Unless a Seed Falls to the Ground: Welcoming the Death of the Whiteness Gospel

Available January 14, 2025

“It feels like a love letter to the church, the United States, and the entire human family.” Bruce Rogers-Vaughn

“This book is beautiful.” Lisa Sharon Harper

“Industrial-strength biblical…” David Dark

Whiteness is a way of being in the world characterized by ownership intent on being separated from others. The “whiteness gospel” divides humanity and metastasizes itself into self-sustaining groups whose most basic claim is some characteristic that values superiority over belonging. It is one reason James Baldwin can assess, “…there is no such thing as white community.” In Unless a Seed Falls to the Ground, D.T. Bryant shares the wounds and rewards of being a native son of this puritanical way of life with the hope of inviting others into a season of hospice spirituality that allows it to die with dignity. It is a plea toward a non-violent end with hope for a new beginning springing from a belonging detached from ownership and superiority. 

Endorsements

  • “This book is beautiful. In Unless a Seed Falls to the Ground D.T. Bryant weaves together the intimate, often hilarious and deep-as-hell story of his journey through toxic religion to grounded, yet mysterious faith. Laced with side-eyes and uncommon depth, Bryant's story reveals the struggle of a generation searching for God in a changing world. Having survived White Christian Nationalist religion, their search laid foundations for the deconstructionist movement. In telling his story, Bryant drops rich bread on the path for others searching for a way to health, wholeness and a faith that bids them to "hold out their hands."

    Lisa Sharon Harper is a storyteller, activist and author of several books, including the critically acclaimed The Very Good Gospel and Fortune: How Race Broke My Family And The World--And How To Repair It All 

  • "The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been co-opted by whiteness and it is time for all those who have benefited from and upheld the white Gospel to own, acknowledge, and repent of our complicity in these demonic doctrines. D.T. Bryant’s Unless a Seed Falls to the Ground is a powerful wake up call and blueprint for white Christians to trample on the idol of our false white Jesus and allow a renewal of the radically subversive message of Christ that can bring healing, restoration, and resurrection to a world that desperately needs it."

    Rev Brandan Robertson, Author, Dry Bones and Holy Wars: A Call for Social and Spiritual Renewal.

  • "Rightly understood, the stories of individual lives do not simply tell us about individuals, but the worlds which they inhabit. In this book, D.T. Bryant peers through the lens of his own life story to project a wonderful yet terrifying light upon our global village. Writing with wit and candor, yet with deadly seriousness, his passionate appeal for a “hospice spirituality” is an essential prescription during a time when most Christian churches in the United States are on life support, and when society as we know it struggles with its own terminal illness."

    Bruce Rogers-Vaughn, author of Caring for Souls in a Neoliberal Age

  • "As a children and youth minister, my attention is keenly directed towards the future of the Church in America and what we are offering our children. There is no shortage of books and articles that talk about why young people are leaving the Church, but they often ignore the fundamental root cause: The problematic disease of the Church itself. Bryant identifies this disease with integrity and honesty and calls for the cure as a kind of spiritual hospice, rather than a defense of the Church. He does not shy away from acknowledging his own complicity in the many iterations of systems and denominations that led the Church to where it is and offers a way out: a compassionate death of the institution of the Church in America as we know it."

    Rev. Flo Paris Oakes, Co-Author of Little Prayers for Ordinary Days, member of Rain for Roots