This resource is located at:

http://buildingchurchleaders.com/downloads/trainingthemes/racialreconciliation

This training tool provided by buildingchurchleaders.com costs $15 through their website. It is a Word Document that contains a variety of resources and handouts on topics related to racial reconciliation by experts from around the country.

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Product description from the publisher’s website:

In a culture plagued by racial division and unrest, the church convinced itself that prejudice is not a pressing issue. But visit a local congregation on any given Sunday and a quick scan of the crowd will reveal that unconsciously held attitudes and presuppositions continue to divide the very body of Christ. Sharing his own experience with prejudice and his expertise in an area of racial reconciliation, Dr. Charles Ware traces the history of the misunderstandings behind racism, examines the biblical model for reconciliation, describes the role of love in the church and community, and explores the answers to many related questions.

This resource is located at:

http://markdeymaz.typepad.com/glue/2008/11/as-this-years-h.html

Excerpt

Failure on the part of Christian leaders to recognize the changing demographic landscape or to adapt - both personally and corporately - in accordance with Scripture will soon render their work or, worse yet, their message irrelevant. For as I have previously written, there are already signs that increasing numbers of people are no longer finding credible the message that God loves all people as preached from segregated pulpits and pews. Indeed, those without Christ are no longer responding simply to the words of our lips; rather, they will respond only to the love of God they see in us; love that is daily displayed in a genuine, personal love for all people in His name. And this is best manifest in and through the establishment of healthy multi-ethnic local churches whereby believers of diverse ethnic and economic background can build cross-cultural relationships, pursue cross-cultural competency, promote a spirit of inclusion and mobilize for impact as one people group - Christians - united in Him!

This resource is located at:

http://www.urbanfaith.com/2008/11/its-history-1.html

Excerpt:

From the start, Obama’s political career–and, for that matter, his life–has declared the importance of racial and social reconciliation. The son of an African father and Caucasian mother. The erstwhile community organizer. The upstart candidate for the U.S. Senate who announced, "There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America!"

This resource is located at:

http://onthescene.msnbc.com/witnessing_history/

This webpage includes a variety of videos showing various people’s reactions to the election of Barack Obama.

Excerpt:

In one home, news of Barack Obama’s election brought screams of joy and amazement. In another, it was met with stunned silence followed by tears.

Those were the reactions that msnbc.com reporters witnessed when they spent Election Night with two of the three African-American families we profiled last week to launch the Witnessing History report.

This resource is located at:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/obama.history/index.html

Excerpt:

President-elect Obama’s victory Tuesday may be a racially transformative event. But for people like Kennedy, who came through the fires of the civil rights movement, it also represents something else — personal triumph. Obama’s win validates the risks they took years ago.

This resource is located at:

http://almohler.com/blog_read.php?id=2715

Excerpt:

That victory is a hallmark moment in history for all Americans — not just for those who voted for Sen. Obama.  As a nation, we will never think of ourselves the same way again.  Americans rich and poor, black and white, old and young, will look to an African-American man and know him as President of the United States.  The President.  The only President.  The elected President.  Our President.

Every American should be moved by the sight of young African-Americans who — for the first time — now believe that they have a purchase in American democracy.  Old men and old women, grandsons and granddaughters of slaves and slaveholders, will look to an African-American as President.

This resource is located at:

http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2008/11/moving-toward-a.html

Excerpt

One of the most stunning facts of the turnout tonight is that only 74 percent of the electorate in this election was white.

Go back to 1976 and 90 percent of the electorate was white. We are seeing the rise of Hispanic and African American voters. This is the first election of the future.

In many ways, we are moving toward a post-racial America.

Look at how race really wasn’t an issue in this campaign. Eighty percent of voters said they didn’t take it into account anyway, and only 19 percent of the voters said they did.

And Obama won both groups.

Product description from the publisher’s website:

Arguing from Scripture and history, Dr. Boyd makes a compelling case that whenever the church gets too close to any political or national ideology, it is disastrous for the church and harmful to society. Dr. Boyd contends that the American Evangelical Church has allowed itself to be co-opted by the political right (and some by the political left) and exposes how this is harming the church’s unique calling to build the kingdom of God. In the course of his argument, Dr. Boyd challenges some of the most deeply held convictions of evangelical Christians in America – for example, that America is, or ever was, “a Christian nation” or that Christians ought to be trying to “take America back for God.”

Description:

The Path through Politics Is Not the Road to God

When the kingdom of God is manifested, it will wear the face of Jesus Christ. And that, says author Gregory Boyd, has never been true of any earthly government or power. Through close examination of Scripture and lessons drawn from history, Dr. Boyd argues that evangelical Christians who align themselves too closely with political causes or declare that they want to bring America “back to God” are actually doing harm—both to the body of Christ and society in general.

Boyd shows how Jesus taught us to seek a “power-under” kingdom, where greatness is measured by sacrifice and service. There are no sides or enemies because we are meant to embrace and accept everyone. In The Myth of a Christian Nation, Dr. Boyd challenges readers to return to the true love of Calvary and the message of the cross—setting the “power-over” politics of worldly government aside.

“Boyd’s intervention into the discussion is welcome. He is bold,… passionate, and discerning, while still attempting to be charitable. Boyd doesn’t pull punches, denouncing the nationalistic “idolatry” of American evangelicalism, which often fuses the cross and the flag. Boyd also calls without apology for a renewed Christian commitment to nonviolence, citing the Anabaptist refrains of John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, and Lee Camp. But Boyd’s claims can’t be dismissed as mere ranting of a Christian leftist. Rather, one senses that his are the expressions of a pastor’s broken heart which, every once in a while, bubbles over into a kind of restrained, low-boil anger.” — Christianity Today