Dear White Peacemakers: Dismantling Racism with Grit and Grace

by Osheta Moore, Jen Hatmaker (Foreword by)

Overview

Dear White Peacemakers is a breakup letter to division, a love letter to God’s beloved community, and an eviction notice to the violent powers that have sustained racism for centuries.
 
Race is one of the hardest topics to discuss in America. Many white Christians avoid talking about it altogether. But a commitment to peacemaking requires white people to step out of their comfort and privilege and into the work of anti-racism. Dear White Peacemakers is an invitation to white Christians to come to the table and join this hard work and holy calling. Rooted in the life, ministry, and teachings of Jesus, this book is a challenging call to transform white shame, fragility, saviorism, and privilege, in order to work together to build the Beloved Community as anti-racism peacemakers.
 
Written in the wake of George Floyd’s death, Dear White Peacemakers draws on the Sermon on the Mount, Spirituals, and personal stories from author Osheta Moore’s work as a pastor in St. Paul, Minnesota. Enter into this story of shalom and join in the urgent work of anti-racism peacemaking.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781513807683
Publisher:	MennoMedia
Publication date:	05/18/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Osheta Moore is a writer, pastor, speaker, and podcaster in Saint Paul, Minnesota, as well as a mother of three and economic justice advocate for women in developing countries. She is the outreach and teaching pastor at Woodland Hills Church and the pastor of community life at Roots Covenant Church alongside her husband. Moore has consistently been a voice for peacemaking, justice, anti-racism, and community development in the urban core. Her work has been featured on numerous websites and blogs, including Sojourners, SheLoves Magazine, A Deeper Story, The Art of Simple, ReKnew, and Rachel Held Evans’ blog. She is the author of Shalom Sistas: Living Wholeheartedly in a Broken-Hearted World, published by Herald Press in 2017. Connect with her at Osheta.com and follow her on Instagram @oshetamoore for encouragements to practice everyday peacemaking and invitations for White Peacemakers on their anti-racism journey. 
Osheta Moore is a writer, pastor, speaker, and podcaster in Saint Paul, Minnesota, as well as a mother of three and economic justice advocate for women in developing countries. She is the outreach and teaching pastor at Woodland Hills Church and the pastor of community life at Roots Covenant Church alongside her husband. Moore has consistently been a voice for peacemaking, justice, anti-racism, and community development in the urban core. Her work has been featured on numerous websites and blogs, including Sojourners, SheLoves Magazine, A Deeper Story, The Art of Simple, ReKnew, and Rachel Held Evans’ blog. She is the author of Shalom Sistas: Living Wholeheartedly in a Broken-Hearted World, published by Herald Press in 2017. Connect with her at Osheta.com and follow her on Instagram @oshetamoore for encouragements to practice everyday peacemaking and invitations for White Peacemakers on their anti-racism journey.

Table of Contents

Preface: Markers on My Hand, a Call to Empathy
Come to the Table
Part I: Wade in the Water

1. God’s Gonna Trouble the Water: Fleeing White Supremacy
2. Your Name Is Not Racist, It’s Beloved
3. Let’s Forge a New Way
4. Oh Lord, She Put Tomatoes in the Gumbo
5. Nah. An Eviction Notice From The Beloved Community

Part II: There Is a Balm in Gilead

1. To Heal the Sin-Sick Soul: Rejecting White Apathy
2. Where Does It Hurt?
3. I’m Sorry and I’m Listening
4. Last Words
5. If I Don’t Make It Home Safely
6. We Raise Our Hands

Part III: Down by the Riverside

1. Ain’t Gonna Study War No More: Disarming White Fragility
2. Who Told You You Had to Do This Alone?
3. Your Love Is Not Fragile
4. Yes, You Can Touch My Hair
5. Confessions of a Judgmental Ally

Part IV: Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around

1. Marchin’ Up to Freedom Land: Leveraging White Privilege
2. Free, Black, and Southern
3. Two Scoops of Justice and Peace, Please
4. When “Black Lives Matter” Sounds Like “I Love You”
5. What We’re Not Going to Do: A New Orientation to Anger
6. Forgiving While Black
7. White Saviorism and Black Joy
8. Breathing Room
9. Please Kneel for the Kingdom Anthem
10. Amen! A Benediction

Epilogue: By the Waters of Bde Maka Ska

Interviews

Saint Paul, MN 55104
 

Editorial Reviews

Osheta Moore’s letter to her white siblings is a gift that we don’t deserve. It’s a labor of love straight from the soul of a Black woman who dares to believe that white folks can become peacemakers. This book is a one-of-a-kind pastoral invitation for you and me to come to the table as participants in the restorative revolution. I needed this, and I commend it with hope!”
 

JER SWIGART

In her extraordinary book, Osheta Moore invites white peacemakers to embody the fierce and tender way of anti-racist peacemaking. We do this, Osheta reminds us, by first owning our Belovedness so that we can access the call to courage that true shalom requires. Dear White Peacemakers is both a love letter and a sacred call to action as we navigate this important time in the world.”
 

