When Heaven and Earth Collide: Racism, Southern Evangelicals, and the Better Way of Jesus

When Heaven and Earth Collide is an investigation into what went wrong in the American South in regard to race and religion―and how things can be and are being made right. Why, in a land filled with Christian churches, was there such racial oppression and division? Why didn’t white evangelicals do more to bring racial reconciliation to the South during the 19th and 20th centuries? These questions are asked and answered through an exploration of history, politics, economics, philosophy, and social and theological studies that uncovers the hidden impetus behind racism and demonstrates how we can still make many of the same errors today―just perhaps in different ways. The investigation finally leads us in hopeful directions involving how to live out the better way of Jesus with an eye on heaven in a world still burdened and broken under the sins of the past.

ALAN CROSS is pastor of Gateway Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where he has served on staff since 2000. A Southern native, he was born in New Orleans and grew up in Picayune, Mississippi. He earned an education degree at Mississippi State University and a master’s of divinity from Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary in Mill Valley, California, where he focused on intercultural studies and urban ministry.