In this powerful volume, Jeannine Hill Fletcher develops the bold claim that Christianity itself has given birth to racism in this country. Integrating her significant scholarship on Christianity's relationship to other religions with her commitment to uprooting racism, Hill Fletcher makes a compelling case that since early European settlers arrived, White Christians have used religious resources to claim the supremacy of their religion and race. In chapters 1 through 3, she describes the ways White Christian theologians and clergy provided intellectual justification for Christian and White supremacy, as well as the material advantages universities and Whites accrued. The contemporary result, Hill Fletcher argues, is that White Christians generally 1) believe that their White and Christian identities mean they are closer to God, morally superior, and justified in their material advantages vis-à-vis people of other religions and people of color; and 2) reproduce Christian and White hegemony in everyday life by trading on their symbolic and material capital to treat others on a “sliding scale of humanity.” According to Hill Fletcher, given their prominent roles in perpetrating racialized disparities, theologians and universities bear a heightened responsibility to craft liberating theologies that contribute to religious and racial reconciliation.

Hill Fletcher argues that invalidating White supremacy involves negating claims to Christian supremacy. In chapters 4 through 6, she interprets central Christian symbols and practices for a “weighted world,” that is, the current situation in which people of color bear more burdens and enjoy fewer benefits than White people. Her constructive theology rests on the central Christian doctrines of God as mystery and understanding of Christ as “the Crucified One who radiates love against the backdrop of mystery” (129), whose witness can reorient White Christians. Given her concern that Christianity not claim supremacy over other religions, Hill Fletcher treads lightly on claims about Christ. She recommends that White Christians emulate four characteristics of Jesus’ love as recorded in the gospels—as intimacy, healing, judgment, and including enemies—in order to redress suffering they perpetrate against people of color. She provides a moving account of the theology of the sacred heart of Jesus as a symbol contemporary Christians can draw upon to take on suffering and offers brief practical applications in how to do this, such as building anti-racist churches, practicing interreligious rites, and legislating for living wage jobs and equitable public education.

This is a courageous text in that Hill Fletcher provides an honest assessment of how White Christians employ their religion to serve their cultural, economic, and political interests. Evidence provided in this slim volume is not substantive enough to support Hill Fletcher's serious claim that Christianity not only is implicated, but actually created US racism. A longer volume could more finely distinguish among various Christian denominations’ relationships to racism and analyze the situations of various peoples of color (including denominations such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church) vis-à-vis Christian racism. Given Hill Fletcher's significant contributions to feminist theology, a longer volume would also allow attention be given to the gendered character of the injustices perpetrated by Christian leaders.

Hill Fletcher's analysis is prescient, in that it helps to explain why many devout White Christians in this country currently justify white nationalist practices that the Christian tradition opposes—practices that include forcible removal of child asylum seekers from their parents, the “Muslim ban,” and police brutality. But she does not really explore what would compel these White Christians to turn now from avoiding historical and present distortions of Christianity and commit themselves to the liberating Christian resources from which Hill Fletcher draws, particularly the portraits of Jesus’ love as recorded in the gospels.

Hill Fletcher utilizes an impressive variety of social-scientific, biblical, theological, philosophical, and historical analyses, as well as practical resources from contemporary US anti-racist trainers. The text is marred by several copyediting errors. Given the central role White theologians, clergy, and universities have played and continue to play in perpetuating the suffering Hill Fletcher documents, the text is written and recommended for seminary and graduate courses, as well as discussions among theologians and clergy.