By Kelly Brown Douglas. Published by Orbis Books, 2015. Reviewed by Moeawa Callaghan

The “Stand Your Ground” (racist) culture in the USA and the entrenchment of that culture in law in many US States are best described in this book as a morphed form of lynching and crucifixion. The book explains how culture and law, replete with religious legitimation, have been effective in blaming and convicting young black murder victims for their own murder. Their crime? Being black.

Kelly Brown Douglas didn’t want to write the book. She had been deeply affected by the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Benjamin Martin. But who better to write a critical narrative such as this? First, she is a mother who prays every time her young black son leaves the house that he will return alive and safe. She prays in sympathy with those mothers who have lost a child to the Stand Your Ground culture. Second, she is a race theorist. She articulately traces the history of the Stand Your Ground culture from its very early Germanic and Anglo-Saxon beginnings through to the US today. Be prepared — the quotes from early US leaders will distress you!

Douglas is a theologian at the Episcopal Divinity School, New York. She critiques Christianity’s part in perpetuating the Stand Your Ground culture and the theology that rationalised its existence. To illustrate, Douglas outlines two opposing theological interpretations of the Exodus story. One story justifies “Manifest Destiny” and belief in a chosen people and their right to ownership of land and bodies. The other is a belief in God’s choosing to free people from circumstances that are contrary to who God created them to be.

Douglas presents an ecclesial perspective on the Stand Your Ground culture, asserting that the nation and the Churches can no longer refuse to talk about race. Now is the time to live in God’s time and to create that new heaven and new earth.

Overall, this is the story of a mother’s weeping for justice. As Douglas was writing the book Michael Brown was killed — yet another young man. The book is confronting and intensely disturbing as the narrative strikes at the heart of Christianity’s colonial history and associated continuing injustices. The book is also a story of hope, inviting contemporary Churches into truth-telling and challenging injustice. For readers in Aotearoa the book urges us to face the dark side of Christian history and to respond in faith to create a just new world.

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 230 September 2018: 30