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Chris Graham returns to the podcast to talk about his new (and first) book, Faith, Race, and the Lost Cause: Confessions of a Southern Church. His book looks at the history of St. Paul’s in Richmond. The church became famous for being where two prominent Confederates–Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis–worshipped during the Civil War. In the latter years of the 19th century, the church became a centerpiece of the Lost Cause in Richmond. 

Before the civil rights movement swept the South in the post-WWII era, St. Paul’s was a conservative place that believed–as did most of the South–in paternalism and the wisdom of Jim Crow society. Even more progressive movements, like the Social Gospel of the 1920s, failed to make a dent in the church’s racial attitudes.

By the late-60s, though, Richmond’s politics and racial demographics had changed significantly. St. Paul’s finally began to break down barriers between the races, though the struggle continues to this day. Dr. Graham’s book is a result of the church reckoning with its past, and Faith, Race, and the Lost Cause is a timely book that addresses issues made only more important in the wake of the Black Lives Matter and the removal of Civil War monuments in Richmond.

Buy Chris’s book here: https://www.amazon.com/Faith-Race-Lost-Cause-Confessions/dp/0813948800/ref=sr_1_1?crid=N8RJONZMUJYT&keywords=chris+graham+race&qid=1682791062&sprefix=chris+graham+race%2Caps%2C80&sr=8-1