Also by this author: Heart of Racial Justice: How Soul Change Leads to Social Change, The Heart of Racial Justice Bible Study
Published by Brazos Press on May 28, 2024
Genres: Non-Fiction, Christian Life, Racial Reconciliation
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
Political and cultural wars are tearing communities apart. Issues such as immigration, racism, and guns are driving wedges between people and hampering Christians' impact in the world.
In Empowered to Repair, Brenda Salter McNeil looks to the biblical story of Nehemiah for answers. There, she finds an action-based model for repairing and rebuilding our communities and transforming broken systems.
McNeil goes beyond theories, offering practical tools Christians need for organizing, empowering, and activating people to join in God's work of equality, reparations, and justice. She provides strategies to drive systemic changes that go beyond superficial diversity and teaches the skills needed to engage in this important work l
Reconciliation isn’t enough—or rather, reconciliation without reparation is incomplete. Think of it, to reconcile means to bring two disparate things back together. A connection has been broken and reconciliation reforges the connection. But what if the connection was one that was unjust and inequal already? What if all reconciliation does is retie the tether of relational hierarchy? A reversion to the status quo is not justice because the status quo was not “the good ol’ days” for everyone. Instead, what we need is reparation. The connection must not just be reconnected, but repaired. The unjust must be made just. Inequalities must be made equal. Hierarchies must be dismantled. We must become a people who are Empowered to Repair.
Utilizing the narrative of Nehemiah, Dr. Brenda Salter-McNeil offers readers a biblical blueprint for repairing and rebuilding broken communities. Nehemiah was a member of the Jewish diaspora in Persia, a descendent of those taken by Babylon into captivity. Now, as cupbearer to the king, he uses his position and power to launch the rebuilding of Jerusalem. Step-by-step, Empowered to Repair applies Nehemiah’s work in physically rebuilding a city to our present work in spiritually and relationally bringing about racial reconciliation.
Salter-McNeil starts with an exhortation to identity with the plight of the people and pursue proximity to the problem. As a relatively empowered person with access to the king, Nehemiah could have lived a life of relative ease. However, he responded to the distress of his people, identified with that distress, and used his position as a means to pursue a solution. But he didn’t remain far off! And this is so important. So many times, we are willing to pursue solutions where our work is passive or indirect. We give charitably, we write impassioned social media posts, we read (and review) books just like Empowered to Repair—but it’s much harder to actually leave the authority and safety of privilege and go physically be part of the solution. Salter-McNeil’s call to actually be within the communities we are repairing, because relationship and proximity are key to the healing, is probably the strongest and most important message of this book.
Other lessons include the necessity of a diverse coalition and cultivating a willingness to work together. These lessons really stem out of proximity. Reparation means empowering those disempowering to take the lead in their own healing, of understanding the systemic nature of some injustices and deconstructing systems in order to build more just versions of them. It means actually living in a diverse community where leadership is shared and all gifts are acknowledged and utilized.
Empowered to Repair then concludes with a reminder to bask in rest and prayer. The work of reparation is hard and unending. There are always more battles to fight. Drawing from her own personal experience, Salter-McNeil is clear to activists that it is not just okay, but it is required, to rest. Burnout does nobody any good and this is a long struggle to be won.
Simple, clear, witty, pithy, and grounded in both biblical teaching and McNeil Salter’s lifetime experience in pursuing justice, Empowered to Repair is a passionate call to go beyond a desire for reconciliation and instead ground that desire in the practical and substantive work of repair.