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The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism QUOTES

The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism QUOTES

1 " Christian complicity with racism in the twenty-first century looks different than complicity with racism in the past. It looks like Christians responding to 'black lives matter' with the phrase 'all lives matter.' It looks like Christians consistently supporting a president whose racism has been on display for decades. It looks like Christians telling black people and their allies that their attempts to bring up racial concerns are 'divisive.' It looks conversations on race that focus on individual relationships and are unwilling to discuss systemic solutions. Perhaps Christian complicity in racism has not changed after all. Although the characters and the specifics are new, many of the same rationalizations for racism remain. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

2 " The failure of many Christians in the South and across the nation to decisively oppose the racism in their families, communities, and even in their own churches provided fertile soil for the seeds of hatred to grow. The refusal to act in the midst of injustice is itself an act of injustice. Indifference to oppression perpetuates oppression. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

3 " Jumping ahead to the victories means skipping the hard but necessary work of examining what went wrong with race and the church. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

4 " History demonstrates that racism never goes away; it just adapts. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

5 " Being complicit only requires a muted response in the face of injustice or uncritical support of the status quo. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

6 " Historically speaking, when faced with the choice between racism and equality, the American church has tended to practice a complicit Christianity rather than a courageous Christianity. They chose comfort over constructive conflict and in so doing created and maintained a status quo of injustice. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

7 " Christians need to pay attention to how their educational choices for their own children reinforce racial and economic segregation in schools. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

8 " Throughout the course of US history, when Christians had the opportunity to decisively oppose the racism in their midst, all too often, they chose silence. They chose passivity. The refusal to act in the midst of injustice is itself an act of injustice. Indifference to oppression perpetuates oppression. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

9 " Complicit Christianity forfeits its moral authority by devaluing the image of God in people of color. Like a ship that has a cracked hull and is taking on water, Christianity has run aground on the rocks of racism and threatens to capsize—it has lost its integrity. By contrast, courageous Christianity embraces racial and ethnic diversity. It stands against any person, policy, or practice that would dim the glory of God reflected in the life of human beings from every tribe and tongue. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

10 " Christians deliberately chose complicity with racism in the past, but the choice to confront racism remains a possibility today. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

11 " The decades after the Civil War proved that racism never goes away, it just adapts. Although the Union had won the military victory, the ideology of the Confederate South battled on. Attorney Bryan Stevenson put it this way: “The North won the Civil War, but the South won the narrative war.”43 "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

12 " The KKK interspersed Christianity with racism to create a nationalistic form of religion that excluded all but American-born, Protestant white men and women. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

13 " The Klan capitalized on white fears of just about anyone they defined as nonwhite, non-American, and non-Protestant. For example, Klan members successfully lobbied for the Immigration Act of 1924, also known as the Johnson-Reed Act, which limited immigration from select countries. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

14 " The failure of many Christians in the South and across the nation to decisively oppose the racism in their families, communities, and even in their own churches provided fertile soil for the seeds of hatred to grow. The refusal to act in the midst of injustice is itself an act of injustice. Indifference to oppression perpetuates oppression. History and Scripture teaches us that there can be no reconciliation without repentance. There can be no repentance without confession. And there can be no confession without truth. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

15 " History and Scripture teaches us that there can be no reconciliation without repentance. There can be no repentance without confession. And there can be no confession without truth. The Color of Compromise is about telling the truth so that reconciliation—robust, consistent, honest reconciliation—might occur across racial lines. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

16 " Morgan recognized that no matter who had physically planted the dynamite, all the city’s white residents were complicit in allowing an environment of hatred and racism to persist. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

17 " It’s not that members of every white church participated in lynching, but the practice could not have endured without the relative silence, if not outright support, of one of the most significant institutions in America—the Christian church. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

18 " there would be no black church without racism in the white church. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

19 " Reflecting on the events he said, “ ‘Who did it? Who threw that bomb? Was it a Negro or a white?’ The answer should be, ‘We all did it.’ Every last one of us is condemned for that crime and the bombing before it and a decade ago. We all did it.”5 "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism

20 " the most egregious acts of racism, like a church bombing, occur within a context of compromise. "

― Jemar Tisby , The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism