Embrace: God's Radical Shalom for a Divided World

by Leroy Barber

The walls between us seem impenetrable. We live in an age of strife and division. Factors such as race, class, values and lifestyles keep us from connecting with others in meaningful ways. It's easy to avoid or ignore those who make us uncomfortable and those we simply do not like, but God's call to the church is to do just the opposite. Leroy Barber has spent decades pursuing reconciliation and justice amongst groups of vastly diverse people. He knows the challenge of embracing those who are difficult to embrace, yet he advocates that the way to radical shalom on earth is through pursuing these relationships. We have the opportunity as the people of God to bring true peace and unity to a world that desperately needs it. Embrace the challenge to show a divided world the bridge-building power of God's love.

Genres: Race, Christianity, Nonfiction, Justice

144 pages, Paperback

Published August 9, 2016

Reviews

[Cara Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

What I wanted was for Leroy Barber to talk about racial reconciliation and the idea of shalom in all 9 chapters ....however, it felt like he didn't get to the meat of this idea until chapter 7. The book is worth reading for the last three chapters alone!

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: An extended reflection on Jeremiah 29:4-7 and God's invitation to embrace the difficult places, people, differences, and callings involved in bringing his peace and justice into a divided world.

Many of us who are followers of Jesus feel ourselves to be "strangers in a strange land." As people who have experienced the life-giving shalom of new life in Christ, we are disturbed to witness the deeply divided public discourse in our country that reveals hostilities between political parties, between racial groups, between rich and poor, between natural born citizens and immigrants. As people who look forward to God's new city, the new Jerusalem, we grieve the devastation of decaying cities, of polluted water and air, of unsafe streets.

Leroy Barber offers in Embrace a series of reflections on Jeremiah 29:4-7:

"This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I  carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: 'Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you to will prosper."

Barber speaks as a black pastor who has worked extensively in Christian community development work. He sees in these verses a call to embrace that will lead to the healing of our cities: an embrace of the place where we are, an embrace of the "difficult people" in our lives, of difference as a gift of God, He invites us into the hard work of change that lays down privilege to serve. He bids us to settle in for the long haul.

For the baseball fan like me, he challenges us to recognize and embrace the sacred spaces of the other--a favorite sport, television show, and to create new traditions in our Christian communities that honor those spaces. He calls us into the embrace that grieves injustice and advocates on behalf of those who are on the receiving end of injustice. He calls us into the difficult choice to offer the embrace of forgiveness to those who hurt us deeply as did families and friends of the Charleston Nine did with Dylann Roof.

Probably for many, he could have stopped there but he concludes with a chapter on Black Lives Matter, addressing ten myths about this movement. He writes, "I am not requesting that you agree with everything you have read about Black Lives Matter. I am advocating for a listening ear, healthy dialogue, and love. This is where loving hard people--including our enemies--begins to take shape in our hearts. Can you love and disagree? Can you love and honor another's humanity in spite of the differences?" It seems in this that Pastor Barber may defining something of what "embrace" looks like between whites and blacks.

I feel in writing so far I haven't captured the "winsomeness" of this book. Leroy Barber's personal stories, but even more, his embracing manner makes embrace across the divides and challenges he speaks of, not easy, but compelling. He helps us see that this is the arc of the biblical narrative, the arc of the ministry of Jesus, and the arc of joy for many like him who have dared to embrace. He helps us envision, and believe, that this could be the arc of our own lives as well.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not an unbiased review. Leroy Barber is a friend and mentor. I have come to trust his insights on mission, justice and racial reconciliation. When I heard Leroy was writing  Embrace: God's Radical Shalom for a Divided World , I knew I would like it. And I do! If you want an unbiased review (because you think there is such a thing) look elsewhere. In lieu of that, here are 10 reasons why you should read Embrace:

10. Leroy knows what he is talking about. Embrace shares Leroy's own experience as a pastor, urban minister, and community developer. The things this book exhorts us to— a lifestyle reconciliation, a heart for justice, and a commitment to love the other—are things Leroy tries to live out every day. He knows what he speaks of and he speaks with integrity.

9. Leroy is gracious. I don't love others the way I ought to as a follower of Jesus. There are people, left to my own devices, I would avoid. I don't measure up to my best ideals. Listening to Leroy, I don't feel judged, but invited to live a better life—a riskier, sacrificial life, with a lot of pain and hardship, but better. This call is full of grace and compelling!

