Know Your Place
Helping White, Southern Evangelicals Cope with the End of The(ir) World
Justin R. Phillips
Description
Know Your Place: Helping White, Southern Evangelicals Cope with the End of The(ir) World by Justin R. Phillips
White evangelicals have struggled to understand or enter into modern conversations on race and racism, because their inherited and imagined world has not prepared them for this moment. American Southerners, in particular, carry additional obstacles to such conversations, because their regional identity is woven together with the values and histories of white evangelicalism. In Know Your Place, Justin Phillips examines the three community loyalties (white, southern, and evangelical) that shaped his racial imagination. Phillips examines how each community creates blind spots that overlap with the others, insulating the individual from alternative narratives, making it difficult to conceive of a world different than the dominant white evangelical world of the South. When their world is challenged or rejected outright, it can feel like nothing short of the end of the world. Blending together personal experiences with ethics and pastoral sensibilities, Phillips traces for white, southern evangelicals a line running from the past through the present, to help his beloved communities see how their loyalties--their stories, histories, and beliefs--have harmed their neighbors. In order to truly love, repair, and reconcile brokenness, you first have to know your place.
Interviews and Events
Listen to Justin at Theology on Tap Chattanooga: "The Saddest Stories Are Best Told Slowly: When White Supremacy Hits Home"
Interview with Pastor Mark Conforti and an introduction to Know Your Place
Interview on Disembodiment, Evangelicalism, and White Supremacy with Reclamation Faith Podcast - Listen Now
Interview with Brian Allain’s “Writing for Your Life” on Know Your Place
Interview with the Knoxville Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) - Watch Now
Events
Schedule Justin for a book reading; or to speak, teach, or lead a discussion group. Contact Justin.
Past Events
Knoxville, TN
Knoxville Common Place
May 5, 2022
Book Reading and Discussion
Praise for Know Your Place
“In Know Your Place Justin Phillips examines the formative communities of his life: his racial community, white; his geographic community, southern; and his religious community, evangelical. He writes about how they shaped his racial imagination and about how the blind spots in each overlap and reinforce each other.
When Know Your Place was published a year ago, it addressed a pressing need in our society. That need is even more dire now as our country witnesses increased voter restrictions, book banning, and political pressure to keep teachers from telling the truth about white supremacy. Thank you, Justin Phillips, for this gift.”
“Know Your Place offers a rare balance of personal narrative, expert voices, and historical evidence. With nods to and quotations from great contemporary voices like Ibram X. Kendi, in addition to the necessary Martin Luther King Jr. passages, Phillips does not allow his own white voice to drown out the voices of those who have lived as the sufferers of racism. Rather, he uses his privilege and credibility to get his intended audience’s attention, to admit that he is not an expert but a brother, and to pass the mic to those whose stories we need to hear. He reminds us that white, Southern Evangelicals will have to work and listen together if we want to make some better memories in this place.”
“In Know Your Place, Phillips has done the hard work of confronting his own demons, wresting them of their power by telling hard truths. His courageous story invites those of us who bear the name Southern white evangelicals to do the same, to come face to face with the ugliness of our shared history and to be brave enough to do something about it. A powerful, convicting read perfect for church and classroom study.”
“I could not stop reading! Phillips’s impressive scholarship, gripping life experiences, and piercing reflections glued me to the book! His spellbinding storytelling left me feeling, ‘he’s one of us, ‘ only smarter, better read, more honest—just the wise guide needed to lead us through our own story into a shared future of hope. Neither an unloving critic, nor uncritical lover, Phillips leads us to a wholesome celebration of our place with all in the body of Christ.”
