Grace Matters: A True Story of Race, Friendship, and Faith in the Heart of the South

by Chris P. Rice (Durham, North Carolina)

• ISBN13: 9780787957049
• ISBN10: 0787957046
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass

Summary

"Here is a real story of real people and real faith. The story of friendship between Chris Rice and my son Spencer and their work of racial reconciliation and healing represents the heart of the Christian witness. My prayer is that the 'seeds' of this story of struggle and hope they planted will spread and bloom and grow in the lives of many people." _John Perkins, chairman, Christian Community Development Association and author, Let Justice Roll Down"Grace is the most potent counter force at work in our violent species, and our only hope. Chris Rice gives a very personal account, at once inspiring and disturbing, of its transforming power." _ Philip Yancey, author, What's So Amazing About Grace?"Chris Rice has a keen eye for detail and a gift for setting a scene. This remarkable, inspiring story he tells reads like a good novel. It is a story of powerful Christian faith, intense personal commitment, and maddening human frailty. But more than anything else, and though it ends in tragedy, this is a story of hope: My encounter with Grace Matters has left me daring to hope that, even at this late date, we Christians might yet live out the true meaning of our radical creed in regard to relations between blacks and whites in the United States." _Glenn C. Loury, director, Institute on Race and Social Division, Boston University"In a rare and deeply significant way, Chris Rice honestly probes the difficult but essential journey toward genuine racial reconciliation. It is confessional, candid, and even painful as the author bares his soul and his struggles.... This is a book with a fundamental and hopeful message-that grace can become a way of life." _Jim Wallis, editor, Sojourners and convener, Call to Renewal"Grace Matters is an extraordinary love story that is improbable as it was difficult. That a black man and a white man might be joined in a common love of God in Mississippi defies the imagination. But Chris Rice has helped us see that friendship_indeed a difficult friendship_is possible just to the extent a community existed in which truth mattered. Hopefully this book will be read and read widely, not simply to inform us about 'race relations' but because the story told here is one of hope and perseverance that hopefully will make more friendships possible." _Stanley Hauerwas, author of A Community of Character and named by Time magazine as America's Best Theologian

Author Biography

Chris P. Rice is currently pursuing studies at the Divinity School at Duke University. He is the winner of a Critic's Choice Award from Christianity Today magazine for his book More Than Equals: Racial Healing for the Sake of the Gospel, which he coauthored with Spencer Perkins. He has been a research associate for the Boston University Institute on Race and Social Division, a columnist for Sojourners magazine, and has written, spoken, and taught extensively on the subject of racial reconciliation.

Table of Contents

Prologue	xi
PART ONE CONVERTED
``What Are All You White People Doin' Here?''	2	(13)
Letting the Spirit Lead	15	(6)
Middlebury Versus Mississippi	21	(9)
The Uprising	30	(8)
Aftershocks	38	(4)
Puzzling Signs	42	(3)
Big Bad Spencer	45	(6)
DNA Match	51	(9)
PART TWO TOWARD THE PROMISED LAND
Purple Comforter	60	(7)
``One of Us''	67	(7)
Second Thoughts	74	(4)
Robinson Street	78	(6)
Big Moves	84	(9)
Divorce	93	(6)
Communion	99	(11)
PART THREE YOKEFELLOWS
Boot Camp	110	(8)
Lem's Truth	118	(5)
Reluctant Prophet	123	(5)
``From Cain't to Cain't''	128	(7)
Blind Curves	135	(8)
``A Good Kinda Weird''	143	(4)
Never Forget the Source	147	(5)
PART FOUR DEMONS RISING
My Dirty Little Secret	152	(7)
Into Urban America	159	(6)
Our Six-Ring Circus	165	(7)
The Man in the Tie-Dyed T-Shirt	172	(4)
Road Show	176	(8)
Combustible Knowledge	184	(9)
Texas Time Bomb	193	(8)
Rescue Attempt	201	(6)
Setbacks and Gifts	207	(9)
PART FIVE BREAKTHROUGH TO GRACE
Paradigm Shifts	216	(7)
Fifteen-Rounder	223	(12)
Spencer's Bombshell	235	(8)
The Unbearable Contradiction	243	(11)
Grace Debtors	254	(12)
PART SIX SEPARATION
Blue Leg	266	(7)
Tears without End	273	(5)
The Dwelling Place	278	(10)
Riding Away on a Harley	288	(5)
Sabbath	293	(6)
Epilogue	299	(2)
Acknowledgments	301	(2)
The Author	303