At a time when expressions of interpersonal prejudice and structural racism are validated and even valorized in America and around the world, a new resource for individuals and churches addresses the pressing concerns of the current era.
Trouble the Water: A Christian Resource for the Work of Racial Justice (Nurturing Faith, 2017) was recently published by the Racial Justice and Multiculturalism Community of the Alliance of Baptists. It is edited by Michael-Ray Mathews, Marie Onwubuariri and Cody Sanders.
Editor and clergy organizer at PICO, Michael-Ray Mathews said, “Trouble the Water transcends our particular faith community in calling us to greater awareness and action in the ministry of racial justice.”
“Trouble the Water is a resource for individuals and congregations that would take seriously the ever-increasing necessity of work toward racial justice while attending to the intersections of our identities and the intersecting nature of oppression, injustice and violence,” said editor Marie Onwubuariri, regional executive minister at American Baptist Churches of Wisconsin.
The resource was funded by a generous grant from the Arcus Foundation and first took shape through a retreat of Alliance pastors and ministry leaders in Asheville, N.C., who dreamed, planned and discerned together the type of resource congregations most needed in the current era.
Editor Cody Sanders, who pastors Old Cambridge Baptist Church, Cambridge, Mass., said, “Trouble the Water is deeply rooted in the Christian tradition and evidences the flavors of peace-and-justice Baptists in particular. It is a project in keeping with the mission of the community in which we are situated: the Alliance of Baptists.”
Contributors include: Michael-Ray Mathews, Ben Sanders III, Wendell Griffen, Jennifer Harvey, Miguel A. De La Torre, Marie Onwubuariri, Malu Fairley, Wlliam Kondrath, J. Manny Santiago, Jennifer Davidson, LeAnn Snow Flesher, Donna E. Allen, Tammerie Day, Melissa W. Bartholomew, Charlotte Y. Williams, Deborah DeMars Conrad, Isabel Docampo, LeDayne McLeese Polaski, Kadia Edwards, Ashlee Wiest-Laird, Dennis W. Wiley, Christine Y. Wiley, Jim Hopkins, Douglas Avilesbernal, Leslie Withers, Mark Reeve and Jonathan Spencer.
It is now available for purchase on Amazon and Nurturing Faith websites.
Wendell Griffen speaks at Racial Justice and Multiculturalism Community’s workshop at the annual gathering of Alliance of Baptists.