In 1976, Perkins published his influential book “Let Justice Roll Down,” codifying his principles of relocation, redistribution and reconciliation — known as Perkins’ “Three Rs”— as a way to address systemic racism with social action.
“Justice is an economic issue,” Perkins told Religion News Service. “It’s the management and stewardship of God’s resources on the Earth.”
John Perkins reads the Bible in 1975. Photo courtesy of the John and Vera Mae Perkins Foundation
In 2006 Christianity Today placed “Let Justice Roll Down” at No. 14 on a list of the top 50 books that had shaped evangelicals over the previous five decades.
Ron Sider, former president of Evangelicals for Social Action (now Christians for Social Action), said Perkins has “phenomenal” influence, cultivating — possibly more than “any single American” — holistic ministries meeting both spiritual and physical needs of people in rural and urban settings.
The ministry at Sider’s Mennonite church in Philadelphia, said Sider in an interview before his death on July 27, “is modeled on John Perkins, as are hundreds of others around the country.”
Perkins encouraged “collective prosperity,” where wealth is distributed equitably, and living in neighborhoods close to the poor, something he has done in the South and in the West.
“I’d say a lot of white suburban folks like me were deeply challenged by his call to justice and to the three Rs of his ministry,” said Jo Kadlecek, communication manager of Baptist World Aid Australia, who was inspired by “Let Justice Roll Down” and later co-authored a book with Perkins after he sought her out.
“‘You know Jesus didn’t commute from heaven,’ he’d say frequently, referring to urban ministers’ belief that Christians who help poor and underserved communities should consider residing near them.
John Perkins speaks after being honored at the “Blessing of the Elders” ceremony at the Museum of the Bible, June 23, 2022, in Washington. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks
Perkins returned to California in the 1980s — in part to hand off the leadership of what he’d built in Mississippi, to let others develop those skills — and Perkins’ family founded the Harambee Christian Family Center in a high-crime area of Pasadena, offering after-school and teen programs and providing urban missions training to visiting church work groups.
“You win the trust of parents, you win the trust of community leaders, because you’re proving, day by day, that you want to develop children and young people,” said Rudy Carrasco, who served as the center’s executive director and is now a program director for the Murdock Charitable Trust in Vancouver, Washington. “I learned that from John Perkins. … And he’s doing it now.”
In 1989, Perkins cofounded the CCDA, taking his ideas from his own books and his own previous ministries to fashion an organization that urges thousands of annual conference attendees to focus on building churches and sharing the gospel in local communities while also renovating houses, hosting medical clinics and tutoring schoolchildren to prepare them for college.
Sider said Perkins’ efforts on racial reconciliation contributed to the “evangelical center” growing more diverse to the point that the National Association of Evangelicals — on whose board Perkins served in the 1980s — now has an African American board chair, an Asian American president and a woman vice chair.
