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John M. Perkins

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One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race and Love Kindle Edition

by John M. Perkins (Author), Rick Warren (Foreword), Karen Waddles (Contributor) Format: Kindle Edition

4.8 579 ratings

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Dr. Perkins’ final manifesto on race, faith, and reconciliation

We are living in historic times. Not since the civil rights movement of the 60s has our country been this vigorously engaged in the reconciliation conversation. There is a great opportunity right now for culture to change, to be a more perfect union. However, it cannot be done without the church, because the faith of the people is more powerful than any law government can enact.

The church is the heart and moral compass of a nation. To turn a country away from God, you must sideline the church. To turn a nation to God, the church must turn first. Racism won't end in America until the church is reconciled first. Then—and only then—can it spiritually and morally lead the way.

Dr. John M. Perkins is a leading civil rights activist today. He grew up in a Mississippi sharecropping family, was an early pioneer of the civil rights movement, and has dedicated his life to the cause of racial equality. In this, his crowning work, Dr. Perkins speaks honestly to the church about reconciliation, discipleship, and justice... and what it really takes to live out biblical reconciliation.

He offers a call to repentance to both the white church and the black church. He explains how band-aid approaches of the past won't do. And while applauding these starter efforts, he holds that true reconciliation won't happen until we get more intentional and relational. True friendships must happen, and on every level. This will take the whole church, not just the pastors and staff.

The racial reconciliation of our churches and nation won't be done with big campaigns or through mass media. It will come one loving, sacrificial relationship at a time. The gospel and all that it encompasses has always traveled best relationally. We have much to learn from each other and each have unique poverties that can only be filled by one another. The way forward is to become "wounded healers" who bandage each other up as we discover what the family of God really looks like. Real relationships, sacrificial love between actual people, is the way forward. Nothing less will do.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for One Blood

John Perkins’s new book, One Blood, is an open invitation for the body of Christ—whether a church, denomination, or individual—to take inventory of our progress. Are we living by Christ’s standards, or have we succumbed to those of the world? While the latest research reveals that the average church is stagnant at best, Christ has challenged His church to stay in the race and get His work done! John Perkins’s book poses some tough questions and offers practical advice for doing just that.
Tony Evans
Senior pastor, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship
President, The Urban Alternative

“Perkins rightly states that true reconciliation with our brothers and sisters ‘from every nation’ has been long overdue, and we continue to witness disastrous results. ... Dr. Perkins's insight and guidance on this subject are well worth considering by today's church leadership as well as individual members of the body of Christ.”
Rick Warren
Founding pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose Driven Life

I’m not quite sure where to begin with Dr. John Perkins’s latest and, perhaps, final book, One Blood. I think the best way to capture the heart of this book is that, ultimately, this is a love letter to the church. By this, I’m not suggesting that this is a nebulous or fluffy invitation to a feel good, pop psychology about the injustice of racism. Rather, it’s both fierce and tender, pastoral and prophetic, lamenting and hopeful. Dr. Perkins—both through his words and corroborated by a life faithfully lived—invites us to a deeper love for God and for neighbor—including and especially those that don’t look like us, think like us, or feel like us. And in a world today of so much pain, fear, and division, we need to desperately be reminded of God’s reconciling truth, grace, and love.
Eugene Cho
Pastor, humanitarian, and author of Overrated: Are We More in Love with the Idea of Changing the World Than Actually Changing the World?

This is a powerful, prophetic appeal to people of faith to address our nation’s tragic history of racial injustice. Like Daniel, Amos, and Micah, John Perkins has profound insight on the health of our nation and the sin of racial bigotry that has burdened us for too long. One Blood is an altar call for justice to which we should all respond.
Bryan Stevenson
Founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, clinical professor at New York University School of Law, and author of Just Mercy

John Perkins has been giving me a transfusion of reconciling love for forty years. We may be one, but John has always had the better blood, more of Christ’s healing and renewing love. So over and over, both for me and for so many, John has infused us with fresh vision and bold passion for God’s reconciling love and justice. This wise book testifies that that same blood is still vital and pumping hard!
Mark Labberton
President, Fuller Theological Seminary

I am so thankful that John Perkins has written One Blood. It is a must-read for all people. John carefully and powerfully weaves Scripture, his personal story, illustrations of true reconciliation with an encouraging style that brings hope. I loved reading it and so will you.
Wayne Gordon
Founding pastor of Lawndale Community Church and chairman of Christian Community Development Association

One Blood is indeed, in Dr. Perkins’s own words, a “manifesto” and the culmination of his life’s work and calling to realize biblical reconciliation. There’s a clear sense of urgency and candor about the days ahead for the church, the all-important role of the gospel message, and the baton that has to pass to the next generation.

