One of the greatest high school basketball players to ever play in New York City, there was no way Bill Rieser wasn't going to make it in the NBA. He could do things on a basketball court no one else could--and that's why they called him "White Jesus." But after a serious knee injury and clashes with his college coach derailed his career, Bill descended into a self-destructive lifestyle of drinking, drug abuse, and womanizing. He was going to be just another washed-up playground legend--until he encountered Jesus Christ and became something far more. Once known for his 44-inch leap, Rieser is still looking up these days and his vertical leap goes higher than he could ever have imagined. So if you're looking for something that will get you to that new level of trust and closeness with God you're yearning for, this book is your ticket! Bill's infectious faith will change the way you view God, His power, His Word, and prayer.

How is it that in America the image of Jesus Christ has been used both to justify the atrocities of white supremacy and to inspire the righteousness of civil rights crusades? In The Color of Christ, Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey weave a tapestry of American dreams and visions--from witch hunts to web pages, Harlem to Hollywood, slave cabins to South Park, Mormon revelations to Indian reservations--to show how Americans remade the Son of God visually time and again into a sacred symbol of their greatest aspirations, deepest terrors, and mightiest strivings for racial power and justice. The Color of Christ uncovers how, in a country founded by Puritans who destroyed depictions of Jesus, Americans came to believe in the whiteness of Christ. Some envisioned a white Christ who would sanctify the exploitation of Native Americans and African Americans and bless imperial expansion. Many others gazed at a messiah, not necessarily white, who was willing and able to confront white supremacy. The color of Christ still symbolizes America's most combustible divisions, revealing the power and malleability of race and religion from colonial times to the presidency of Barack Obama.

In White Jesus: The Architecture of Racism in Religion and Education, White Jesus is conceived as a socially constructed apparatus--a mythology that animates the architecture of salvation--that operates stealthily as a veneer for patriarchal White supremacist, capitalist, and imperialist sociopolitical, cultural, and economic agendas. White Jesus was constructed by combining empire, colorism, racism, education, and religion; the by-product is a distortion that reproduces violence in epistemic and physical ways. The authors distinguish White Jesus from Jesus of the Gospels, the one whose life, death, and resurrection demands sacrificial love as a response--a love ethic. White Jesus is a fraudulent scheme that many devotees of Jesus of Bethlehem naively fell for. This book is about naming the lies, reclaiming the person of Jesus, and reasserting a vision of power that locates Jesus of the Gospels in solidarity with the easily disposed. The catalytic, animating, and life-altering power of the cross of Jesus is enough to subdue White Jesus and his patronage. White Jesus can be used in a variety of academic disciplines, including education, religion, sociology, and cultural studies. Furthermore, the book will be useful for Christian institutions working to evaluate the images and ideologies of Jesus that shape their biblical ethics, as well as churches in the U.S. that are invested in breaking the mold of homogeneity, civil religion, and uncoupling commitments to patriotism from loyalty to one Kingdom. Educational institutions and religious organizations that are committed to combining justice and diversity efforts with a Jesus ethic will find White Jesus to be a compelling primer.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The “paradigm-influencing” book (Christianity Today) that is fundamentally transforming our understanding of white evangelicalism in America. Jesus and John Wayne is a sweeping, revisionist history of the last seventy-five years of white evangelicalism, revealing how evangelicals have worked to replace the Jesus of the Gospels with an idol of rugged masculinity and Christian nationalism—or in the words of one modern chaplain, with “a spiritual badass.” As acclaimed scholar Kristin Du Mez explains, the key to understanding this transformation is to recognize the centrality of popular culture in contemporary American evangelicalism. Many of today’s evangelicals might not be theologically astute, but they know their VeggieTales, they’ve read John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart, and they learned about purity before they learned about sex—and they have a silver ring to prove it. Evangelical books, films, music, clothing, and merchandise shape the beliefs of millions. And evangelical culture is teeming with muscular heroes—mythical warriors and rugged soldiers, men like Oliver North, Ronald Reagan, Mel Gibson, and the Duck Dynasty clan, who assert white masculine power in defense of “Christian America.” Chief among these evangelical legends is John Wayne, an icon of a lost time when men were uncowed by political correctness, unafraid to tell it like it was, and did what needed to be done. Challenging the commonly held assumption that the “moral majority” backed Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020 for purely pragmatic reasons, Du Mez reveals that Trump in fact represented the fulfillment, rather than the betrayal, of white evangelicals’ most deeply held values: patriarchy, authoritarian rule, aggressive foreign policy, fear of Islam, ambivalence toward #MeToo, and opposition to Black Lives Matter and the LGBTQ community. A much-needed reexamination of perhaps the most influential subculture in this country, Jesus and John Wayne shows that, far from adhering to biblical principles, modern white evangelicals have remade their faith, with enduring consequences for all Americans.

