Holding Up Your Corner: Talking about Race in Your Community

by F. Willis Johnson

Holding Up Your Corner: Talking About Race in Your Community, equips pastors to respond with confidence when crises occur, lower their own inhibitions about addressing this topic, and reclaim their authority as prophetic witnesses and leaders in order to transform their communities.
Pastors and other church leaders see, to varying degrees, racially rooted injustice in their communities. Most of them understand an imperative, as part of their calling from God, to lead their congregations to address and reverse this injustice. For instance, preachers want to be preaching prophetically on this topic. But the problems seem irreversible, intractable, overwhelming, and pastors often feel their individual efforts will be futile. Additionally, they realize that there is a lot of risk involved, including the possibility that their actions may offend and even push some members away from the church. They do not know what to do or how to begin. And so, even during times of crisis, pastors and other church leaders typically do less than they know they could and should.
This book provides practical, foundational guidance, showing pastors how to live into their calling to address injustice, and how to lead others to do the same. Holding Up Your Corner prompts readers to observe, identify and name the complex causes of violence and hatred in the reader's particular community, including racial prejudice, entrenched poverty and exploitation, segregation, the loss of local education and employment, the ravages of addiction, and so on.
The book walks the church leader through a self-directed process of determining what role to play in the leader's particular location. Readers will learn to use testimony and other narrative devices, proclamation, guided group conversations, and other tactics in order to achieve the following:

Open eyes to the realities in the reader's community--where God's reign/kingdom is not yet overcoming selfishness, injustice, inequality, or the forces of evil. Own the calling and responsibility we have as Christians, and learn how to advocate hope for God's kingdom in the reader's community. Organize interventions and activate mission teams to address the specific injustices in the reader's community. What Does 'Holding Up Your Corner' Mean?
The phrase 'holding up your corner' is derived from a biblical story (Mark 2: 1 - 5) about four people who take action in order to help another person--literally delivering that person to Christ. For us, 'holding up your corner' has meaning in two aspects of our lives today:
First, it refers to our physical and social locations, the places where we live and work, and the communities of which we're a part. These are the places where our assumptions, attitudes, and beliefs have influence on the people around us. When we feel empowered to speak out about the injustice or inequity in our community, we are holding up our corner.
Second, the phrase refers to our actions, the ways we step up to meet a particular problem of injustice or inequity, and proactively do something about it. When we put ourselves--literally--next to persons who are suffering, and enter into their situation in order to bring hope and healing to the person and the situation, we are holding up our corner, just like the four people who held up the corner of the hurting man's mat.

Holding Up Your Corner is a passionate, fast-paced, wonderfully practical book. F. Willis Johnson has a gift for Christian communication and he pours all of his gifts and rich pastoral experience into a book that encourages his fellow Christians to acknowledge, affirm, and act in the face of the racism that grips many of us. He displays deliberative theology in the service of instigating talk and action on behalf of racial justice, all in the service of a God who graciously enlists us to work with God to defeat evil. I guarantee that after reading Willis Johnson you will want to work from your corner to become part of God's work in the world." --Will Willimon, UM Bishop, retired, Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry, Duke Divinity School

Genres: Nonfiction

144 pages, Paperback

Published January 3, 2017

About the author

F. Willis Johnson currently leads Wellspring Church in Ferguson, MO, as senior minister, where thousands have been influenced by his prophetic, faith-filled reflections and strategies on social justice and racial understanding. He counsels bishops, general board agencies, conferences and local churches across the country. He has created the offshoot Center for Social Empowerment organization as a result of his time in Ferguson. He has also served in professional ministry in Indiana and North Carolina for the last 15 years. Johnson’s writing and lecturing credits range from TIME Magazine, National Public Radio, universities and seminaries, to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History Culture. He is also Vosburgh Visiting Professor of Ministry and Social Engagement at Drew Theological School.

Reviews

[Leah · Rating 5 out of 5]

for intelligent, empathetic activism

Pastor F. Willis Johnson currently leads Wellspring United Methodist Church in Ferguson, MIssouri, and serves as Vosburgh Visiting Professor of Ministry and Social Engagement at Drew Theological School. You also can find as a standalone website.

