Michael Bird on the “Gracism” of Romans 3:21–31
Aussie Michael Bird observes what many Americans often forget: “Blacks, whites, and Latinos are never more segregated than when it comes to attending worship services.” Sunday at 11:00 a.m. truly is the most segregated hour in America.
What we need is a healthy dose of “gracism.” Bird’s fresh look at Romans 3:21–31 will administer this vital antidote.
He explains the connection between grace and race in his new Romans commentary (SGBC series):
Gracism means that grace is both preached and practiced toward others. Gracism means that the most ruthless and efficient way to destroy our tribal enemies is by making them our brothers and sisters in Christ. (135)
What Bird reveals about Paul’s central passage on justification is a…
3 Ways the Gospel Reoriented a 1st-Century ISIS Leader: Race, Patriarchy, Class
The images have been chilling and all too common: Masked figures staring into the camera in the desert or at sea-side locations before beheading Christians.
What if one of them wanted to talk with you about a dream he had where a man said, ‘You are killing my people’?
That’s what happened to a Middle East YWAM worker. He was introduced to an ISIS fighter who had killed many Christians and wanted to follow Jesus after dreaming of a man in white.
Sound familiar?
Like Saul of Tarsus, Muslims gripped by the malestrom are being radically transformed because of their encounters with Jesus. According to Carolyn Custis James, author of Malestrom, this makes perfect sense: “Jesus’ gospel has a subversive power to reach behind enemy lines, draw men to Jesus, and…
Will You Ask America to “Forgive Us” of 7 Social Sins?
In a post-Ferguson world, this book is timely for the Church.
I could add that in a post-Trail-of-Tears, post-Stonewall riots, post-9/11 world this book comes at a good time in the life of the church, too.
The book is Forgive Us, a book that self-consciously “acknowledges the legitimacy of much of [peoples’ anger and frustration with organized religion] and recognizes that the church through the ages has experienced significant brokenness, a brokenness that demands to be acknowledged and repented of.” (31)
Authors Mae Elise Cannon, Lisa Sharon Harper, Troy Jackson, and Soong-Chan Rah offer the American church this guide — to help the church confess to the world and to God the church’s complicity and culpability in seven sins, sins against: God’s creation, indigenous people, people of color, women,…
An Invitation for the American Church to Repent — An Excerpt from “Forgive Us”
Once in a while a book comes a long that is so compelling, so convicting you cannot not engage it given the weight of its subject matter.
This is one of those books.
Forgive Us names and prophetically confronts the sins of our American fathers, as well as the legitimacy of much anger toward the American church. Bringing together pastors and academically trained historians, the book addresses seven sins the American church has committed and perpetuated against creation, indigenous people, people of color, women, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and Jews and Muslims.
This isn’t a feel-good book. It’s a convicting book. It’s a book that compelled Scot McKnight to say “it makes me want to see the church live up to its calling to be a church for all.”
Read the excerpt below…