Rebellious Katie Darlene was the youngest of three children until her baby brother was born with a heart defect. The bright teenager tells her story of growing up in a military family during a time when boys are dying in Vietnam, men are landing on the moon for the first time and her father, a mess sergeant in the Air Force, is ordered to a remote mission to Alaska. They move to her fathers hometown in Texas to have access to a military hospital and to be near family. To complicate Kate's problems, her immediate family, led by a Yankee mother, is faced for the first time with Southernisms, especially involving race relations. The feisty Kate- which is pronounced Kite in a Texas accent- keeps readers captivated and cheering for her throughout. Her story recalls eighteen months in a town full of people who can't help but admire her but wish she'd hurry up and conform so she will become the precious young lady they all know she can be. Life with her is never dull as Kite shares intimate moments such as when she tries to shave her legs, learns how to deceitfully fill the top of her first formal, experiences her first kiss and discovers boys can be teased without any effort at all. She takes life as it comes and tries to make it bend to her will. This isn't easy for a person who is colorblind in a segregated town. Her story is something to be cherished and pondered. The book is full of emotion as she struggles through a time in the late sixties when the raging Vietnam war was taking away boys as soon as they turned eighteen and wasnt always sending them home. The blood, sweat and tears of the civil rights movement was flooding much of the country and causing enormous change. But it had made not a trickle into some small towns, including where Kite must live while her father is away. Kites life changes rapidly. She would have preferred her biggest worry be about how to wear her hair. But, she can't keep societal changes out of the context of her personal life. She cant just be a kid anymore, with a hula hoop and a bag of jax. The story begins with a forward explaining the workings of her family, opens a door into her personality and tells how Kite came to live in a small Texas town in 1968 where no one seemed to know about the Beatles or that racism was against the law. She is accepted in the town because she is kin to almost everyone. Her Texas kinfolk believe there is one Glory Child born into their family each generation that is destined for some kind of greatness. Kite seems to be the chosen one since she is beautiful, has a genius I.Q. and is very outspoken. Kite takes this Glory Child business all in stride, mostly because that is her personality and the title loses significance to her since her father was supposedly his generations Glory Child and she knew of nothing exceptional he ever did. Kite does appreciate being accepted and enjoys - as most teens would - fitting in as quickly as possible. Especially since her parents moved her into such a peculiar place where people speak slower and think unlike anyone shes met while growing up on multi-ethnic Air Force bases. The transition is not as easy for the rest of her family and her mother is somewhat of an outcast since she comes from a state that fought against the confederacy. A confusing point for Kite who thought the war between the states was over except for its historical relevance. The story moves quickly with something consequential occurring on each page as Kite and the town grow up together. The people are unusual but real. Kite is an honest soul and does not hold back as she moves the story along with her innocent and often self-centered insights into a complicated world when perspectives about women, race and other important issues were changing in a way that would affect generations to come.

Jesus Christ is arguably the most famous man who ever lived. His image adorns countless churches, icons, and paintings. He is the subject of millions of statues, sculptures, devotional objects and works of art. Everyone can conjure an image of Jesus: usually as a handsome, white man with flowing locks and pristine linen robes. But what did Jesus really look like? Is our popular image of Jesus overly westernized and untrue to historical reality? This question continues to fascinate. Leading Christian Origins scholar Joan E. Taylor surveys the historical evidence, and the prevalent image of Jesus in art and culture, to suggest an entirely different vision of this most famous of men. He may even have had short hair.

Enjoy this story of a California teen who first served his country in 1967. His faith was shaken as he came home to discover the world had changed, but so had he. Seen and unseen wounds altered his perspective on life, but compelled him to share lessons learned about PTSD and TBI. This book will forever change the way you look at a warrior. Your new view will be filtered through the lens of how anxiety, fear, adrenalin, terror, death and trauma forever alter the person within. Faith shaken but never lost offers a glimpse into this warriors perseverance today.