8. This is an important book because some of us live in Babylon. Leroy opens up about his own experience of following God's call from Philadelphia to the South (Atlanta) and later Oregon. These new cities were Babylon to him: a place of un-belonging and where he experienced abject racism. I know the New Monastics talk about 'relocating to the abandoned places of Empire." Leroy talks about inhabiting  an antagonistic empire and seeking God's shalom for the city we're in. For those of us in Babylon, life is difficult but we are still called to embrace the place we're in.

7. Because left to our own devices, we all have people we'd avoid. There are lots of things which keep people apart: race, religion, socio-economic status, etc.  Leroy's encouragement to us is to learn to love the other: to not just retreat to our 'in group,' but to seek out relationships with people different than us. This isn't just so we can help them and feel good about how amazingly loving and bighearted  people we are. As we seek out the people who are different from us (or difficult for us), and build relationships with them, we are enriched and our perspectives of the world are enlarged. Our own prejudices and privileges are challenged by learning to love well in relationship.

6. Diversity is a mark of God's radical shalom and we all need to be more diverse than we are. Generally, we all like the idea of multiculturalism until it gets sticky. White churches welcome minorities but expect them to conform to their dominant church culture. We have similar expectations when we include different cultural groups, classes, and generations. We love the ones we can assimilate and ignore the rest. Leroy invites us to to a deeper communion where we honor the mutual image bearing of those who are different from us:

Our greatest danger as a church and believers is that we don't actually see all people as made in the image of God. This is an immoral practice and it has ruined how people view Christians in the world. That Sunday mornings are segregated is no big secret; we've heard it over and over. For the most part our actions don't seem to be changing. Worship and its lack of diversity is a joke. What kind of God are we representing? I don't think we really care that we are segregated. We can quote Scripture of love and grace and yet be as divided as we are—this is the influence of Babylon on the people of God, not the people of God influencing Babylon (90).

5. God's call for Justice begins where we are but then calls us outward.  Leroy will tell you that his cleaning up the basketball court in South Atlanta was so his own kids could play. But the whole neighborhood benefited. Caring for his own kids 'became the natural way of justice for all kids.' (101).  Leroy illustrates well how small acts of justice begin close to home, but because we are called to follow the God of justice, we are continually called to name injustice wherever we find it and stand with the oppressed. Sometimes 'Justice' seems like too big of a category. I like Leroy's exhortation. Justice begins where you are and then wherever God takes you.

4. Because forgiveness and selfless love is the call. Injustice happens. People get hurt and killed. Leroy encourages us to follow the way of Jesus in loving our enemies. He talks about Dylann Roof being forgiven by the family of the fallen members of Charleston's Emanuel AME church and our call to embody this sort of selfless love (109-110). Leroy doesn't pretend this an easy commandment especially for those who have experienced profound trauma. I respect that Leroy never makes light of the pain and trauma which some people have faced (including himself), but still exhorts us to forgive as we've been forgiven.

3. Because you shouldn't be happy with the status quo. Prejudice remains a major problem. Racism is real. The marginalized suffer. The refugee is rejected and regarded with suspicion. Foreigners, immigrants and resident aliens are maltreated and abused by the system. Our world is divided and divisive. We need more of God's shalom!

2. Because Leroy is a great storyteller. He tells the story of his own journey into racial reconciliation: relationships forged, hurtful conversations and difficult times. He tells of learning to love the other. And he shares the story of friends and fellow justice advocates as well. Leroy weaves this in with the narrative of Scripture. Telling God's story he explores the story of Patriarchs and prophets and Jesus. If there is anything that makes this book compelling, it's the stories.

1. Because  yes, Black Lives Matter. Leroy spends his last chapter addressing myths and misconceptions many people have about the Black Lives Matter movement. This is a fitting end to this book because all along Leroy is calling us to stand against injustice, care for the vulnerable and love the other. There is systemic injustice which the Black Lives Matter movement has called our attention to (i.e. unjust police shootings, mass incarceration and lack of legal representation of Black men, etc).  Still many (white) evangelicals view the movement with suspicion. Leroy invites us to lay aside privilege and Embrace the Other as we seek to love and listen well.

