Ben Lindsay

This book couldn't be more timely. Published in 2019 it's a book that all British church leaders should be reading, now that in 2020 we understand the importance of responding well to #BlackLivesMatter. It's written particularly for white church leaders, but it's valuable in a different way for people of colour (Ben's chosen term) who will find much to convince them (if they needed it) that they aren't alone in finding many (most?) white majority churches difficult places.

It could easily have become a heavy and guilt-inducing read for anyone in the majority culture, particularly white church leaders. He avoids that, perhaps by pulling his punches by giving relatively few examples of poor treatment in British churches, but instead giving grounds for optimism and suggested ways forward. To help this, each chapter finishes with different questions to ponder, addressed to people of colour, white church leaders, and white church members.

In this relatively short book (it feels shorter than its listed 216 pages), he moves from history to theology, to current examples of Christians of colour disadvantaged, as well as invested in and promoted. He references the US context (including a brief mention of the Black Lives Matter movement inspired by Police killings of unarmed blacks), but rightly dwells instead on the less well-known UK cultural context.

This is a challenge to us all, and all the better for being thoughtfully and kindly written.… (meer)