More Than Equals : Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel

"The first step in the reconciliation process," Spencer Perkins writes, "is admitting that the race problem exists and that our inability to deal with race has weakened the credibility of our gospel."

When longtime ministry partners and friends Spencer Perkins and Chris Rice began writing More Than Equals in the early 1990s, their goal was to offer an example of how racial reconciliation is possible―and also critical to Christian discipleship. This landmark book tells the stories of two men from very different backgrounds embarking on the complex, costly journey of healing across racial divides.

Perkins, who witnessed repeated hypocrisy from white Christians and witnessed his bloodied pastor-activistfather after a brutal police beating, wondered how it was possible to love white people. Rice, who grew up as a white missionary kid and thought of himself as progressive, was surprised by the tensions he encountered as a volunteer at a majority-black church―and by his own blind spots. As they served together in an intentionally multiracial ministry, both gained insight into why this work is so challenging and how Christians can do it well, in dependence on God.

With biblical grounding, hopeful realism, and practical detail, More Than Equals provides a helpful framework for Christians engaged in the deep ongoing surgery of racial healing. Now available as part of the IVP Signature Collection, this edition includes a new preface by Rice and a study guide for group discussion.

Spencer Perkins, until his death in 1998, worked with the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation and Development and was editor-in-chief of the magazine Urban Family. For twelve years he and Chris Rice and their families lived together in the Antioch Community and served as elders of Voice of Calvary Fellowship Church in Jackson, Mississippi.

Chris Rice (DMin, Duke University) is director of the United Nations Office of the Mennonite Central Committee, an international relief, development, and peace agency. He served as cofounding director of the Duke Divinity School Center for Reconciliation, and has worked through the academy, churches, and faith-based organizations to heal social conflicts in east Africa, Northeast Asia, and the American South. He is coauthor of Reconciling All Things and More Than Equals, which both won Christianity Today Book Awards. Chris and his wife, Donna, have three adult children and live in New York City.