Peace Be Still 978-1-950088-90-4, is a book by Rev. Mark Crear, based on the ideas of racial reconciliation and healing. Crear writes about how racial reconciliation can be promoted and discussed in modern-day society. The book provides statistics, valuable tools, and firsthand accounts. Peace Be Still is dedicated to all the people who have suffered at the hands of racism and discrimination. Generational trauma due to slavery, segregation, and oppression of different forms has had a detrimental effect on the Black community in the United States of America, it is time that these wounds must heal, with all our efforts combined as one against prejudice and injustice.
Two years prior the well-known March in Washington took place, Martin Luther King Jr. spoke in a chapel while he visited Southern Seminary. In the speech, which was titled “The Church on the Frontier of Racial Tension”, King Jr. challenged the church to change their stance of racism and segregation and to bring about a new age of racial unity. Here is an excerpt from the speech:
“Certainly the church has a significant role to play in this period because the issue is not merely the political issue; it is a moral issue. Since the church has a moral responsibility of being the moral guardian of society, then it cannot evade its responsibility in this very tense period of transition. And so I would like to suggest some of the things that the church can do in the area of human relations, some of the things that the church can do in this tense period of transition, to make it possible for us to move from the old order into the new order.
And also the church must make it palatably clear that segregation is a moral evil that no Christian can accept. Segregation is still the Negroes' burden and America's shame. The church must make it clear that if we are to be true witnesses of Jesus Christ, we can no longer give our allegiance to a system of segregation. Segregation is wrong because it substitutes an I-It relationship for the I-Thou relationship. Segregation is wrong because it relegates persons to the status of things. Segregation is wrong because it does something to the personality – it damages the soul. It often gives the segregator a false sense of superiority, and it gives the segregated a false sense of inferiority. And so the underlying philosophy of Christianity, and democracy and all of the dialectics of the logician cannot make them lie down together. The church must make this very clear.
The church can do a great deal to open channels of communication between the races. I’m absolutely convinced that men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other. They don’t know each other because they are separated from each other. No greater tragedy can befall society than the attempt to live in monologue rather than dialogue. The church has the responsibility to open the channels of communication.”
About The Author
Reverend Mark Crear, Ph.D., is a renowned author, a two-time Olympic medalist, Professional Christian Counselor, and a Professional Life & Business coach. Crear graduated from the University of Southern California and has more than a decade of experience regarding topics, such as Racial Reconciliation and Multicultural Counseling.
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