Making It Plain: Why We Need Anabaptism and the Black Church

For many oppressed and vulnerable people, Western Christianity has been a nightmare. Just centuries after the life of Jesus, the rise of Western Christendom contorted Christianity into an instrument of domination and violence. The church fused with the state, sanctioning empire-expanding crusades, colonization, and chattel slavery. Author Drew G. I. Hart challenges the church to wake up to how this past persists in the present, calling Christians to confront the living legacy of plundered people and lands in the name of Jesus.

Making It Plain offers a novel pathway for Christians to live out a decolonial and antiracist faith in the aftermath of Christendom: the convergence of the radical discipleship of the Anabaptist tradition and the prophetic witness of the Black church. In the witness of Black and Anabaptist Christian communities across time, we find a faith that takes the life and teachings of Jesus seriously. Despite oppression or persecution at the hands of mainstream Christianity, these traditions salvaged a liberating and peacemaking vision of Jesus right under the nose of empire and white supremacy.

Weaving together narrative history, theology, and practical guidance, Hart compells readers to engage the best of these faith streams to forge an Anablacktivist faith where everyone belongs, where everyone can thrive, and where everyone matters, especially the last and the least. The shared wisdom of these faith traditions offers signposts towards a Jesus-shaped, Spirit-filled, community-oriented movement capable of surviving and resisting new mutations of white Christian nationalism, antiblackness, and settler colonialism today.