Drawing on history, public opinion surveys, and personal
experience, Robert P. Jones delivers a provocative examination of the
unholy relationship between American Christianity and white supremacy,
and issues an urgent call for white Christians to reckon with this
legacy for the sake of themselves and the nation.
As the
nation grapples with demographic changes and the legacy of racism in
America, Christianity’s role as a cornerstone of white supremacy has
been largely overlooked. But white Christians—from evangelicals in the
South to mainline Protestants in the Midwest and Catholics in the
Northeast—have not just been complacent or complicit; rather, as the
dominant cultural power, they have constructed and sustained a project
of protecting white supremacy and opposing black equality that has
framed the entire American story.
With his family’s 1815 Bible
in one hand and contemporary public opinion surveys by Public Religion
Research Institute (PRRI) in the other, Robert P. Jones delivers a
groundbreaking analysis of the repressed history of the symbiotic
relationship between Christianity and white supremacy. White Too Long
demonstrates how deeply racist attitudes have become embedded in the
DNA of white Christian identity over time and calls for an honest
reckoning with a complicated, painful, and even shameful past. Jones
challenges white Christians to acknowledge that public apologies are not
enough—accepting responsibility for the past requires work toward
repair in the present.
White Too Long is not an appeal to
altruism. Drawing on lessons gleaned from case studies of communities
beginning to face these challenges, Jones argues that contemporary white
Christians must confront these unsettling truths because this is the
only way to salvage the integrity of their faith and their own
identities. More broadly, it is no exaggeration to say that not just the
future of white Christianity but the outcome of the American experiment
is at stake.
