The Color of God

America, the Church, and the Politics of Race

Rick Donkor

• Éditeur: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Année: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781640887541
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Theology & Religion
• Sous-sujet: Religion

The Color of God will:

• Captivate, provoke, educate, occasionally frustrate, even infuriate you regardless of which side of the political spectrum you belong to.
• Highlight the Church's historical hypocrisy and, by extension its complicity, in the creation of a racially-fragmented American society and world.
• Question the absolute absurdity of blaming the 'White man' and racism for all Black and minority woes.
• Provoke the Black body-politic to reject and debunk any false notions and attitudes within the culture, that equate deviant and pathological behavior with 'Blackness'
• Sensitize the White world, in general, but White America, in particular, to the need to own the damage inflicted by the ideology of White Supremacy on entire populations, and to take steps to mitigate its impact.
• Inspire a generation to take America, and the world's 'unfinished business' of racial healing and reconciliation, to its logical conclusion.

Trilogy Christian Publishers

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Copyright © 2020 by Richard D. Donkor

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations marked (KJV) taken from The Holy Bible, King James Version. Cambridge Edition: 1769.

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Manufactured in the United States of America

Trilogy Disclaimer: The views and content expressed in this book are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views and doctrine of Trilogy Christian Publishing or the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-64088-753-4 (Print Book)

ISBN 978-1-64088-754-1 (ebook)

Endorsements

The Color of God: America, The Church and the Politics of Race calls Christians to look at their Christian faith rather than worldly principles to deal with our racialized society. We would be wise to take heed to this calling.

—George Yancey is professor of Sociology at the University of North Texas, specializing in race/ethnicity, biracial families and anti-Christian bias. He is the author, coauthor or coeditor of Beyond Black & White, Beyond Racial Gridlock, & Dehumanizing Christians: Cultural Competition in a Multicultural World.

The Color of God: America, the Church, and the Politics of Race by Rick Donkor is extremely rich with church history and context as to “how we got here.” As an academic with a bachelor’s degree in adult education, a master’s in interracial/intercultural communication, and a doctorate in higher education: faculty leadership and college teaching, I strongly recommend this book as a tool to help lead adults into critical thinking and conversations about race, the church, scripture, and social justice.

It will make an excellent text for Christian Education class, Bible Study, book club, inclusion networks, and even textbook for many college level humanities, cultural studies, religious studies, and communication courses. People who fall anywhere in the spectrum from being well-informed to struggling to catch up and understand the current conversations around whiteness, white supremacy, racism, black power, black pride, social justice, and the long twisted road from the ideals of “liberty and justice for all” to our current state, MUST read this book.

Whether a pastor, employer, educator, community developer, citizen, or thinking person of any or no faith at all, this book will help you understand the cultural contexts and mantras that were selectively siphoned and perverted from Holy scripture to create the cauldron of our American Holocaust, our perpetual historic shame, and our current chronic struggle for racial inclusion, trust, and reconciliation across the color line. Thinkers who are not of the Christian faith will find this book very beneficial to gain understanding of how some of the teachings of the Holy Bible have been distorted, twisted, perverted, and politicized to support an inhumane and unholy agenda of subjugation of those kidnapped from Africa so long ago. The cultural beliefs of Western Christianity have often been derived from scripture, which is taken out of context. It is helpful for any change agent to thoroughly understand the true context of scriptures that have been used to support myths such as “The Curse of Ham” and “benevolent paternalism” of slavery, Jim Crow, and the vast networks of law and policy that have been developed (with purported support of Scripture) to protect these myths.

Reconciliation is the theme of the second half of “The Color of God.” Mr. Donkor teaches how the multicultural church can “break the chains” by serving as a healing agent, “Having contributed actively to the creation of a fragmented culture, the Church cannot now remain passive or silent; it must engage the society in the effort to dismantle the vestiges of racism that still dots American institutions and cultural landscape” (Donkor).

