Reparations: A Plan for Churches

A clarion call and evidence-based reparations plan for churches engaged in dismantling racism.

Christian churches, schools, and organizations committed to a reparations plan can learn how to do it--including how to support local, Black-led organizations working on economic empowerment. This is a much needed resource as churches have acknowledged generations of participation in systemic and structural racism and are looking for specific ways to action responsibility. This engaging book show how these plans are being lived out in congregations across the country.

Written by a white priest called to pastor an historically Black congregation in Washington DC, Reparations: A Plan for Churches provides spiritual resources and practical tools for dioceses, and other institutions, who are poised to seize this crucial moment. By drawing from examples of steps being taken by congregations and others, this guide also centers the counsel, voices, and teaching of Black scholars, activists, and many denominations of Christians. From this vantage, the book shows Christians how to make the work of restitution a reality by honest fact-finding and truth-telling, substantive and sustained engagement with those to whom reparations are owed, clear statements about what reparations are, and focused action to begin the work.

All royalties go to Harriet's Wildest Dreams, a Black-led abolitionist community defense hub centering all Black lives most at risk for state-sanctioned violence in the Greater Washington area.

PETER JARRETT-SCHELL serves as the chair of the Reparations Task Force of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, and is the Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church, a historically Black congregation in the District. He is the author of Seeing My Skin: A Story of Wrestling with Whiteness and was included in the award-winning anthology Preaching Black Lives [Matter]. He lives in Washington DC.

Stephanie Spellers an Episcopal priest and the author of The Church Cracked Open, The Episcopal Way, and Radical Welcome. After nearly a decade working alongside the former Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, she is now Canon in Residence at St. Bartholomew's Church in New York. A former religion journalist and graduate of both Episcopal Divinity School and Harvard Divinity School, she lives in Harlem, New York. Keep up with her work, study guides, and book tour at https://stephaniespellers.com/church-tomorrow.