Note: I received this book from the author in exchange for my totally biased review. five stars: ★★★★★

[Leroy Seat · Rating 4 out of 5]

{Following is the review I wrote for Englewood Review of Books (http://englewoodreview.org/leroy-barb...).}

For many years one of my favorite images of Jesus, and of Jesus-followers, is that of him welcoming us with open arms. After reading Leroy Barber’s new book, I realized that I needed a more dynamic image. Not only does Jesus stand with open arms, he also moves to embrace all who come to him. We followers of Jesus should be willing to do the same.

Barber, an African-American man who grew up in Philadelphia but who now, after several years in Atlanta, lives in Portland, Oregon, has long served as a pastor and as a leader in several organizations ministering to people in need. He has spent his adult life of more than 30 years pursuing reconciliation and justice between diverse people and groups who have often been separated by fear and prejudice.

The tone of Barber’s book is set in the Introduction: “This is a call to create good ground for justice to take root. We must continue to call out injustice and stand unapologetically against systems that dishonor people” (12). Throughout the nine chapters of the book, and by use of key Bible passages and the sharing of his own experiences, Barber seeks to cultivate the “good ground for justice” that he calls for.

Verses from Jeremiah 29 are the biblical words Barber uses most in his book, and verses 4-7 stand at the head of the first chapter, “Embracing the Place.” In that chapter, which is also partly about Jonah’s reluctance to go to Nineveh, Barber writes about the difficulty and the necessity of embracing God’s “call to go to hard places” (25).

Barber’s second chapter, “The Ones We Avoid,” is about the need for Jesus’ followers to develop “the perspective of embrace” and to overcome “tribal prejudice” (30, 32).

Referring to a personal experience when he was in high school, the third chapter is titled “God Likes Pumpkin Pie.” In that chapter he makes one of the main points of the book: “Christ came to earth to heal and redeem the four relationships broken at the fall—between us and God, between us and ourselves, between us and other people, and between us and the rest of creation” (52).

In the next chapter, “Looking at Change the Right Way,” Barber writes, “Honoring is usually better than analyzing. And moving toward healthier relationships will only occur as we let go of our barriers and preconceptions and are willing to let our own hearts, minds, and souls be changed to fully embrace others” ( 66).

The fifth chapter, “Going the Distance,” reiterates the theme of the book, and the repeated reference to Jeremiah 29: “Embrace your community, settle in for the long haul, and see how the Lord uses you to help your neighborhood flourish” (83).

The call to “embrace the diversity of those who God has called us to love” (99) is Barber’s main point in the sixth chapter, and in the following chapter, “Natural Justice,” he avers, “Justice means simply correcting the things that are wrong” ( 106).

Barber concludes the eighth chapter, “Loving Even Our Enemies,” with these words: “We must imagine how we would want to be treated . . . and treat our enemy in the same way—this is what it means to embrace even those that we might say we hate. This is the heart of the gospel” (120).

Perhaps the most helpful chapter in Barber’s book, and certainly the most relevant to what is going on in society today, is “Yes, Black Lives Matter.” A significant part of that final chapter is “Debunking the Myths of #BlackLivesMatter.” One of the ten myths considered is “The movement hates white people.” In response, Barber writes,

The Black Lives Matter movement demands that the country affirm the value of black life in practical and pragmatic ways, including addressing an increasing racial wealth gap, fixing public schools that are failing, combating issues of housing inequality and gentrification that continue to push people of color out of communities where they have lived in for generations, and dismantling the prison industrial complex. None of this is about hatred for white life. It is about acknowledging that the system already treats white lives as if they have more value, as if they are more worthy of protection, safety, education, and a good quality of life than black lives are. This must change (128).

Another helpful part of the final chapter is titled “For Those Who Are Not Black.” “Read books written by blacks and discuss them” (131) is one of the suggestions he makes. As a white man I am glad I was able to read this book, and I have certainly profited from it; I highly recommend it to you who read this review, whether black or white.

Embrace is not a “scholarly” book. There are a couple of website links introduced, but the only book included in the endnotes is a 1998 book which includes a quote made by Abraham Kuyper in 1880. Barber’s writes not from academic study but from his engagement in action on the front lines, seeking by what he does to spread “God’s radical shalom for a divided world.”

