Views of the Church from the Liquor Store

As a child, Brandon C. Lovelace noticed the many liquor stores he passed on his way to church. It seemed to him you could see a church from anywhere liquor was sold-in his low-income, dilapidated community at least.

Views of the Church from the Liquor Store collects a series of poignant, insightful essays and short letters focusing on the complex interaction of social injustices-and how they interact to create and maintain oppression.

Lovelace bases his observations on a mix of personal experience, current events, and history. If only those who conform to a narrow definition of respectability are "of God," then what of the many whose income, sexuality, race, gender, or class disqualify them from entering this elite-and socioeconomically dominant-club?

Easy though it may be to dismiss the drunks and "sinners" from the comfort of a pew, the view looks very different from the liquor store, where the church seems distant and unwelcoming. Instead of judging and dismissing, it's time to listen to those society dismisses. We cannot afford to hide behind a respectability that is little more than poorly disguised racism, classism, and intolerance.

This is the view from the liquor store.