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Peter Slade's Open Friendship In A Closed Society

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In Open Friendship in a Closed Society, Peter Slade uses a case study of Mission Mississippi’s response to the racial disparagement of the state to pragmatically analyze Jürgen Moltmann’s theological concept of open and closed societies. This practice of applied theology reveals racial reconstruction and reconciliation through a theological lens and not merely as an ecclesial conundrum or Christian social dilemma. By utilizing a theological paradigm Peter Slade addresses racism and segregation through a lens, which measures Mission Mississippi’s actions against the perfect and just standards of God. In order to critique this approach we will address the approach of Slade and evaluate the effectiveness of his writing.
Many of the other books we have read in this class have taken an inductive approach which first record …show more content…

I found it very interesting how Christians with secular vocational calls began then Mission Mississippi movement, since churches had ignored their call for decades. For this reason businesses began promoting revivals and instigating desegregation activities. It is even more tragic that the church was not a silent bystander, but an antagonist of the movement by censoring the lexicon of reconciliation which greatly hindering the success of the ministry. “White Southern evangelicalism dominates Mission Mississippi’s choice of the language it uses to talk about racial reconciliation.“ In spite of the crippling effect of the church, Mission Mississippi felt it needed to incorporate the church into its ministry, since Christians should be the ones practicing God’s will for the church and the world. Slade explains, “Mission Mississippi presents its decision to work exclusively for reconciliation within the Christian church at times as a strategic decision, and at other times as a theological

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