I often say Dr. Perkins is a true national treasure. Here he has written his very heart and soul—a history and biography—in One Blood, and has poured all of himself out in beautiful, selfless love. This book is a must-read for any and all who share the burden for this ongoing fight.
Judah Smith
Lead pastor, Churchome (formerly The City Church)
New York Times bestselling author, Jesus Is ____.

From the Back Cover

THERE IS NO INSTITUTION
ON EARTH MORE EQUIPPED
OR MORE CAPABLE OF BRINGING
TRANSFORMATION TO THE CAUSE
OF RECONCILIATION THAN

THE CHURCH

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0722K4GD4
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Moody Publishers (April 3, 2018)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 3, 2018
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 10664 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 208 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #408,006 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #220 in Black & African American Biographies & Memoirs
- #233 in Christian Church Leadership (Kindle Store)
- #419 in Social Issues & Christianity

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4.8 579 ratings

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John M. Perkins

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John M. Perkins is a sharecropper’s son who grew up in New Hebron, Mississippi amidst dire poverty. Fleeing to California at age 17 after his older brother’s murder at the hands of a town marshal, he vowed never to return. However after converting to Christianity in 1960 he returned to Mendenhall, Mississippi to share the gospel of Christ. While in Mississippi, his outspoken nature and support and leadership in civil rights demonstrations resulted in repeated harassment, beatings and imprisonment. He again was arrested in 2005 year while protesting in Washington D.C. against U. S. Government defunding of programs aiding the poor.

In Mendenhall, Perkins and his wife, Vera Mae, founded Voice of Calvary Ministries. This Christian community development ministry started a church, health center, leadership development program, thrift store, low-income housing development, and training center. From this ministry, other development projects started in the neighboring towns of Canton, New Hebron and Edwards. Philip K. Reed, the previous pastor of Voice of Calvary Fellowship, has assumed the leadership of this dynamic ministry.

In 1982, the Perkins family returned to California and lived in the city of Pasadena where Perkins and his wife founded Harambee Christian Family Center in Northwest Pasadena, a neighborhood that had one of the highest daytime crime rates in California. Harambee is yet standing, running numerous programs including after school tutoring, Good News Bible Clubs, an award-winning technology center, summer day camp, youth internship programs, and a college scholarship program.

In 1983, while yet in California, Perkins and his wife, along with a few friends and other major supporters, established the John M. Perkins Foundation for Reconciliation & Development, Inc for the sole purpose of supporting their mission of advancing the principles of Christian community development and racial reconciliation throughout the world.

His many books include the memiors "Love is the Final Fight", "Follow Me to Freedom," "Welcoming Justice," the autobiography "Let Justice Roll Down", "With Justice for All", "A Quiet Revolution" and "Linking Arms, Linking Lives".

Visit www.jmpf.org for more information

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K. Cluck

A great glimpse at the heart of one transformed by Christ

Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2024

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I grew up in a time when segregation was illegal, but it was still a quiet reality. This book is a great reminder that no matter how far we have come, there is still more to do. It is also a great reminder of Christ's desire for his people to forgive, to reconcile, and to love.

Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2018

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When older people are nearing the latter years of their life, it is important for us to listen to their years of wisdom being shared as they leave their legacy for us to learn from and build upon. This is the case for John Perkins, an elder statesman of the Christian faith and of civil rights (among other things) who has written another masterpiece that is full of needed insight and prophetic words for our time – One Blood: Parting Words to the Church on Race (Moody Publishers, 2018). For Perkins, this is his bottom line urgent message that he wishes to directly inject into our way of thinking and our way of living in these days of confusion, hatred, and violent behavior. It is a message of recognizing that we who are humans are one race who together must set aside our differences and move toward biblical reconciliation that Perkins would say removes our tensions while restoring our relationships as we love one another in practical ways.

