America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America
Written by Jim Wallis
Narrated by Patrick Lawlor
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
"It's time we right this unacceptable wrong," says bestselling author and leading Christian activist Jim Wallis. Fifty years ago, Wallis was driven away from his faith by a white church that considered dealing with racism to be taboo. His participation in the civil rights movement brought him back when he discovered a faith that commands racial justice. Yet as recent tragedies confirm, we continue to suffer from the legacy of racism. The old patterns of white privilege are colliding with the changing demographics of a diverse nation. The church has been slow to respond, and Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week.
In America's Original Sin, Wallis offers a prophetic and deeply personal call to action in overcoming the racism so ingrained in American society. He speaks candidly to Christians-particularly white Christians-urging them to cross a new bridge toward racial justice and healing.
Jim Wallis
Jim Wallis is the author of the New York Times bestseller God's Politics, which electrified Americans disenchanted with how the Right had co-opted all talk about integrating religious values into our politics by offering an alternative voice. Wallis is a leading figure at the crossroads of religion and politics in America today, the author of eight books, and the founder of Sojourners, a global faith and justice network. He is a public theologian, an internationally renowned speaker and preacher, a faith-based activist, husband, and father to two young boys, and a Little League baseball coach.
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Reviews for America's Original Sin
39 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Walis did a great job of helping white people see things from a black perspective. My only criticism of the book pertains to the biased presentations of the facts surrounding the killings of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown. Darrin Wilson, the police officer who killed Brown, performed his duty heroically under very dangerous circumstances. Walis failed to acknowledge that.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5good reading material and listening too. great to have listened
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If it were up to me, I would require every American, especially every white American to read this book now and talk about it. I'll have the talking opportunity in a couple of weeks when my local reading group gets together.Jim Wallis is a hero of mine. He is the founder of Sojourners, an evangelical Christian who understands that the faith is about how we treat each other. His springboard for this little book is the fact that by 2045 the United States will no longer be a country with a white majority. The European American population will be a minority among minorities. The trouble comes when this white minority continues to cling to its white privilege, which benefits us every day in ways that we white people are ignorant of.Wallis chooses statistics carefully and notes when they are not available. (For example, nobody is keeping a total of the number of men of color killed annually by police officers in this country.) He then analyzes what he sees and offers the beginnings of solutions. Chapter titles give an overview of the contents:Race Is a Story; The Parables of Ferguson and Baltimore; The Original Sin and Its Legacy; Repentance Means More than Just Saying You're Sorry; Dying To Whiteness; A Segregated Church or a Beloved Community?; From Warriors to Guardians; The New Jim Crow and Restorative Justice; Welcoming the Stranger; Crossing the Bridge to a New America.White parents may be able to guess the content of the talk that all black parents have with their young sons about police officers. This white woman was incredibly naive about the effect of the War Against Drugs on the black community. The arguments grow out of Wallis's faith, but people of all faiths and no faith will be welcomed and challenged by reading this book.