The best new books I’ve read in the last 30 days are
- (5.0) When God Became White: Dismantling Whiteness for a More Just Christianity by Grace Ji-Sun Kim (IVP , 2024)
- (4.5) Being Here: Prayers for Curiosity, Justice, and Love by Pádraig Ó Tuama (William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2024)
- (4.5) Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness by Jamil Zaki (Grand Central Publishing, 2024)
- (4.5) A Bowl of Perfect Light: Stories of Forgiveness, Reconciliation, and Repairing the World by Megan McKenna (Orbis Books, 2024)
- (4.0) Awakened: A 52-Week Progressive Christian Devotional by Caleb J. Lines (Chalice Press, 2024)
- (4.0) The Bible: A Global History by Bruce Gordon (Basic Books, 2024)
- (4.0) The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Results by Ilya Strebulaev and Alex Dang (Portfolio, 2024)
- (3.5) Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda by Megan Basham (Broadside Books, 2024)
When God Became White
Grace Ji-Sun Kim is the author of 24 books, including Hope in Disarray: Piecing Our Lives Together in Faith by Grace Ji-Sun Kim (Pilgrim Press, 2020), which received a rating of 4.5 here at So What Faith. Additionally, she is the co-author of Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World (IVP, 2018), which also received a rating of 4.5.
As a well-educated, cisgender, white man ordained in a mainline denomination, I’m quite familiar with the prevalence of a white male God most frequently appearing in the form of a blonde haired blue eyed Jesus. I long ago lost count of the number of these images I’ve seen hanging on walls in predominantly Anglo congregations.
I’m grateful for Grace Ji-Sun Kim’s writing especially as she relates her own lived experience while also sharing a nuanced and well-researched perspective on how it is that the Christian God came to be presented as both male and white. Regardless of your own experience or any prior conversations with people who have had quite different experiences, you’ll find When God Became White an insightful read. And, you’ll be challenged to be more nuanced in the language you choose to use going forward to describe the divine.