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I read a tattered copy of John Perkins’s With Justice for All as a newly regenerated teenager in the 1990s. It had an indelible impact on my young Christian mind. If I had known that some twenty years later he would become a personal mentor and cherished friend, it would have been an unthinkable blessing.
John Perkins (1930–2026), or “Brother John” (as he let me address him), was born into the sharecropping world of rural Mississippi, during the Great Depression and the worst of Jim Crow segregation. He lost his mother to malnutrition when he was seven months old. At the age of 17, he held his big brother—a decorated veteran of World War II—as he died, fatally shot by a racist town marshal. After a civil rights protest in 1970, Brother John was arrested along with nineteen black Tougaloo College students. He was tortured and nearly beaten to death in the Rankin County Jail.
When he first shared these stories with me, I could still hear the gravelly pain in his baritone voice. Born nearly a half century after Brother John, I was raised in middle-class Orange County, California, in the 1980s. How could I possibly find common ground with a man who had such a radically different experience of America?
Turns out, lo and behold, the Jesus who set out to save sinners from every tongue, tribe, and nation is all the common ground we needed to form bonds of profound friendship and brotherhood. In Christ we were truly “one blood,” as Brother John was so fond of saying.
Meeting Brother John
Several years ago, as I was writing a book about Christianity and social justice, one of Brother John’s best friends put us in touch. To say that he warmly embraced me, a no-name amongst many vying for his finite attention, would be an understatement. After years immersing myself in the work of critical race theory—with its tendency to treat individual image-bearers of God as exemplars of their vicious or virtuous group identities, thereby inspiring suspicion, resentment, and self-righteousness—talking with Brother John came like a rush of water to my joy-parched soul.
‘It would have been the easiest thing in the world for me to answer hate with hate. But God had another plan for my life, a redemptive plan.’
In our conversations, I learned more of his story. After he’d been beaten by the police, he spent months recuperating in the hospital: “It would have been the easiest thing in the world for me to answer hate with hate. But God had another plan for my life, a redemptive plan. Jesus saved me . . . He saved me from what could have easily become a life of hatred and resentment.”
Years later, he spoke to me as if, because of our shared union with Christ, we were brothers. That’s because, theologically and in real life (for Brother John there was no distinction between the two), that’s precisely what we were.
Learning from Brother John
There was much to learn from my brother, new friend, and mentor who had poured his blood, sweat, and tears into civil rights, community development, biblical education, and gospel preaching. He graciously offered to add his voice to my work on social justice. I asked him what nuggets of wisdom he most wanted to pass on to the next generation of Christian justice-seekers. He offered four imperatives that had shaped his 60-plus years of faithful ministry, and I share them here in his own words:
1. Start with God.
God is bigger than we can imagine. We have to align ourselves with his purpose, his will, his mission to let justice roll down and bring forgiveness and love to everyone on earth. The problem of injustice is a God-sized problem. If we don’t start with him first, whatever we’re seeking, it ain’t justice.
2. Be one in Christ.
Christian brothers and sisters—black, white, brown, rich, and poor—are all family. We are one blood. We are adopted by the same Father, saved by the same Son, filled with the same Spirit. If we give a foothold to any kind of tribalism that could teardown that unity, then we ain’t bringing God’s justice.
3. Preach the gospel.
The gospel of Jesus’s incarnation, his perfect life, his death as our substitute, and his triumph over sin and death is good news for everyone. In the blood of Jesus, we are able to truly see ourselves as one race, one blood. We’ve got to stop playing the race game. . . . If we replace the gospel with this or that man-made political agenda, then we ain’t doing biblical justice.
4. Teach truth.
Without truth, there can be no justice. And what is the ultimate standard of truth? It is not our feelings, or popular opinion, or what presidents and politicians say. God’s Word is the standard of truth. If we’re trying harder to align with the rising opinions of our day than with the Bible, then we ain’t doing real justice.
Brother John would often call out of the blue to swap flashes of theological inspiration, confide his struggles, and pray with me. I’ll always treasure the day he FaceTimed me mid-lecture during my afternoon course on biblical justice at Biola University. I put him on speaker phone and he proceeded to finish the lecture for me, offering students a fiery master class on how to obey God’s commands, not suggestions, to do justice (Mic. 6:8; Isa. 1:15-17; 58-6-10; Jer. 7:5; 22:6).
Saying Goodbye to Brother John
In one of my longest and last conversations with Brother John, he talked much of death. Hear his words:
I’m living at the doorway of heaven…. aware that any day could be my last. Joy is all around me. My heart overflows with gratitude for this joy. It has not diminished over time. It grows more radiant each and every day, with the promise of heaven set before me. The hymn writer said it best:
Oh, I want to see Him, look upon His face,
There to sing forever of His saving grace;
On the streets of Glory let me lift my voice,
Cares all past, home at last, ever to rejoice.
Oh, I want to see him! I am almost there. I can almost see his face. And he is Joy!
On the morning of March 13, 2026, surrounded by family and his cherished wife of nearly 75 years, Vera Mae, the Rev. Dr. John M. Perkins—my beloved Brother John—entered “the doorway of heaven.” He is not almost there; he is there, beholding the face of Jesus!
May we honor Brother John the way he would have wanted, by starting with God, being one in Christ, preaching the Gospel, and teaching the truth, all in the Joy that is Jesus.
News Source : https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/john-perkins-tribute/
