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Welcoming Justice: God's Movement Toward Beloved Community (Resources for Reconciliation)

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I have been involved with the issue of reconciliation for about 5 years now. My wife and I (and our son who was 2 years old at the time) spent 3 months on an intense residential course on Biblical Reconciliation before we moved to the States. For three months I was steeped in lecturers and books on reconciliation. The paper that I wrote for the course, The Paradox of A Divided Church Called To Be Reconcilers To The World, was published as a chapter in a book. I also edited a resource book for schools on Biblical Reconciliation. It was for these reasons that I was excited to review this book.

Charles Marsh (Seminary Professor) and John Perkins (Civil Rights activist) team together to write on God's movement towards `Beloved Community.' As John Perkins writes, God is calling me to help churches see and incorporate as an essential part of discipleship. The captivity of the church to our culture has left us so divided.

The church has a massive, God given role in reconciliation and it needs to embrace this call. The gospel itself is a call to reconciliation - turn back to The Father who desires to be restored in relationship with his children through his Son Jesus Christ; The Church is called to be a blessing in places of brokenness, so God sends us to the jails. God wants us to interrupt this broken system with his love.


The chapters are shared between Perkins and Marsh. When you read Perkins chapters you literally hear his cry leaping from the pages - the cry for the church to get serious about true reconciliation; serious about being involved with a broken world; serious about community that is attractive, discipleship based and reconciliation focused. Christians have spent a lot of time talking about who Jesus is without paying attention to how he lived.


Community based church is a key feature for the authors. A Church that simply attracts people who commute in and out is not as asset to a community. They contribute very little, if not nothing to the community (accept traffic problems on a Sunday). A Church that is made up of people from the community is an asset to the community - investing time and energy in those with whom they live with to declare God's reconciliation and to be an illustration of reconciliation to the community.

Of course the two key areas that need this is racial relations and those in poverty and time is spent on these issues. John Perkins insights into the civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's are very insightful. Much has changed and much progress has been made since Martin Luther-Kings death some 40 years ago, but there is more to be done; We're not there yet, but we are living in a new time. This is a time for re-building. I pray that every Christian, young and old alike, would have the courage to give themselves fully to God's movement toward reconciliation and beloved community in society.


My only difficulty with the book was that some of the chapters were a little disjointed. Sometimes I was not sure where the chapter was heading. But overall this is a great little book. This book should be read by all Christians but especially pastors and church leaders so that reconciliation gets into the DNA of the church. Definitely recommended.

Growing up near the end of the 1960's in a Republican household where racism was just beneath the surface and later coming to faith in the world's Messiah in an evangelical world that saw faith as opposed to justice, this book helped me understand the roots of the civil rights movement and how the foundation changed after MLK's death. The book goes on to discuss and recapture the vision of the gospel for reconciliation on every level of human socity through fidelity to Jesus' teaching. It's refreshing how it pictures the gospel as the hope not just for the human soul but for human societies.

Though both men have a long history in racial reconciliation -- Charles Marsh as a professor and the director of the Project on Lived Theology at the University of Virginia, and John Perkins as the founder of the Voice of Calvary in Mississippi and the Christian Community Development Association -- this book looks forward more than it looks back. Both men lament the failure of the Civil Rights Movement to hold on to its Christian roots, and both men are critical of the continuing "cultural captivity" of the evangelical church. But both men also see God continuing his work of reconciliation down to the present, and Perkins in particular, expresses optimism that many of today's youth -- high school and college students -- have a vision for God's Beloved Community and are working to make it a reality.

Charles Marsh and Dr. Perkins do an awesome job tag-teaming this book. It really gives concrete examples of how theology needs to be interwoven with practice.

Charles Marsh and John Perkins have given to the body of Christ a challenge and word of encouragement. The journey of suffering experienced by John Perkins combines with the scholarship of Professor Marsh to speak a much needed word for social justice. The book is based on sound Biblical principles, and calls for Christians to be serious about following after Christ.

I first heard about John Perkins in the spring of 1992 as I was preparing for a summer missions trip with Wheaton College. We read one of his books (cannot remember which one, but according to his Wikipedia page, only A Quiet Revolution was published in 1992, now out of print). Later that year, after working for a summer in Houston with kids in a long term homeless shelter, attended my first Christian Community Development Association meeting. It was there that I first heard John Perkins speak. Since think I think I have read almost everything written by or about him. He truly is one of the modern prophets that has done much to change the direction of the modern Evangelical church. So I am always surprised how many people have not heard of him. A the last Catalyst conference, Perkins was one of the main speakers and I saw dozens of tweets quoting him and many questioning why they had never heard of him.

This book is a good overview of his heart and focus. Written with alternating chapters (much the same format as Follow Me To Freedom written with Shane Claiborne), Charles Marsh give some context and outside insight into both Perkins and the theology of developing community.

One of the aspects of Perkins that I most appreciate is his commitment to scripture within this socially active message. He is not a quote scripture out of context speaker. He knows scripture deeply, like few that I have ever heard speak or write. So when he speaks about scripture, it is not because he is writing a book, it is because he lives within scripture. He has had a 5:30 AM bible study for years. He invited young men that he is mentoring to come and be weeded out at his morning bible study. It is not just the early time, it is the intensive actual study of scripture and the development of character that he really focuses on.

Perkins is not simply a bible teacher or social activist, his is focused on the redemption of community. "When the MIA held a weeklong Institute on Nonviolence and Social Change near the end of their boycott, King looked back at their long hard struggle for justice and made clear its ultimate aim. Though a boycott had been necessary to end discrimination in Montgomery, that boycott was not the end. "The end," King said, "is reconciliation, the end is redemption, the end is the creation of the beloved community."

For me the real message, other than the importance of scripture, is that the belief is not as important as the action. The church says it is about the love of Christ, but it often does not live as if the love of Christ is all that important. "One of the most lasting effects of racism on white churches is an intellectual wound that makes people think they'll do right if they believe right. So they put all of their emphasis on believing the right things. Preachers work so hard to get their doctrine right, and then they try to think of clever ways to get their congregations to sit and listen to their good theology. I ask them, "How are you helping your church learn to love? " And they tell me, "Well, if they're Christians they will love." But I've met a lot of Christians who don't know what love means. I talk to white Christians all the time who say, "I love black people. I had a black nanny growing up, and I really loved her." Love isn't just a good feeling. It's an action that requires conversion."

I picked this up free on kindle early this year. It is part of a series from Duke Divinity School's Center for Reconciliation. There are currently five books in the series and they all look good. They are all relatively short (there is really only about 100 pages of content here), with discussion questions for a class or small group. I would not recommend this as an introduction to John Perkins because it only focuses on a small part of who he is, but it is a good introduction the need for a focus on community within the church. If you want a good introduction to John Perkins, Beyond Charity is a good introduction to his thought, Let Justice Roll Down is the most complete autobiography. Stephen Berk wrote a good biography, A Time to Heal in 1997. Although it is out of print, it is easily available from Amazon and many other stores for under $5. - Originally published on my blog bookwi.se