What We Learn from the Black Church About the Culture War

2026-01-13

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Here in Birmingham, Alabama, I often teach about the civil-rights movement as the most effective faith-based movement for social change in American history. We have a bitter heritage of violent segregation. But the same city produced the heroes of the struggle, the ordinary men and women (especially children) who stared down the police dogs and fire hoses in the march for their freedom. Justin Giboney honors such heroes as pastor Fred Shuttlesworth and commends their example for today in an informative, provocative book, ...

Justin Giboney honors such heroes as pastor Fred Shuttlesworth and commends their example for today in an informative, provocative book, Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around: How the Black Church’s Public Witness Leads Us Out of the Culture War, published by IVP. Justin is the cofounder and president of the AND Campaign. The endorsement of this book by Bob Roberts calls Justin a “strange mix of Tim Keller and Martin Luther King Jr. wrapped up in his own personality and voice.” High praise!

In This Episode
00:00 – Jesus, truth, and critiquing our own side
00:33 – Birmingham, civil rights, and faith-based social change
01:00 – Introducing Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around
01:40 – The burden behind writing the book
03:07 – Family history and the Black church tradition
04:05 – Why Fred Shuttlesworth matters
05:14 – “Biblicist and actionist”: faith and public courage
06:05 – Nonviolence, moral discipline, and leadership
07:11 – Shuttlesworth and King: contrasts and complements
09:23 – Why moral progress isn’t inevitable
12:10 – Moral imagination and Christian hope
15:57 – What is the culture war? 18:44 – Humility, self-critique, and redeemable opponents
21:29 – Justice, moral order, and refusing false binaries
22:51 – King, the late 1960s, and the cost of a “third way”
25:26 – Militancy, frustration, and historical context
28:01 – Why Christians can’t abandon character
31:12 – Tyranny, violence, and ending debate by force
33:18 – Advice for young activists
35:19 – Frederick Douglass and critiquing your own movement
38:37 – Accountability, power, and political humility
43:36 – Christian nationalism and historical amnesia
47:24 – Final encouragement: civility, faithfulness, and hope