Race: Changing Society and the Churches

A Christian social thinker writing on the relationship between race and power in Britain and the United States. Kenneth Leech combines history, politics, and theology to portray the dynamics of racism here and abroad, and points a way forward for the church. "Race does not exist. Yet in this extraordinary book Ken Leech exposes how racism grips the imaginations of Christian and non-Christian alike, shaping our relations with one another and having disastrous results not only in neighborhoods but in foreign policies. Pauline-like, Leech helps us see that race is a power all the more perverse because it is not acknowledged as such. In conversation with the best work in science, social theory, and theology, Leech challenges the presumption that we have somehow gotten beyond racialized thinking. Moreover, drawing on his extraordinary pastoral experience, he helps us see a way beyond race. This book should be read in both England and America as both countries, in quite different ways continue to be dominated by racialized practice. And finally, and perhaps most important, Leech draws on Christian convictions to challenge Christians, not only how to think differently about race but hopefully how to practice our faith in a manner that we may be an alternative for the world." --Stanley M. Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School; named "America's Best Theologian" by Time Magazine in 2001