The book itself is a life-time of lessons shared as a blueprint for needed change. The key to this change, which is consistently reinforced throughout the book, is found in the Church. As noted in the introduction, “[C]ommunity development can only take us so far – because this is a gospel issue. The problem of reconciliation in our country and in our churches is much too big to be wrestled to the ground by plans that begin in the minds of men. This is a God-sized problem. It is one that only the Church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can heal. It requires the quality of love that only our Savior can provide. And it requires that we make some uncomfortable confessions.” The recipe for this pursuit of justice is what Perkins lays out simply, boldly, and clearly: know who we are as human beings and as the Church of Jesus Christ, practice lament, confession, forgiveness, and repentance, persevere, pray, and pursue love. To help show us that these things are realistic and possible, there are even four stories of local churches who are putting these things into practice highlighted for us to glean from.

As a Christ-follower, I have always committed to trying to live in the way that Perkins describes here (and in his other writings) – so I find this as another fresh reminder of things that I need to be doing myself, even as I find myself gaining some new insights along the way. As a pastor, I have consistently tried to model this and teach the same ideas to the people in my spiritual care (as a college professor, the same is true in the classroom and with my students) – so I find myself vigorously nodding in agreement when, in chapter one, he writes that “the black church can’t fix this. And the white church can’t fix this. It must be the reconciled Church, black and white Christians together imaging Christ to the world.” He adds later, at the chapter’s end, that it’s “going to take intentionally multiethnic and multicultural churches to bust through the chaos and confusion of the present moment and redirect our gaze to the revolutionary gospel of reconciliation.”

Most of the time, I find at least some degree of disagreement with an author or a book. But honestly, in this case, I am finding it difficult to find anything significant – or anything at all – with which to disagree. I’m not saying that this is the perfect book or that John Perkins is a perfect man who never has anything wrong to say. I’m just saying that this book, One Blood, is one of the most important books to read at this time in our nation’s history. It is a gold mine of wise instruction that will serve well as a very practical tool for use in ministry, teaching, and discussions with various people. I believe this book to be an invaluable resource for the Church, with implications reaching far beyond the black-white struggle that is most prominent in our culture and throughout our communities. I highly recommend this book to all who follow Jesus, and even to those who don’t. I especially commend it to pastors, church leaders, denominational executives, college and seminary professors, and anyone interested in pursuing true reconciliation within a context of broken relationships, especially those broken along ethnic lines.

Well done, Dr. Perkins, well done. Thank you for your faithfulness to Christ and to the cause, and for the influence you continue to have in our lives!

29 people found this helpful

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EM

Beautiful book!

Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2023

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I am an avid reader. That being said, I have NEVER read a book that has impacted me so strongly! Quite a statement, I know. In "One Blood", Mr. Perkins has given us this beautiful and heartfelt epistle. So sorely needed in these times. Pick it up, you will not regret it

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2023

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Read it, please. We need this message. So much wisdom, gentleness, kindness, love, truth, forgiveness, and grace.

One person found this helpful

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S. Shockley

One blood

Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2023

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My husband is a very eclectic reader and chose this as one of his readings

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Ash Bush

One of the most important books for the Christian faith

Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2019

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The book practically reads itself, I couldn't put it down. It's all marked and highlighted, and already passed on to a friend. This will shape your thoughts on reconciliation and touch every part of your life - individually, as a family, as a church, systemically, all of it. The work of unity and reconciliation is so core to the gospel, I found myself marveling at the will and love of God, and felt a deep desire not only *for* true friendship, but to *be* a true friend.

John Perkins deserves sainthood, that is all.

8 people found this helpful

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Curtis Bush

Desperately needed wisdom for today

Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2018

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In a world stressed and divided by tribalism, John Perkins brings his decades of experience in civil rights, race relations and reconciliation efforts to illuminate the core truth that we are all of One Blood, and it is from that premise where love and hope and goodness can be found. When we see each and every human being as part of our family, recognizing and acting with our best intentions, then a path forward towards a more civil society is possible.

He draws from his deep reservoir of experience and highlights examples of those who are carrying the baton. I hope that everyone involved in difficult conversations regarding race relations would read this book and continue to live out the truths found in the gems of his wisdom. It won't be easy, but it's the path forward. And the church can lead it.

12 people found this helpful

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Chris Perkins

A Fresh and Challenging Perspective

Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2021

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John M . Perkins has been around for some time, so it feels somewhat awkward describing him as a "fresh" perspective, but the way he presents his view of race and race relation is compelling and challenges the current status quo while continuing to put love first at all times. Really a relevation for me.

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