions of prejudice and witness to a vision of God’s Kin-dom where we treat one another as beloved brothers and sisters.
For the last seven years, SPUMC’s Faith & Race Group has been meeting monthly to explore how our core Christian values call us to treat people of all cultures and races with dignity, respect and love. We have been reading some of the best books on the history of racism in our country and the church, the hard realities of what it means to be a person of color in a culture of systemic racism (whether it be South Africa or the US), what it takes to raise children who are anti-racist and other resources that help us understand the intersection between faith and race.
We also discuss articles, watch documentaries, go to movies together that deal seriously with issues of race (Just Mercy, Harriet, Till, Rustin, etc.), welcome guest speakers and take field trips (recently to the Banneker-Douglas-Tubman Museum in Annapolis). Mostly, we have honest, heart-searching and heart-breaking conversations about our own attitudes and practices related to race as we seek to become more faithful followers of Jesus Christ.
Our meetings are always open and you are very welcome to join us anytime. We meet on the 4th Tuesday of the month at 7pm. For more information about the group, contact Rev. Ron.
Some Books We Have Read Together
Madness by Antonia Hylton
Hidden Conversations by Michele Norris
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
The Cross and the Lynching Tree by James Cone
The Fire This Time edited by Jesmyn Ward
Raising White Kids by Jennifer Harvey
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
America’s Original Sin by Jim Wallis
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
Blindspot by Mahzarin Banaji and Anthony Greenwald
The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
How to Be an Anti-Racist by Ibram X. Kendi
The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead
Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope by Jon Meacham
Other Recommended Books
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Dear Church: A Love Letter From a Black Preacher to the Whitest Denomination in the US by Lenny Duncan
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown
Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
