Photo credit: mali maeder.

I’m glad for you, the readers of this little newsletter to be some of the first to learn the title of my forthcoming book. After a bit of brainstorming back-and-forth with my publisher, InterVarsity Press, and input from friends and family, here’s where we landed: Plundered: The Tangled Roots of Racial and Environmental Injustice. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to share some of the assumptions behind the title.

Plunder is a theme that runs through the book, particular in my description of the force which animates both environmental and racial injustice. For a couple of reasons, this is something that felt very important as I was writing. First, it’s been my experience that most people who care deeply about confronting systemic racism don’t see its connection to environmental destruction, and vice versa. If they intuit a connection, it remains vague: both are expressions of injustice. But, as I do my best to show in the book, the connection is precise and deep. I go as far as to say that addressing either racial or environmental injustice without addressing the other guarantees that our efforts will never address the root cause behind both.

I hasten to add that this truth has been articulated by others, long before me. In an article written in 2000, theologian James Cone claimed,

The logic that led to slavery and segregation in the Americas, colonization and Apartheid in Africa, and the rule of white supremacy throughout the world is the same one that leads to the exploitation of animals and the ravaging of nature. It is a mechanistic and instrumental logic that defines everything and everybody in terms of their contribution to the development and defense of white world supremacy. People who fight against white racism but fail to connect it to the degradation of the earth are anti-ecological — whether they know it or not. People who struggle against environmental degradation but do not incorporate in it a disciplined and sustained fight against white supremacy are racists — whether they acknowledge it or not. The fight for justice cannot be segregated but must be integrated with the fight for life in all its forms.

Second, without diagnosing plunder as the shared origin behind both of these planetary injustices, we will miss the opportunity to subvert both simultaneously. We will always be bouncing back and forth between the two, toggling between strategies and tactics. What I hope will become clear in the book is that there is a way for communities to live together which undercuts the destructive power of racism and environmental degradation at the same time. We don’t have to choose.

The subtitle elaborates on the inherent connection between the two forms of injustice. And the image of roots points toward the vision for holistic justice which I hope will capture readers’ imaginations. I won’t say more about that vision for now but, while the book necessarily digs into the intertwined character of racial and environmental injustice, I spend as much time articulating a way of life that is beautiful, good, and genuinely attractive. (You’ll have to decide whether I was successful!) I want this book to not only analyze what we’re up against but to make accessible the kind of life whose goodness is evident both by its attractiveness and the blessing it offers to our wounded world.

One last thing that is worth mentioning: There is a lot of Jesus in this book. This wasn’t intentional. Rather, I found that in both my analysis and vision for comprehensive justice, again and again Jesus was the entryway. To say it differently, take Jesus away and the story and logic in Plundered totally falls apart. I’m hopeful that those readers who aren’t Christian will find a vision for Jesus and what he makes possible that is worth grappling with. And for Christians, I hope the book will wake us up to the indescribable treasures we have been given in our Lord’s life, death, and resurrection. Truly, Jesus changes everything.

Plundered is scheduled for an October 8 publication date. I got to see some potential covers this weekend and I’ll share the final choice here once we’ve made that decision.