15 best books
1. A Quiet Revolution by John Perkins. Perkins was born and raised a poor black in Mississippi in 1930; a third grade dropout, he created Christian Community Development, a strategy to rebuild oppressed poor communities. He wrote 15 books and earned 12 honorary doctorates.
2. At Home with the Poor by Jean Thomas. Thomas is an Haitian disciple of John Perkins and has been doing CCD in Fond-des-Blancs Haiti for 30 plus years.
3. The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander. A black civil rights lawyer, Alexander shows how the unjust mass incarceration of young black and Hispanic males, has become a new system of oppression akin to slavery and then segregation.
4. Dear White Christians by Jennifer Harvey. Harvey is one of the few white Christians who really gets it on white racism. My expanded title: Dear Self-Deceived, Unrepentant White Christians, full of Ethnocentrism and Oppression, Neglecters of Justice and the Love of God---REPENT and REPAIR. The New Jim Crow and Dear White Christians complement each other beautifully.
5. Martin and Malcolm in America by James Cone. An historical examination of the unique and important contributions of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X by America's top black theologian. From Cone, I learned that after King's "I have a Dream" speech, King later gave what I have dubbed his "I live a Nightmare" speech.
6. The Wars of America: Christian Views edited by Ronald Wells. 8 professional Christian historians examine and evaluate 8 wars that America fought. These 8 wars are not just wars as most Americans think, including the American Revolution; British tyranny was not bad enough to justify a violent revolution.
7. Myths America Lives By by Christian historian, Richard Hughes. He destroys many commonly believed myths with the help of some black scholars.
8. A Different Mirror by ethnic historian, Ronald Takaki. American history and the contributions by many different ethnic groups; unique insights into American history.
9. The Harbinger by Jonathan Cahn. A Christian Jew biblically and brilliantly evaluates both 9/11 and the 2008 Recession as divine judgments on America.. American leaders, Democrats and Republicans, defiantly and arrogantly failed to repent. But Cahn strangely fails to see the extreme social evils of our founding fathers---slave trade, slavery, Indian genocide and Indian Removal.
10. God So Loved the Third World; The Biblical Vocabulary of Oppression by Thomas Hanks. Hanks, a Hebrew scholar, finds 555 references to oppression in the OT. Strangely, biblical oppression is a rare topic in American theology.
11. Inheriting the [Slave] Trade by Thomas DeWolf. DeWolf discovered that he was a descendant of the most successful New England slave trading family. An honest look at a tragic period in American history too often sanctified by Americanized Christianity.
12. Shalom by Perry Yoder, a Mennonite theologian. Before finishing he manuscript, Yoder visited and listening carefully to the poor and oppressed in the Philippines; their insights forced Yoder to make major revision in his book. Would that more American theologians would do the same.
13. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder. A biography about Paul Farmer, medical doctor and also a doctorate in anthropology, serving the poor in Haiti. Literally lives Mt. 25, the Inasmuch passage.
14. The Scandalous Message of James by Elsa Tamez. Brings her deep OT understanding of oppression to create a fresh and insightful interpretation to the book of James.
15. Faith Rooted Organizing by Peter Heltzel. Want CCD to be rooted in the church.
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