Healing the Divides

Jason Roach and Jessamin Birdsall, The Good Book Company (2022)

Paperback – £7.64

Order now from: www.thegoodbook.co.uk/healing-the-divides

Jason Roach is British, with family origins in Barbados. Jessamin Birdsall is a white American who has spent a number of years in India. Together they have produced a clear, simple and deeply insightful introduction to issues of racial justice.

Reading it, I was reminded of the work that SAC has done over many years with our simple ABCD and East+West training materials, seeking to provide understanding and suggest practical ways to bring people of different backgrounds together. Healing the Divides similarly seeks to build bridges. And it brings the issues right up to date with analysis of current terms like ‘Black Lives Matter’, ‘Critical Race Theory’, ‘White Privilege’, ‘Woke’ or ‘Intersectionality’. These are assessed biblically with helpful guidelines for evaluating ideas from a different background.

The practical suggestions for church members of both majority and minority cultures are thoughtful and challenging. Definitely a book to think over and discuss in our fellowships.

I had one small suggestion in the early definitions of race and racism, which set ‘individual-level racism’ alongside ‘institutional racism’ (pages 19-21). I have found it helpful to compare ‘racial prejudice’, a subjective feeling which all of us may have, and ‘racism’, an expression of attitudes in which one group has the advantage over others. Racism is about power and influence. So if I belong to the dominant community (which varies in different countries and contexts), I can be part of racist structures and practices, even if personally I have good relations with people of other races or cultures.

Robin Thomson, Trustee