AUNDI KOLBER

Osheta Moore has given us all the gift of humanity in her book Dear White Peacemakers. Her perspective brings much-needed light and hope into discussions on racism. Her real-life stories can help provide real-life restoration. May the scales fall from our eyes. May restoration and healing come. A must-read for my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Grammy award–winning artist and New York Tim LECRAE

Every white person should read Dear White Peacemakers. Osheta Moore serves as the best of guides for how white people, growing in their racial awareness, can both engage the issue of racism and embody a peacemaking ethic moving forward. She will challenge you, shock you, inspire you. After reading this book, you’ll feel all the more equipped to seek shalom and healing instead of hate and retribution in our racially torn world.”
 

MICHELLE AMI REYES

While many books on race have filled me with knowledge about the depth, complexity, and wickedness of racism, and of white supremacy, Dear White Peacemakers is the first book that has filled me with hope.”
 

DAN KENT

Osheta Moore has written not only an important book, but what some may consider an impossible book. In Dear White Peacemakers, Osheta calls us to fight racism while remaining true to the peacemaking ethic set forth by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. This is a smart and compelling work, and Osheta’s voice is both honest and hopeful. I benefited greatly from Dear White Peacemakers.”
 

BRIAN ZAHND

This is a love letter void of shallow sentiments, and is one steeped in honesty, authenticity, storytelling, challenge, and faith-filled conviction. Readers will find Moore is a theologian, pastor, practitioner, and companion on the journey. Dear White Peacemakers is both invitational and incarnational in every story—evoking the true substance of anti-racism in the way of Jesus.”
 

ROSE LEE-NORMAN

Dear White Peacemakers is a textbook of tender tenacity: never shaming, always truthful. Not content to be convicting without a way forward, Osheta is committed to seeing everyone around her as God’s Beloved (even those who remain committed to a life of violence and prejudice against her), and this perspective will change your own lens for viewing the world.

ERIN HICKS MOON

This book is our North Star, bright enough to illuminate the anti-racism path and bold enough to offer love for our souls along the way. This book transformed my weariness into a howl of hope in my chest. Osheta Moore challenges us to build peacemaking into our anti-racism work because there is no peace and no justice without the constellation of love.”
 

DIANA K. OESTREICH

As a white woman, I believe every white Christian needs to read Dear White Peacemakers. Osheta Moore’s vulnerability, authenticity, and call to action is a rare gift, and we are lucky to have her leadership in this space. I felt uncomfortable, challenged, and empowered to take steps in my own work around anti-racism.”
 

JESSICA TURNER

"My fellow White American Christians, wherever you may be at in your awareness of white superiority and of systemic racism in our country, and even if you currently aren’t convinced these things are present realities in this country, I implore you to read this informative, insightful, moving, down-to-earth, often funny, remarkably vulnerable, and certainly impactful book!”
 

GREGORY A. BOYD

Simply put: this is the book that white peacemakers have needed for a very long time.

PAUL RHODES EDDY

We don’t deserve Osheta Moore. . . She is wise and kind and helpful and could teach about anything she wants but has created this resource for us, willingly choosing to be our Black friend. She doesn’t have to do this. But I’m so grateful she has.”
 

MELANIE DALE

Painfully vulnerable, Osheta Moore’s Dear White Peacemakers reads as both her personal testimony and a confession of her deepest convictions. Moore beautifully uses African American spirituals as a healing balm in the tenuous topic of race in American Christianity. Whether she is addressing Black hairstyles in the movie Black Panther or racial slurs at her son’s school, Moore is a brilliant guide and teacher. She’s a generous host inviting us into her inner sanctuary, making readers feel well cared for—the true gift of a dedicated peacemaker.

MARCIE ALVIS-WALKER

"Osheta Moore refuses to dehumanize White readers, and with the same stroke of the pen calls White peacemakers to put to practice ‘the things that make for peace’ (Luke 19:42). Osheta is the vulnerable, wise, pastoral voice the church needs as we discern a better path forward for resisting racial injustice. I hope church leaders and attenders in the United States and beyond will ponder her words and put them into practice. I can’t recommend this book enough!”
 

KURT WILLEMS

Dear White Peacemakers strikes a delicate, beautiful balance between enduring compassion and the relentless pursuit of justice. With wisdom and grace, Osheta Moore guides readers through the arduous journey of being actively anti-racist, and her approach overflows with a love that cultivates empathy without sacrificing truth. Her words have both refreshed my soul and challenged my posture in this work, and I’m certain that they will do the same for readers everywhere!”
 

DANIELLE COKE

In the wonderful Dear White Peacemakers, Osheta Moore gives us the gift of insight, offered from a loving sister wanting all the best for her spiritual family. With Jesus at the center, we can move forward with hope in him as our healer of broken relationships and inadequate identities as mere victims and victimizers. Thank you, my sister, for this compelling labor of love. As you say, ‘Let us come together and be free.’ Amen!”
 

BRUXY CAVEY