David Stark wonderfully displays how preachers ought to think about and then preach to contemporary American racial realities in the light of the gospel. He confronts the history and present harm of Confederate monuments and shows us preachers how to help our listeners think like Christians about matters that many would rather left unsaid. A wonderful book not only on how to tell the truth about our past but also how to do this truth-telling from the pulpit.

Will Willimon, Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry, Duke Divinity School, USA

You can never look at any statue or memorial erected on our streets or in parks, or icons in a church the same way after reading this book. It will make you ask, “What was or is the agenda? How am I being programmed to see the church, society, this country a certain way that may deny my humanity or deny the Christ in me or others?” David Stark forces you to come alongside him on a difficult, yet rewarding journey, particularly at this time in our country's history when it seems that everything that is not white, male, straight, or a certain brand of Christian is being eliminated, labeled as illegal DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion).

Using personal insight, historic dedication speeches, past and current sermons and speeches, experiences of naming commissions (to either remove statuary or build new ones), Stark will upset many who believe these graven images to whiteness are sacrosanct, and perhaps should not even be the subject of preaching. “What's the moral or spiritual problem with making these graven images,” asks Rabbi Michael Rose Knopf in this thought-provoking treatise? In addition to confederate memorials, what are the church's graven images that control the narrative of who's in who's out, who's valued, who's not, without specifically naming that narrative? From the very beginning as I read, trauma, a wound was re-opened. Trauma, a wound that might be healed over, but is at the ready to remind you of a hurt you might have thought was over.

It was traumatic working on the National Cathedral's committee considering the removal of the Lee-Jackson (Robert E. Lee/Stonewall Jackson) stained glass windows. There was hemming and hawing and excuses and justifications made for not removing them. It took the murder of Heather Heyer during the “Unite the Right” protest in Charlottesville, VA, to get the conversation moving and then when the final decision was made to remove the windows, it was a Nicodemus moment. The windows were removed in an evening ceremony without notifying some members of the committee. More trauma. In Stark's words, monuments preach- loudly – they act as theograffiti that have the power to normalize the lies of oppression and inferiority, like Billie Holliday's strange fruit hanging from the southern poplar trees. Be they buildings, stained glass windows, or concrete or bronze figures, they are silent but visual weapons of domestic terrorism-reminders of the place black people are still to assume to maintain the false narrative of whiteness.

And yet our preaching can confront the theology of these monuments if we can move ourselves to accept that preaching is an art to what people say “yes” to and can repair the damage and lessen the trauma experienced by people, all people who view these monuments and/or visit our churches. Preaching can, as Stark provides, “repair rather than destroy our future” if we are brave. Preaching can “create ripples to confront white supremacy” and help to bring an end to a white supremacist world if preachers can hold on to empathy, how people might feel being in the presence of these, specifically, confederate memorials that are an ode to whiteness. This empathy can be the catalyst that finally gets us to becoming the beloved community we pray and preach about, but so far, have yet to achieve.

Stark makes a compelling argument that the horcruxes of this country, created to memorialize primarily white men who were responsible for the killing of souls and bodies, both those in captivity and those on the battlefield, need to be exorcised from our country, but in a way that does not erase history as traumatic and hurtful as it may be. These citadels of division need to tell the whole story of our country, but how is that to be done in a way that is healing? These monuments have a theology, a way of thinking about and living into one's God, a God of division, rather than one of love. There is a mixing of Christianity with white supremacy and the religion of Jesus is the loser.

And yet, in addition to empathy, there is the notion of proximity as demonstrated as Stark took seminarians on pilgrimages to the Equal Justice Initiative's Memorial to Peace and Justice and the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, AL. As part of the pilgrimage, the participants were required to prepare sermons based on their experience and it was the proximity to the violence, proximity to the history that these pilgrims indicated were life-changing, to the point where some indicated their preaching would be changed forever. How do we preach or do we preach for the removal of confederate memorials or if they remain, preach/teach a more complete history when we understand how lies can normalize oppression even in the church; how lies can kill as we remember the lynchings of Black people and the killings of Ahmaud Arberry, Walter Scott, Breonna Taylor, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin and others too numerous to list.

This book should be required reading for every seminarian, for every church dissecting their history as it relates to race, and anyone who truly wants a country where all are free to live into their God-given talents. This book is a blessing.

Rev Dr Gayle Fisher-Stewart, Chaplain, Takoma Park Police Department, Maryland, USA

What a timely and necessary volume! With theological depth and prophetic clarity, David M. Stark equips pastors and public theologians to engage in transformative, anti-racist proclamation that reshapes sacred spaces and reclaims community memory. Essential reading for all who seek to preach justice in contested places.

The Rev. Sunggu A. Yang, Associate Professor of Theology & Christian Ministries, Department of Theology, George Fox University, USA

David Stark holds careful, historical research alongside a grounded hope in God's Spirit to convict, redirect, and heal through gospel proclamation. It is rare to find a book as clear-eyed in its exegesis of embedded sin and as committed to the transformative value of engagement. Weaving primary documents, international examples, and performative analysis with a Christian commitment to reparative justice, Stark argues that preaching is necessary in confronting the "sermons" of white supremacy. For readers who doubt that racist mountains can move, Stark insists that preaching changes hearts and local landscapes alike. Preaching that Confronts Confederate Monuments is a bold affirmation of preaching's critical role in healing the nation's deepest wounds.

Rev. Dr. Jerusha Matsen Neal, Associate Professor of Homiletics, Duke Divinity School, Duke University, USA

This book by David Stark underlines the relevancy and urgency of preaching today in particular in an era that calls for decolonization. Monuments play an important role in this regard, as symbols of power, often used against the vulnerable, living on the margins, without power. Preaching of the Gospel not only calls into remembrance what God has done, but also what we have done, in order not only to recover our past, but also to uncover where abuse took place. This book offers a remarkable, and timely uncovering in at least two regards: we cannot monumentalize the living God, and we cannot hide behind monuments against our trespasses against the vulnerable.

I highly recommend this book, not only for preachers, but to all who are interested in the strange, vulnerable power of the Gospel.

Professor Johan Cilliers, Department of Practical Theology and Missiology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Many preachers want to know, “How do I engage in meaningful anti-racist and anti-colonial preaching?” Through careful historical work and incisive interdisciplinary analysis, Stark summons us into this work by interrogating the ways that Confederate monuments form social imagination and engage in their own proclamation, and by inviting us into the imaginative and liberative work of “homiletic confrontation” with these monuments. This book charts an important new path for homiletics.

Richard W. Voelz, Union Presbyterian Seminary, USA