Book Study (ONLINE)

About the Study

This summer, the Missions Committee of Shadyside Presbyterian Church invites you to gather online for a four-session weeknight evening book study. Beginning Tuesday, August 9, at 8:00 p.m., we will study The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism, written by Jemar Tisby. Facilitated by Dr. Mark A. Boyle, this study will meet virtually via Zoom videoconferencing.

Please contact either Kaysie Strickland or Ellen Allston through the church office to access the meeting. To purchase a copy of the book, please contact the church office or visit the bookcase in the Parlor adjacent to the Sharp Atrium. The book costs $17.00; checks may be made payable to “Shadyside Presbyterian Church” with “Adult Education” included on the memo line.

About the Book

A New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestseller, The Color of Compromise is an acclaimed, timely narrative of how people of faith have historically – up to the present day – worked against racial justice, and a call for urgent action by all Christians today in response.

Both enlightening and compelling, The Color of Compromise tells a history many either ignore or just don’t know. Equal parts painful and inspirational, it details how the American church has helped create and maintain racist ideas and practices. Readers will be guided in thinking through concrete solutions for improved race relations and a racially inclusive church.

The Color of Compromise:

• Takes you on a historical, sociological, and religious journey, from America’s early colonial days through slavery and the Civil War
• Covers the tragedy of Jim Crow laws, the victories of the Civil Rights era, and the strides of today’s Black Lives Matter movement
• Reveals the cultural and institutional tables that need to be flipped in order to bring about meaningful integration
• Charts a path forward to replace established patterns and systems of complicity with bold, courageous, immediate action

The Color of Compromise is not a call to shame or a platform to blame white evangelical Christians. It is a call from a place of love and desire to fight for a more racially unified church that no longer compromises what the Bible teaches about human dignity and equality. A call that challenges black and white Christians alike to stand up now and begin implementing the concrete ways the author outlines, all for a more equitable and inclusive environment among God’s people. Starting today.

About the Author

Jemar Tisby (B.A., University of Notre Dame; M.Div. Reformed Theological Seminary) is the president of The Witness: A Black Christian Collective, where he writes about race, religion, politics, and culture. He is also co-host of the Pass the Mic podcast. He has spoken nationwide at conferences and his writing has been featured in The Washington Post, The Atlantic, CNN, and Vox. Jemar is a Ph.D. candidate in history at the University of Mississippi, studying race, religion, and social movements in the twentieth century.