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A review by crystalisreading
Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
4.0
This is a small but powerful book that helped me define and understand better the concerns that have been growing inside me about (white) American Christianity. While I have refused to give up my faith, I've struggled for the past several years to find a church that I felt comfortable in, that didn't feel segregated, ignorant, or even racist in major or minor ways. I haven't really attended church since the majority of American Evangelicals elected their latest "Family values" candidate, a thrice married man who has paid porn stars for money and bragged on tape about sexually assaulting women, a man who calls neo-Nazis fine people, but my latinx friends 'drug dealers and rapists', a man who is celebrated by neo-Nazis like David Duke. How can I submit to a church too blind to see the problems with holding him up as 'God's anointed'?
The answer is simple. I don't. But I've been hanging in limbo, trying to figure out what that means for me, my faith, and any chance of fellowship with other believers. Then I came across a mention of this book, written by a man who graduated from the same college as me, a few years after I did, that I knew distantly through my roommate. Our (distantly) personal connection as well as the topic piqued my interest, so I did what I rarely do, and immediately bought a copy.
I am very grateful that I did so. Reconstructing the Gospel isn't a large volume, but it is a powerful, heartfelt one. Jonathan is honest about his own roots, in admittedly racist North Carolina Christian culture, and about his own journey away from that, into what he has become and is becoming, a devout Christian in recovery from "whiteness" and growing in fellowship with what he hails as the true American church, the historically black church. There's much about Jonathan's cultural heritage and upbringing with which I cannot identify, as a northern-born descendant of Anabaptists. But I'm still an heir of the foundational white supremacy of our country and of the white American church. and Jonathan helped me see, more than anyone has before him, how much that mistaken identity of "whiteness" has poisoned not only our systems as a whole, but each individual "white" person who has bought the concepts, who has participated in the lifestyle, who has benefited from the systemic racism all around us. That includes me.
I've read critiques of this book that it's not heavily theological, and that's true, but I'm not sure that the lack thereof deserves criticism. This book examines the big picture of the brokenness of our divided country and church, and the small picture of Jonathan's life, and the lives of those around him who have influenced him and helped (or hindered) him in his walk. It doesn't pretend to be a theological textbook. What it offers to be is a call to change, community, and true holiness for those 'white' Christians who are willing to hear. I'm willing to hear, and therefore much of what Jonathan writes really ministers to me, and I hope that I will continue to follow through on what I've read and learned, as I continue to seek out reconciliation on scales both large and small, and to do the work of justice we are called to, as I recover from the toxic concept of "whiteness", especially white Christianity.
The answer is simple. I don't. But I've been hanging in limbo, trying to figure out what that means for me, my faith, and any chance of fellowship with other believers. Then I came across a mention of this book, written by a man who graduated from the same college as me, a few years after I did, that I knew distantly through my roommate. Our (distantly) personal connection as well as the topic piqued my interest, so I did what I rarely do, and immediately bought a copy.
I am very grateful that I did so. Reconstructing the Gospel isn't a large volume, but it is a powerful, heartfelt one. Jonathan is honest about his own roots, in admittedly racist North Carolina Christian culture, and about his own journey away from that, into what he has become and is becoming, a devout Christian in recovery from "whiteness" and growing in fellowship with what he hails as the true American church, the historically black church. There's much about Jonathan's cultural heritage and upbringing with which I cannot identify, as a northern-born descendant of Anabaptists. But I'm still an heir of the foundational white supremacy of our country and of the white American church. and Jonathan helped me see, more than anyone has before him, how much that mistaken identity of "whiteness" has poisoned not only our systems as a whole, but each individual "white" person who has bought the concepts, who has participated in the lifestyle, who has benefited from the systemic racism all around us. That includes me.
I've read critiques of this book that it's not heavily theological, and that's true, but I'm not sure that the lack thereof deserves criticism. This book examines the big picture of the brokenness of our divided country and church, and the small picture of Jonathan's life, and the lives of those around him who have influenced him and helped (or hindered) him in his walk. It doesn't pretend to be a theological textbook. What it offers to be is a call to change, community, and true holiness for those 'white' Christians who are willing to hear. I'm willing to hear, and therefore much of what Jonathan writes really ministers to me, and I hope that I will continue to follow through on what I've read and learned, as I continue to seek out reconciliation on scales both large and small, and to do the work of justice we are called to, as I recover from the toxic concept of "whiteness", especially white Christianity.