Love Outside the Lines: Beyond the Boundaries of Race, Difference, and Preference

In the introduction to this book about a Christian approach to social justice and antiracism, Rollins, a Black preacher who led 2,000 people in Annapolis, MD, in a Walk for Justice 2020 event, observes that when people remove themselves from their comfort zones, they may discover that they have a lot more in common with others than they realized. This thought, commonplace though it may be, created within Rollins a sense of purpose: to seek tangible ways for him to repair the damage of the stark divisions among people in the United States. For him, that particular division is the boundaries of the racial divide between people of color and an entrenched, tin-eared white ethos. Rollins’s narrative, written in folksy style, is fueled by his evangelistic fervor for Christ. His book presents his belief that Jesus is a model showing how to break through racial prejudice, how to see with the eyes of the disenfranchised other, and, ultimately, how to heal divisions. In truth, the real substrate for reflection and discovery in this book is Rollins himself—it is his journey through ongoing racism that slowly unfolds in this work, complete with chapter-ending prayers and questions for reflection.