Barber is currently chair of the Christian Community Development Association, founded in 1989 by Dr. John Perkins. The CCDA is said to be “a network of Christians committed to engaging with people and communities in the process of transformation.” This is one of the many ways that Barber is seeking to live out his vision of embracing others.

So, yes, let’s us take the challenge of Barber seriously. Let’s not only stretch our arms to indicate that we welcome other people, but let’s close our arms around them in a warm embrace. Barber’s book helps us to understand what such embracing means, and reading it motivates us to move in that way.

Such embracing, though, depends on having the spiritual strength for such an undertaking. Thus, Barber’s closing words are, “Let’s embrace the Spirit of God that rests in us all” (136).

Amen.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I highlighted so much in this book. Barber really hits the nail on the head with social justice (especially in regards to race) and the church. I enjoyed this book because he gives practical ways to bridge gaps and to create and restore community. I believe all Christians need to read this and put these ideas into action. We cannot possibly create shalom with segregation and constant fear of the other.

[Andy Bettencourt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book on crosscultural relationship building

Leroy Barber points to the importance of moving into deep relations with our neighbors, friends, strangers, and people of different races, ethnicities, and social status. This model of Christlike community is essential but difficult because few people really want to be around those who make them feel uncomfortable.

[Andrew Fallows · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful reminder to reach out to neighbors and strangers, to listen before speaking, to lean into cultural differences, and to make love about much, much more than what we can see on our own.

[Jake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Challenging in a lot of good ways. Really enjoyed reading some of Leroy's story and wisdom.

[Sean Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy read, important book.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Embrace is a timely book that addresses questions of racial tensions and divisions, particularly in the American setting. The author, Leroy Barber, has dedicated over two decades of his life to the issues of race, justice, and reconciliation in the Christian context.

The most important takeaway is that the Bible speaks to justice as a core aspect of God. Theology matters, and how Christians interpret the Bible matters. Is the Bible primary about me and my comfort, about me “getting saved”? Or is there a larger picture that modern American Christianity has often missed? Is there something far more important that God wants to wake the church to?

Barber weaves the story of Israel’s exile in Babylon as an illustration and metaphor for how God’s people throughout the ages should engage the world and culture around them. Barber, in particularly, employs Jeremiah’s message to the exiles as God’s intention of engagement with and in the communities that we find ourselves in, especially when they seem different, foreign, and sometimes, even hostile.

Barber is emphatic that Christians are not to simply sit around and wait for God to save us from this world. Christians are to become reconcilers — confronting injustice, advocating for justice, and actively bringing peace between groups that are suspicious and hostile. To not confront is to be complicit in injustice. To seek to quietly dismiss injustices is to perpetuate the message that the oppressor has privilege, while the oppressed must simply accept the way things are.

The final chapter is an excellent discussion of the Black Lives Matter movement. Barber lists ten myths and misunderstandings about BLM and explains the facts to counter each of them. He admits that not all Christians may agree with every point, but he contends that BLM is still an important movement that Christians ought to get behind and involved in. He writes that he believes that BLM is something that God is using to expose systemic and institutionalized evils of race and class in American society.

Anyone who wants to understand the issues rising up today in terms of race and class, and the hate and divisions that threaten to wreck the world, should read this book. Anyone who wants suggestions on how to increase harmony and reduce strife among peoples should read this book. This book is about finding ways to build authentic relationships in which all are accepted and respected as equals, and where differences are celebrated as valuable and necessary components.

(This review based on ARC supplied by the publisher through NetGalley.)

[Michelle Kidwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Embrace

God's Radical Shalom for a Divided World



by Leroy Barber

InterVarsity Press

IVP Books



Christian, Religion & Spirituality

Pub Date 12 Sep 2016

I was given a copy of embrace through the publisher and their partnership with Netgalley in exchange for my honest review which is as follows:

In this book the author reminds us that it is often in Babylon that God's hand is most evident as well as reminding us that when we say we will never go to a certain place that is often when God puts us in that place.

This book deals with everything from loving the unlovable to living in the hard places. It reminds us that God gets us through those tough places in live and it is often through the unlovable he teaches us love.

I give Embrace five out of five stars.

Happy Reading

[Dustin Bagby · Rating 5 out of 5]

A timely and important read. This is a great invitation to a life of deep love and understanding as we think about these next 4 years.

[Steve Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short, simple call to live for God's way of justice and love, particularly in the context of America's cities.