Chris Rice is codirector of the Duke Divinity School Center for Reconciliation and author of Grace Matters and More than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel.
The hope I am holding onto for Obama’s leadership is the depth and candor of his Philadelphia speech on race and the fact that his most fundamental racial identity seems to be his being biracial. He represents a new generation of children of interracial families who have experienced the rich gifts and real challenges of finding intimacy across the divide, who refuse to choose between the cultures of their two parents. They want the best of both, see the flaws of self-sufficiency and are willing to lose some friends along the way for the sake of something better than the old categories of who “my people” are. —Chris Rice
Last November I traveled to a restful location outside of Kampala, Uganda, to spend three days with African Christian leaders who are trying to address the destructive conflicts in their countries. They represented a “United Nations” of Christian denominations and traditions—Baptist, Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian, Pentecostal and Mennonite.
Books
The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice, from the Civil Rights Movement to Today
We live in a new racial time in the U.S., and we still lack adequate language to describe it and visions to inspire us. Forty years after the civil rights movement, fresh voices are desperately needed.
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