The call for justice reverberates from the Bible. Yet many Christian activists see their advocacy for justice as more significant than maintaining doctrinal orthodoxy. It doesn’t have to be this way. Unless orthodoxy is maintained, orthopraxy won’t last. Christians need to find a path through cultural conflicts that maintains concern for biblical justice in the public square and biblical orthodoxy in the church. In Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around: How the Black Church’s Public Witness Leads Us out of the Culture War, Justin E. Giboney, an attorney and founder of the AND Campaign, challenges readers to retrieve the black church’s history as a way to help Christians hold on to justice and truth with both hands. He argues that a robust Christianity includes a political witness that takes more than “verbalizing conviction.” It also includes “the application of our convictions” (7). Though political quietism is a perpetual temptation, it isn’t a viable option. Giboney writes, “A faithful public witness summons our creativity to serve the Creator and partake in his divine masterpiece. You can hear it in the abolitionist’s petition against the slave trader or the righteous prosecutor’s indictment of the sex trafficker” (6). Christians must enter the public square. The black ecclesial tradition offers a historical example of faithful social engagement that flows from a distinctly Christian moral imagination. Develop Moral Imagination As the fight for civil rights unfolded in the United States during the Reconstruction era, around 2,000 African Americans held office. Many were recognized for their excellent oratory, which sounded like the preaching they heard or did on Sundays. As Giboney notes, “Their rhetorical techniques were soulful. It’s as if they’d taken the sacred desk and a Hammond organ, placed it in parliament, and made it their own” (8). It wasn’t just the form and cadence of their speeches that were shaped by the church. Each week, African American Christians were immersed in scriptural imagery through the Bible and gospel songs that helped them navigate oppression, division, and vitriol during the long fight for civil rights. The content of their vision for society relied on moral imaginations saturated with Scripture. Our moral imagination is shaped by the stories we tell ourselves. According to Giboney, “Moral imagination is the ability to see not simply what has been historically, what is in the present moment, or what’s likely to be in the future. It’s the ability to see what ought to be and what will be based on God’s capacity, character, and promises” (156). Unless we keep up our guard, our culture’s stories about freedom and individualism influence us in ways we don’t recognize. That’s why every generation has blind spots. What one generation assumes is good and right about race, wealth, or politics may be forgotten by the next generation. Unless we keep up our guard, our culture’s stories about freedom and individualism influence us in ways we don’t recognize. A well-informed moral imagination “prevents us from being enslaved by the moment” (163). It can help us see alternatives to the dichotomies about social issues that our culture often presents. But that only works if our moral imaginations are conformed to something beyond the confines of our cultural moment—something like the orthodox Christian faith. Explore Pluralism’s Potential Giboney’s preferred approach to political engagement is civic pluralism, which he defines as “the recognition that we live in a diverse democracy, where people are free to speak their minds and live according to their convictions.” A commitment to civic pluralism also includes “protecting others’ right to advocate for beliefs that contradict the core of our value systems and self-perceptions” (107). There are legitimate examples of civic pluralism from the black church tradition. However, we have to carefully examine how cultural conditions have changed. When we look back at the civil rights era, Americans of every race shared many more basic assumptions that tended to align with a Judeo-Christian moral consensus. That consensus is crumbling. Furthermore, civic pluralism tends toward proceduralism that requires protecting “the agency of others not only in disputes about how the national anthem should be sung, but also in conflicts regarding when life begins and how it should end” (107–8). Yet these examples aren’t morally equivalent. Choosing whether or not to sing the national anthem is a minor concession. However, a version of civic pluralism that refuses to outlaw elective abortion or euthanasia presumes a particular understanding of the value of human life, effectively marginalizing a robustly Christian vision for the public square. It’s clear that Giboney opposes abortion, but it isn’t clear how that works out in legislative terms. Giboney’s preference for civic pluralism is understandable as calls for authoritarianism rise from the right and the left. Still, American society would greatly benefit from a principled pluralism instead. Principled pluralism advocates for equal treatment of different faith communities in both public and private life, despite significant differences in moral imagination. For example, Abraham Kuyper’s principled pluralism promoted a Christian worldview as the guide for a political framework without unduly marginalizing minority viewpoints. Retrieve the Black Church’s History Giboney’s basic argument is correct that recovering the black ecclesial tradition would benefit contemporary Christians caught up in the culture war. Throughout most of its history, the black church tradition has pursued both public justice and orthodoxy without apology. Every tradition has nuances and outliers. However, as Walter Strickland argues in Swing Low, four theological anchors have held black Christians to doctrinal orthodoxy amid their social activism: (1) God’s bigness and ability to do great things; (2) the example of Jesus’s life, including his suffering; (3) the importance of conversion and walking in the Spirit; and (4) the Bible as the “Good Book” that informs and motivates both doctrine and practice. Throughout most of its history, the black church tradition has pursued both public justice and orthodoxy without apology. In Giboney’s account, the orthodoxy of the black ecclesial tradition is largely assumed rather than argued. That assumption leads to questions about the way a shared theology shapes a moral imagination that results in different approaches to activism in the public square. For example, in 1961, the Progressive National Baptist Convention split from the National Baptist Convention over disagreements about political engagement by the church. Though Giboney doesn’t present the black ecclesial tradition as a monolith, these sorts of contours are flattened in his account. Nevertheless, it’s undeniable that many civil rights activists like Willie Faye (Giboney’s grandmother) and gospel singer Mahalia Jackson were formed to pursue public justice by the black church tradition. Giboney has done Christians a service by bringing the faithful witness of these black women into focus along with the broader black ecclesial tradition. As Christians navigate an increasingly polarized culture, the black church tradition reminds us that good ethics come from true theology. In Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around, Giboney encourages Christians to pursue biblical justice without compromising on orthodox theology.