Robert P. Jones is the president and founder of Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and a leading scholar and commentator on religion and politics. Jones writes regularly on politics, culture, and religion for The Atlantic, TIME, and Religion News Service. He is frequently featured in major national media, such as MSNBC, CNN, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others. He holds a PhD in religion from Emory University and a MDiv from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity, which won a 2021 American Book Award, and The End of White Christian America, which won the 2019 Grawemeyer Award in Religion. He writes a regular Substack newsletter at RobertPJones.substack.com.
A concise yet comprehensive combination of deeply documented religious history, social science research about contemporary religion, and heartfelt memoir. . . . An indispensable study of Christianity in America. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Jones builds his case with evidence, drawing on an eclectic blend of history, theology, sociology and memoir. . . . It's hard to argue with his conclusion that white supremacy is somehow genetically encoded into white Christianity in the United States. . . . Challenges people of faith to chart a new path forward. --Jemar Tisby The New York Times This book is a marvel. It manages to quietly excoriate the insidious, entrenched attitudes that continue to sow racial hatred and division and to show the large and small ways that they continue. Devoid of moralizing, this powerful, heavily researched and annotated book is a must-read for religious leaders and academics. -- Booklist (starred review) White Too Long is a powerful and much needed book. It is a direct challenge to white Christians to finally put aside the idolatry of whiteness in order to release the country and themselves into a different possibility. With clarity of moral vision, historical nuance, and the sensitivity of an artist's pen, Jones has written a critical book for these troubled times. --Eddie S. Glaude Jr., James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of African American Studies, Princeton University; author of Begin Again: James Baldwin's America and Its Urgent Lesson for Our Own White Too Long is meticulously researched and compelling throughout. It's also a damning moral indictment of the way white supremacy has infected the white church in the United States from its very beginnings--which lays bare the need, now more than ever, for white Christians to systematically repent of white supremacy. --Jim Wallis, Founder and President of Sojourners; author of Christ in Crisis? Why We Need to Reclaim Jesus In White Too Long, Robert Jones offers both searching personal testimony and a rigorous look at the facts to call white Christians to account for the scandalous ways white supremacists have regularly distorted and manipulated a faith dedicated to love and justice to rationalize racism. Jones is a rare and indispensable voice in our public conversation about religion because he combines painstaking data analysis with a sure moral sense. May this book encourage soul-searching, repentance, and conversion. --E. J. Dionne Jr., Columnist for The Washington Post; author of Code Red: How Progressives and Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country Robert P. Jones's searing White Too Long brilliantly argues that his fellow white Christians must dissent from their received faith and embrace a theology of racial justice. White Too Long is a prophetic call of redemption for folk who have too often idolized whiteness and worshipped America instead of the God of Martin, Fannie Lou and Jesse. --Michael Eric Dyson, University Professor of Sociology, Georgetown University; author of Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America