There’s a moment in every Christian journey where the question shifts.
It’s no longer, “Do I believe?”
It becomes, “What will I do because I believe?”
Reading Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist brought that question into sharper focus.
Kendi doesn’t offer easy answers. He doesn’t give us a checklist or a way to feel good about ourselves. Instead, he offers something far more Gospel-shaped:
The truth that racism is not just about hate.
It’s about power.
It’s about policies.
It’s about the choices we make, again and again, consciously or not.
And perhaps most strikingly, Kendi reminds us that being “not racist” is not enough.
Neutrality is not righteousness.
Silence is not holiness.
Intentions are not liberation.
He writes, “The opposite of racist isn’t ‘not racist.’ It is antiracist.”
That hit me like a Gospel call.
Because if our faith is not actively working to dismantle what harms our neighbour—
is it really faith at all?
Kendi’s framing of racism as something we do or undo, moment by moment,
feels like the spiritual practice of confession and repentance—
not once, but daily.
Not with shame, but with clarity.
Not to feel bad, but to do better.
And isn’t that what discipleship is?
Not mastering goodness, but apprenticing ourselves to grace.
Being teachable.
Being changed.
Letting Christ unsettle the parts of us that have made peace with power.
In this way, Kendi’s work calls us back to the Gospel—
not the comfortable one that keeps us in control,
but the one that lifts the lowly, tears down unjust systems, and starts everything over in love.
It asks us:
- Who are we centring in our communities?
- Whose voices are we silencing in our discomfort?
- Whose safety are we trading for stability?
- What theology have we baptised that still smells of empire?
To be antiracist, in the Christian life, is to repent in real time.
It’s to choose the Jesus road over the Roman road.
It’s to hear, again, the call:
“Let the oppressed go free.”
“Break every yoke.” (Isaiah 58)
This isn’t political. It’s spiritual.
It’s not partisan. It’s pastoral.
And if we’re not learning to live this way—
to listen, to change, to act—
then we’re not really following Christ.
We’re just following comfort.
So I read Kendi’s book not as a challenge to my faith—
but as a call deeper into it.
Because real faith doesn’t just believe in resurrection.
It helps make it possible—
in policies, in communities, and in hearts willing to be changed.