I’m delighted that the Repentance Project and Coracle are partnering with The Racial Reconciliation Group (RRG) and Little Lights to offer this fall’s book club on Jemar Tisby’s “The Spirit of Justice”, led by NaTasha Brown and Kathy Bruce. Tisby was inspired to write the book upon hearing Myrlie Evers‑Williams, Medgar Evers’ widow, utter the phrase “But it’s something about the spirit of justice that raises up like a war horse… that stands with its back sunk in… hears that bell of freedom… and you become determined all over again.”

This begs the question, what is that “spirit of justice” she’s referring to?  Tisby writes both to find out and to tell us, and he recounts stories of 50 mostly Black Christians, many of whom are lesser known to us, who embody the spirit of justice and help us know what it looks like incarnated.  I hope you’ll sign up here and join us.

These are days when looking at actual history, looking at real stories of actual people, and looking at what actually happened in American history matters as much as ever.  Truth-telling always matters, but it matters more when history is being suppressed or covered over.  As one who loves truth, recent developments at the National Museum of African American History and Culture make my heart sad, and if I’m being honest, make me angry and nauseated.  How deep does this darkness go that some leaders are utterly unwilling to recognize what actually happened?

The Repentance Project was founded in 2015 precisely because we believed that not enough Christians in America understood important historical realities of American history in regards to race. So we developed a spiritual formation tool – An American Lent –  so that we as Christians could recognize true history in the American story, for White Christian brothers and sisters to be ‘grieved unto repentance’ (2Cor 7.9) in light of this history and its current expressions.  We did this so that all Christians in America could together commit to doing all we can to pursue “the beloved community” that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke so often about.

He said, “The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the Beloved Community. It is this type of spirit and this type of love that can transform opponents into friends.”

I hope you’ll join us for the book club this fall, and then along with the Racial Reconciliation Group for “An American Lent” early in 2026.