Reparations, in the authors’ view, is a twofold process of restitution for what was stolen and the restoration of those who were stolen from. This is a vision, as the title makes clear, for the church to take on the work of reparations in response to generations of racism against African American people. But if it’s Zacchaeus’s response to Jesus which rises to the top (“Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”), then you’re primed for the authors’ vision of repentance and repair. Is the focus on the tax collector’s height? On the fact that he had to climb a tree to catch a glimpse of the man he’d heard so much about? Or do you notice the grumbling crowd, shocked that Jesus would invite himself to dine with a notorious sinner? If these are the sorts of details which arrest your attention, it’s likely that the future envisioned by pastors Kwon and Thompson for the church will surprise or shock. Kwon and Gregory Thompson in their book, Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair. Tell me what you think the main point is Luke’s account of Jesus’s encounter with Zacchaeus, and I’ll make a well-informed guess about what you’ll think of the argument advanced by Duke L. A Feature Review of Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repairīuy Now:
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