"Every issue is not our fault, but every issue of injustice, indifference, and oppression is our fight." Is Holding Up Your [Our] Corner mostly about inspiration, about practice, about God in the Spirit creating justice and safety for every human, health and well-being for all creation? Yes. And then some.

#Ferguson has become a buzzword for the worst racial profiling and resulting inequality, but Johnson explains assumptions people [you, me, everyone everywhere] necessarily make, prejudices they almost instinctively have about all those "others" in our lives are almost inevitable, because human brains operate by organizing and categorizing information and experiences. So the author constantly reminds us guesses about, even negative reactions to others tend to be value-neutral; what we "do with them" is the clincher. The social scientist construct of race dominates Holding Up Your Corner, but otherness includes any human with characteristics I don't possess, you don't happen to have.

I wouldn't quite call Holding Up Your Corner a handbook, a guidebook, or a collection of case studies, either. Though its 115 pages includes brief aspects of all those, it's not extensive enough or sufficiently comprehensive to serve as an model for activism and results. More than anything it excites and encourages Jesus' 21st century disciples and anyone else to "hold up their corner," a phrase derived from the gospel story in Mark 2:1-12 of the four guys who picked up the paralytic's cot and imaginatively figured out ways to bring the paralyzed guy into Jesus' presence. A lonely only person could not have done that on their own, but along with strategically positioned others, the person on that corner helped achieve the goal. That narrative from Jesus' earthly ministry opens chapter 2 that's about Empathic Models of Transformation—would you believe abbreviated EMT? To activate that model we need to Acknowledge – Affirm – Act in ways that affirm the Imago Dei – the image of the divine – in every human person.

Because Johnson's book is short enough and direct enough for everyone to read, I won't detail more of the contents. But I'll enthusiastically recommend this basic book, the related digital and print resources on pages 108 to 111, along with leader and participants guides for churches, other organizations, and anyone who wants to learn more and act more effectively. Remember, given the complexities of life, most of the inequality among others truly is not my fault or your fault, but responding to God's call through the Spirit of life to help create vibrant, life-giving and world-enhancing equalities is everyone's responsibility. "Every issue is not our fault, but every issue of injustice, indifference, and oppression is our fight," and like the pebble cast into the pond, even our seemingly tiny changes of attitude and minuscule actions are synergistic, adding up to more than the sum of their individual components.

[Dr. Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with most books of this type (contemporary solutions to contemporary topics), there are many more questions than answers. I found interesting quotes and tidbits of information that made me glad that I read the book, and I love the idea of holding up your corner, but as an explanation (and especially as as solution) to current problems with race relations, there is nothing new here. The best quote was “We go to great lengths to avoid talking about difference, . . . .” We are all different, and yes we do.

[James Klagge · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. On the good side, we used this for an adult Sunday School class in a small black church. It did provoke good discussion. The author is an interesting person with important experiences. But he is a preacher and an activist, not an author. The book was much longer than a sermon, and so it had to be stretched out. The book also needed an editor. There were good ideas, but they amounted to about a sermon.

[Brian White · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a solid exploration of a pastor’s journey in responding to racial inequity in America. The author draws upon his experiences as a pastor in Ferguson at the time of Michael Brown’s death and gives practical guidance on how to make a difference in our world. I look forward to working through this book with a group.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I was the wrong audience for this book. Because of the church I attend and the deep discussions we've had around this issue over the past 13 years that I've been in attendance, I found myself wanting a little more depth (particularly theologically). I have reflected back on his discussion of lament (and the lack thereof in white Christianity) several times though and have been thinking how I can make space for lament in my own life and in the lives of those I worship with. I do have some disagreement with his definition of reconciliation vs. right relationships in the glossary (because yes, I'm the kind of reader that reads the glossary too). He seems to think that I don't need to be reconciled to my black brothers and sisters because if I didn't have a relationship with them in the first place, there's nothing to be reconciled and therefore I just need to live in right relationship with them going forward. I disagree with that but this probably comes from a different theological view (which isn't elucidated in the book anyway). (And it's been a few weeks since I had to return this to the library so my apologies if I'm remembering any details incorrectly.)

[Dawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is a good book to read alone or part of a book study. My church is looking at doing a study with it soon.

[Nicki Reinhardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great resource for religious leaders who want to address racial inequity in their congregations in order to empower congregations to engage in just action in their daily lives within their own community.