This book is scriptural, historical, academic, comprehensive, and it is an easy read. It is one of the BEST compilations of factual information which synthesizes the facts of history, the distortions and true teachings of scripture (about race), and the lasting effects on our current social, political, economic, and spiritual condition. I have read this book through twice now, and it is still like drinking from a fire hydrant each time. I can’t wait to get my hard copy and mark it up!

Thank you, Rick, for this brilliant work of critical analysis and spiritual insight. You are a gift!

—Dr. Angela Courage (EdD, MA, BA)

In recent years, America’s race issues and our need for reconciliation have presented themselves like a disease, again and again. Of course, it is nearly invisible to some, except when another explosion occurs and our wounded soul lays there publicly in another bloody street or another burning community. For others, it is visibly, experientially present every day and is inescapable. In this generation, some believers are convicted that we cannot continue to ignore our condition, but instead, bring light to these matters and to set ourselves toward restorative justice. Love for God compels us and we cannot look away, at any price.

Oh, how greatly America, our world and the Church need to have a conversation about race! This uncomfortable subject has been centuries in the making, and we cannot grasp, resolve or move on with a speech, a conference or self-interest as our guide. But how do we proceed? Where do we start? Reason tells us we can start by listening, to get a better understanding.

In The Color of God: America, The Church and the Politics of Race, Pastor Rick Donkor brings an unusual background to the table and contributes to this conversation. This is an excellent tool to help those who love Jesus to intelligently begin to have such listening conversations in a meaningful way. I am privileged to be one of the few given the opportunity to read The Color of God in advance of its publication. Thank you!

—Pastor Frank Robinson, author of Letters to a Mixed-Race Son

Rick Donkor’s book is not only timely, but will also prove to be an essential manuscript in bringing racial reconciliation within the Body of Christ, consistent with the unity Jesus prayed for in John 17:21–23 and with one of three unalterable convictions of Every Home for Christ, the ministry organization I work for that: “Without unity, finishing the task of global evangelization is impossible.”

As a Caucasian pastor and missiologist, I welcome Donkor’s critique of the segregated church in America. I appreciate that he addresses the ills of church history with honesty and fairness. While he admits that the “white” population today is not directly responsible for the legacy of the racism of the past, he simultaneously educates the Caucasian church on our role and responsibility in fostering racial harmony and reconciliation.

As a white pastor, I accept my responsibility of not only advocating individually for healing and reconciliation, but also being a voice for social, economic equity, and justice for all races in America. This is the essential first step in seeing the unity of the Body of Christ take place, as we all work toward the evangelization of America.

I recommend this book to every pastor and church leader of every race. As leaders in the Kingdom of God, we all have a part to play, and Donkor’s text is most assuredly the script that will bring about, not only racial reconciliation and harmony, but also usher in the much-needed unity that Jesus prayed for on our behalf.

—Rev. David Schaal is a pastor and a missiologist. He and his wife, Julie, have served as local church pastors for over twenty years. He currently serves in the US Ministries Department, at Every Home for Christ International, in Colorado Springs, CO.

Rick Donkor is in a perfect place to understand American racism from both outsider and insider perspectives. As a planter of cross-cultural and multiethnic churches, he understands what is necessary to bridge the divide separating various people-groups in America. He is more than a theorist; he is a practitioner. As such, he stands in a unique position to alter the course of a nation (and a church) whose opinions about our brothers and sisters throughout the world have been muddied by a systemic misconception, founded on outright lies, myths, and fear. Instead of pandering to these debased systems, Donkor calls us to something better, to a brotherhood of people knit together across ethnic lines.

Donkor’s analysis of our current situation is a painful one to someone raised in white suburbia. He does not gloss over the history leading to our current situation, nor does he romanticize to make one side the hero over another. He paints clearly and accurately, the historical portrait leading to our current morass. Yes, he focuses on issues that many would prefer to forget or ignore, but the pain of rooting out these issues is a necessary pain, akin to that of a surgeon’s scalpel cutting away years of...