The Rabbit Room

Hey, Debbie, I definitely see what you’re saying.  I honestly don’t know what to expect from my church and its leadership when I bring this up.  Conversations after services or during prayer request times seem to focus exclusively on “unrest, rioting, looting, rebellion”, etc. which discourages me and has, to this point, kept me silent on what I w…[Read more]

I just re-read your question, Mr. Guthrie, and my response, and realized I basically missed the main intent of your prompt.  So here’s a more thorough response:

I think we get a clue of what racism does to white people when Mr. Perkins writes about his own gut reaction of wanting to hate the white men beating him, in the midst of the beatings,…[Read more]

In the book, I remember two ways in which white believers can get involved in a loving, helpful way with African American communities in need:

1. “Coops among the have-nots, though organized on the self-help principle, often need specific outside assistance.  To recognize this … will open eyes to the larger goal of making entire communities…[Read more]

I want to explore with my almost entirely white church how we can reach out to our neighboring almost entirely African American evangelical churches to initiate some structured interactions (services, Bible study groups, etc.) with the purpose of learning from them, their experiences, their ways of interpreting the Bible, their liturgies, etc. …[Read more]

It’s refreshing to realize that there are Christian leaders like John Perkins who strongly teach Christ’s gospel and also work for its application in issues of racial justice.  I was very uneducated (and still am) in the Christian roots of the civil rights movement, and so was not certain of even one evangelical committed to proclaiming gospel…[Read more]

Thank you, Ms. Hunsberger, for bringing James K.A. Smith and his work into this discussion.  I have read his Cultural Liturgies series (of which the book you quoted from is the first), but I hadn’t thought about it in relation to this question or issue.  But you’re absolutely right.  If the Gospel doesn’t change our hearts (our loves), then ou…[Read more]

I think one way to admit and confess the wrongs we have done against African Americans is to allow for the removal of those monuments which honor the white leaders who led our ancestors in racist actions and institutions.  Indeed, it would be best if we ourselves (referring to their white descendants) would arrange for their removal and properly…[Read more]

Mark and Debbie got most of the ones I saw in these chapters, but another big one was the racism embedded into the institutions of education.  Publicly funded buses for white children; black children had to walk.  School for black children was scheduled around the white farmers’ planting and harvesting seasons; (I assume) white children studied t…[Read more]

I am going slightly off topic here because I grew up in the North, in Pennsylvania, where we like to pride ourselves in our long history of supposed pluralism and multiculturalism.  Most of the racism I have observed here (even in my own heart) has not been paternalistic or antagonistic, but fearful.  It’s almost always covered up with oblique r…[Read more]

I love your metaphor here, and its cross-centeredness, Suzanne!  I am to the point of believing that, yes, a cross-rooted faith should influence the culture for justice and righteousness, even in “halls of government.”  But I stumble over the fact that Jesus does not seem to have left us an example of this (at least not in the New Testament).  So…[Read more]

In a conversation I recently had in my white evangelical circle, in which we have been taught to maintain the believer’s personal relationship with God as paramount, one objection I heard to getting involved in any messages of a social gospel is precisely this tension between private transformation and social transformation found in these first…[Read more]

<p class=”MsoNormal”>In a conversation I recently had in my white evangelical circle, in which we have been taught to maintain that the believer’s personal relationship with Christ is paramount, one objection I have heard to our getting involved in any messages of a social gospel is precisely this tension between private transformation and social…[Read more]

I think Mr. Perkins has set up an interesting pair of problems: the glaring need for society to be just, right and fair on the one hand, and the subtly gnawing need on the other hand for beautiful personal transformation from the inside out.  As you point out, Mr. Guthrie, these two issues are what Christians today are grappling with: how does…[Read more]

Hello everybody.  My name is Caleb, and I look forward to reading and learning with you all.  I am a missionary working in Lesotho, southern Africa, but am currently home on furlough in Pennsylvania for the time being.  As an amateur musician, I have been influenced by the Rabbit Room for at least ten years now.  Thanks, Mr. Guthrie, for mak…[Read more]