Praise for Woke Church

Eric Mason gives insight on societal, racial, and theological matters with proficiency. This book is a rare gem; few leaders are as competent and scholarly in how to address the divides and conflicts in society that greatly affect the church. This is a book I'll share for generations.

LECRAE
Grammy awarding winning artist @lecrae

While I barely missed the sixties, perusing the current milieu makes me feel as if we are back in those turbulent times. Another black body slain in the streets. Cops called on people of color for walking in their own neighborhoods. Divisive rhetoric from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Silent evangelicals muted by their own incomplete theology. It's time for the church to awake! My friend Dr. Eric Mason not only diagnoses the problem but provides tangible solutions for the people of God to walk in Christ-exalting unity. I believe when the dust is settled, Woke Church will be regarded as a seminal tome in what it means to be the church.

BRYAN LORITTS
Author, Insider/Outsider

Woke Church is a seriously important book dealing with a core applicational issue in the church and in our society today. It is seriously biblical, showing the connections between reconciliation, justice, love, and the gospel. What God has joined together should not be s eated and the church as a multiethnic, multinational body needs to better reflect what God designed it to be. This book helps us think through how to get there.

DARRELL BOCK      
Executive Director of Cultural Engagement and Senior Research Professor of New Testament Studies at Dallas Theological Seminary

So incredibly thankful for Eric. Woke Church is a timely and thought-provoking work to help us in these important times. He does an amazing job of giving us fresh perspective on the intersection of justice, race, and the gospel. Our culture is crying for a gospel-centered conversation on matters of race and justice. Woke Church is an instant classic that will help us both individually and collectively grasp the great opportunity before us to live out the gospel in these important times.

BRYAN CARTER
Senior Pastor of Concord Church and codeveloper of "33-The Series"

The Lord neither slumbers nor sleeps. But not so His church. We have constant need of being told to "wake up, you sleeper" and to "keep watch." We are like those first disciples in Gethsemane, spirit willing, flesh weak, falling over on our post. Sadly this has been true of the church when it comes to racism and injustice. We need an urgent call, a quickened conscience, an enlivened heart, a clear vision, and working hands to prophetically address with gospel power the ails of the church and the society. Dr. Eric Mason has thought as much about this as anyone in our day and we have much to glean from this clarion call to wake up and rep Christ!

THABITI ANYABWILE
Pastor of Anacostia River Church in Washington, D.C.
Council member of The Gospel Coalition

Dr. Eric Mason has done something remark able in writing Woke Church. From the very first page to the last, you will experience the wisdom and expertise of a theologian, pastor, and cultural architect who practices what he preaches. Buy this book. You will not regret it. It's time for the church in America to wake up. Dr. Mason is sounding the alarm clock.

DERWIN L. GRAY
Lead Elder-Pastor, Transformation Church
Author of The High Definition Leader: Building Multiethnic Churches in a Multiethnic World

Woke Church is a clarion call of love—the love that is at the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a word of knowledge long overdue for the evangelical context in the secular age. Mason talks with a tone that should mitigate the perceived fatigue factor that of ten leads to backlash, hostility, and/or dismissal on discussions of the gospel's implications for social and racial justice. Readers—those already woke and still asleep alike—who care for the souls of people perishing all around them should be moved to act with a sense of urgency for God-centered righteousness in society after embracing the Christ-consciousness of this great work.

ERIC C. REDMOND
Associate Professor of Bible, Moody Bible Institute

Dr. Eric Mason has done it. In a day and age when the church is looking to halt its increasing marginalization within mainstream society, seeking answers (like the rest of America) to our nation's still troublesome problem of racial division and injustice, and desperately hoping to gain disciples among the young, Dr. Mason provides the answer: we need to be "woke." Not just the blacks, not just the millennials, not just the left-leaning, but all of us. The entire Bible-believing body of Christ needs to wake up to the fullness of the gospel message — that Christ died to reconcile man to God and man to man, or in other words, that Jesus has called us to strive for both personal morality and societal justice. If the church remains stubborn and "asleep," it could soon find itself completely locked out of the public discourse. If it heeds the words of Dr. Mason, it could be empowered to spark revival.

CHRIS BROUSSARD
FOX Sports Television Analyst and Commentator
Founder and President of The K.I.N.G. Movement

Growing up in an all-white context in the Midwest, but now a part of a multicultural church, I've had to do much work to gain clarity on justice and race issues. I am thankful for Dr. Mason's work showing practical ways we can cultivate meaningful relationships that would cause the church to have an immense impact on this broken world, bringing true justice and true peace.

RACHAEL TURNER
Church planter wife, local church member, Living Stones, Reno, NV

This book is needed and Dr. Eric Mason is the one to write it. Eric is both a theologically astute pastor and a practitioner of the content. In our current cultural climate, this book will help to serve church leaders as they think through the implications of the gospel in church and society. Thoroughly biblical, rooted in history, powerful.

HARVEY TURNER
Founder of the Living Stones Family of Churches
Acts 29 US West Leadership Team

In 1933, Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the father of Black History, wrote a transformative book that questioned the effectiveness of the educational system in America for black people, called The Mis-Education of the Negro. Unfortunately his analysis and critique is still relevant today. In the same brilliance as Dr. Woods on, Dr. Eric Mason has written a book that I believe will be transformative for many years to come. Woke Church is written in a manner that provides an accurate historical and philosophical critique, while at the same time it constructs a biblical perspective that is needed. It is a must read in order to correct the dangerous mis-education of the church.

JAMES WHITE
Executive Vice President, YMCA of the Triangle

By highlighting the comprehensive power of the gospel to not only change individual lives but to transform communities, Dr. Mason compels the American church to take a hard look at its complicity in the development of racial inequality and issues a clarion call for the church to confront injustice in all of its forms. However, Woke Church does more than just reveal the church's shortcomings, but provides practical and Scripture-based solutions. It's a must read!

TIFFANY M. GILL
Scholar, writer, and professor of African American History

Many still see the gospel and justice as being mutually exclusive. Dr. Mason challenges this notion. He helps us to recognize that the gospel calls us to stand for justice. Not only does Dr. Mason push us toward the presence of God in lament, he also calls us to step into the presence and experiences of those impacted by racism.

JUMAINE JONES
Lead Pastor of The Bridge, Silver Spring, MD
Author of Lost in Love: Navigating the Five Relationship Terrains

I'm excited about Woke Church. My son in the ministry has written a classic theological and practical work that will aid the church in a paradigm shift as it pertains to the brokenness that is in our country today. Eric is a prophetic biblical voice the entire church needs to hear. Read this work and be inspired to renew you commitment to seeing Jesus work in our sphere to challenge and even change racial injustice in America.

TONY EVANS
Senior Pastor, Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship
President, The Urban Alternative