From Scapegoats to Lambs: How God's Word Speaks to George Floyd's Murder - Hardcover

by Charles L. Brown Jr. (Author)

Unlike so many murders of unarmed black and brown bodies by police officers, the viral video recording of George Floyd's modern-day lynching set into motion a Kairos moment in time, the impact of which is still being felt over a year later. How/Why did God usher in this season of transformation now? Can God's Word teach us how to reverse engineer communal violent scapegoating? What role can each of us play to eradicate police brutality? From Scapegoats to Lambs: How God's Word Speaks to George Floyd's Murder audaciously confronts these issues stemming from Charles L. Brown Jr.'s unflinching belief that God's Word is uniquely qualified to preach to and through the legacy of the suffering of black and brown bodies, and that the Lord has a way of humbling the powerful and empowering the humiliated. In adopting what he calls "hood hermeneutics," Brown joins the ranks of a growing number of unapologetic, black, Christian intellectuals unashamedly challenging the Church to mine the text with ferocious passion until it speaks compellingly to the struggle of those violently scapegoated.

Author Biography

Charles L. Brown Jr. is a Baltimore, MD native who is the founding pastor of Family of Faith African Methodist Episcopal Church, in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, and co-founder of The Virgin Islands Alliance for Consumer Justice. Before engaging in consumer advocacy and public policy in the territory, he served as Capitol Hill legislative staff for members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate and afterwards as a lobbyist for a national, non-profit called Teach For America. He is the owner of the website ServantLeaderMinistries.com, a resource portal that will feature diverse works showcasing how a distinctive approach to God's Word is able to inform and empower how we confront modern issues. He has been an ordained minister in the A.M.E. Church for over 30 years, and after sitting in multiple graduate courses under Dr. Cornel West while matriculating in seminary, he became relentlessly passionate about the nexus between faith and social justice.