PRACTICAL THEOLOGY, SPIRITUALITY and FORMATION
CALLED TO RECONCILIATION How the Church Can Model Justice, Diversity, and Inclusion Jonathan C. Augustine
Foreword by William H. Willimon Afterword by Michael B. Curry
Nationally recognized speaker and church leader Jonathan Augus- tine demonstrates that the church is called and equipped to model reconciliation, justice, diversity, and inclusion. In this book, he develops three uses of the term “reconciliation”: salvific, social, and civil. Augustine examines the intersection of the salvific and social forms of reconciliation through an engagement with Paul’s letters and uses the Black church as an exemplar to connect the concept of salvation to social and political movements that seek justice for those marginalized by racism, class structures, and unjust legal systems. He then traces the reaction to racial progress in the form of white backlash as he explores the fate of civil reconciliation from the civil rights era to the Black Lives Matter movement. This book argues that the church’s work in reconciliation can serve as a model for society at large and that secular diversity and inclusion practices can benefit the church. It offers a prophetic call to pastors, church leaders, and students to recover reconcilia- tion as the heart of the church’s message to a divided world. JONATHAN C. AUGUSTINE (JD, Tulane University; DMin, Duke University) is a reconciliation scholar and pastor. An ordained minister in the African Meth- odist Episcopal Church, he serves as senior pastor of St. Joseph AME Church in Durham, North Carolina, and as national chaplain of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Augustine regularly serves as an adjunct faculty member and visiting lecturer at various colleges, universities, and law schools and frequently speaks on topics pertaining to race and reconciliation.
MARCH 2022 • 192 pp. • paper • $21.99 • 9781540965035
FROM THE BOOK In a time marked by so much xenophobia and racial, religious, and social division, the church’s ministry of reconciliation is especially urgent. The church today must repent of her divisions and return to her apostolic-era theology of equality to realize God’s intention, as evidenced in Scripture, of a diverse and in- clusive community of belonging. Doing so will allow the church to be an exemplar for society. Further, just as society can benefit from the church returning to a theology of equality, so the church can benefit from secular-world diversity and inclusion practices that value heterogeneity.
“Here’s the right book, at the right time, written by the right person for the right reasons. Lots of folks are talking about and yearning for racial reconciliation. Jay Augus- tine joins that conversation and debate by boldly speaking up for reconciliation from an unashamed, uniquely Chris- tian point of view.” —WILLIAM H. WILLIMON (from the foreword)
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