Jim Wallis is determined to bring national conversations about race in America to his fellow white Christians.
“If white Christians acted more Christian than white,” he writes in his latest book America’s Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America, “black parents would have less to fear for their children.”
The book has been endorsed by a wide spectrum of faith leaders, from president of Fuller Theological Seminary Mark Labberton to renowned public intellectual Cornel West.
"Jim Wallis is a visionary veteran in the struggle against white supremacy. In this powerful book, he calls for a new conversation and action on the ground — in our homes, churches, sports arenas, and schools — in order to be true to the best of who we are!” said West.
Below, you can watch the trailer for the book, which focuses on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., where hundreds of civil rights demonstrators were attacked by armed policemen in 1965.
“Fifty years ago men and women had the courage to march [across this bridge] for their freedom to vote,” Wallis begins in the trailer. “But embedded in the foundations of this structure is an original sin. And just as this bridge was named after a leader in the Ku Klux Klan, our nation was founded on the original sin of slavery and racism, whose legacy still casts a shadow over our nation today.”
“What bridge must the next generation cross? What bridge must we all cross? The old foot soldiers did their work. They crossed their bridge. Now it’s our turn. But what bridge? What are we looking for on the other side? And what if we choose not to cross?”
Engage these questions and many more by preordering America's Original Sin here.
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