White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity

Sociologist Jones (The End of White Christian America), founder and CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute, offers in this vociferous work a refreshing blend of historical accounting, soul-searching reflection, and analysis of white supremacy within the American Christian identity. “White Christian churches have not just been complacent; they have not only been complicit... as the dominant cultural power in America, they have been responsible for constructing and sustaining a project to protect white supremacy at the expense of black equality.” He challenges white Christians to see how white supremacy operates in their religious lives; learn its history, theology, and physical presence; to understand how racism has become “constitutive of white Christian identity”; and to take antiracist action. Woven throughout is the author’s personal story of growing up white in a Southern Baptist community in Jackson, Miss., his journey toward a fuller understanding of his family and faith history in relation to racism, and his efforts to chart a more just path forward. Only with honest assessment, followed by deliberate individual and collective reparative justice work, Jones argues, can white Christian Americans do the necessary work of addressing structural racism within their faith and nation. Jones’s introspective, measured study is a revelatory unpacking of influence and history of white Christian nationalism. (Aug.)