This past election season brought race relations into the forefront of American culture. As a musician, pastor and black man, Jimi Calhoun has a unique perspective on race relations within the Church community, which he shares in his new book, A Story of Rhythm and Grace: What the Church Can Learn from Rock and Roll about Healing the Racial Divide. For years, Calhoun toured the country with diversified music groups including Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon, Elton John and Parliament Funkadelic.  Within the rock and roll community, Calhoun found a color-blind mentality—however, he could not say the same about his transition into the church world. For many, Sunday morning is still considered the great racial divide among modern church denominations. So why is the Church lagging in healing racial divides?

Calhoun’s book effectively identifies how racial division is prevalent and active within church communities. His personal experiences as a rock ‘n’ roll musician are entertaining, and divulge how pop culture has embraced racial diversity. The questions Calhoun lays out certainly challenge his readers to consider racial casting and cognition. Calhoun says, “Our job is to catch the vision of what our community would look like with no social stigmas attached to skin color.”

Heather Georgoudiou