While black churches have long led the charge against racism, the white Christian community has largely held back, says author Jim Wallis.

He's on a nationwide mission to change that, including in Portland.

Wallis's newest book, "America's Original Sin: Racism, White Privilege, and the Bridge to a New America," is an indictment of white Christian apathy and inaction towards systemic racism. We interviewed Wallis about the book last week.

Wallis has turned his book tour into a series of town halls, meeting with local faith and justice leaders in each city along the route. He was in Portland Monday, and leaders gathered at First Christian Church in the morning for a conversation about Wallis's book and racism in the City of Roses.

The panelists were:

Leroy Barber, a pastor at Imago Dei Eastside and former director of Word Made Flesh

Jo Ann Hardesty, head of the Portland chapter of the NAACP and former state representative

Ron Werner, a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church

Adrienne Cabouet, a Black Lives Matter organizer in Portland

Here are a few takeaways from their conversation. Their responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.

Yes, Portland is friendly and liberal. But it has a race problem.

Cabouet: I'm from Boston. I've lived in New York and Miami and I can say unequivocally that Portland is the most racist place I've lived. It is subtle, but it is constant. It is people moving when you sit by them on the bus. It is not being called back when you see an apartment - showing up to see an apartment and you're told, 'Oh, there's nothing available.' It is white people touching your hair. It's pervasive. It's constant. Because it is so subtle a lot of people I know spend a lot of time thinking, 'I feel angry. I feel hurt. Is it just me, though? Or is it everybody else?' It takes a while to recognize that it's everyone else.

Barber: I've been in Portland almost three years and one of the shocking things for me is how much Portland celebrates whiteness. I'm still trying to get used to that. Whiteness is celebrated here. It is the center of culture. It is what everything else is measured up against.

Hardesty: We didn't declare a housing emergency until white middle class people started getting rent hikes. I find it ironic that all of a sudden we have a housing emergency, but 10,000 people of color were displaced from their neighborhoods and not a peep.

If you want to make a meaningful difference, it's not enough to preach a sermon series on race, share relevant articles on Facebook and/or show up to the occasional protest.

Barber: You've got to invest in leaders of color. Being relevant socially, understanding some of what's happening around the problem of prisons and mass incarcerations - we know that stuff, but the investment is missing.

Cabouet: It's important that we recognize that investing in the black community is an intentional process. White supremacy was an intentional construct. It's not a human nature. It was a capitalist strategy. This is going to require very intentional dismantling of the system.

Werner: Part of our history is that we get excited, as progressives, and maybe we'll show up at a protest once or twice. But how do we become accountable to institutions and groups that are working on this? When you're in relationship, you're accountable to continuing to show up. Yes, I am still racist and I still benefit from racist systems and I will show up in public and get it wrong and I will still show up the next day.

Not being blatantly, aggressively racist doesn't absolve white people of responsibility for systemic racism and racial bias.

Werner: There are Dylan Roofs of the world who actively go into places and shoot people of color. But for the rest of us, it's like the moving sidewalks in airports. We're just standing there, and the system is doing what it's supposed to do to move us along.

Wallis: If we benefit from oppression, we are responsible for changing it. I am a white baby boomer, the beneficiary of the biggest affirmative action program in the nations history. My father was a navy veteran from WWII. He got a free education in his GI bill. He got a house. My government made my white family middle class. All the white GIs got that. The black GIs didn't get it.

Hardesty: Hate is the loudest voice in our presidential election campaign. If we, people of good will, allow hate to be the biggest, the loudest voice out there, then I'm fearful. I've updated my passport, so if Donald wins I'm out of here. When we hear the stupidity about building a fence or keeping Muslims out, I wonder where the faith leaders are. That's not the God we worship. Where are our faith leaders? Are we in a church just having a sermon, or are we out on the street with the people?

Feeling guilt and shame isn't a helpful response from white people.

Werner: What I find with white students, white youth, white clergy, is guilt and shame. We tend to shrink. I feel like a lot of my work has been very personal - how do I not be led by guilt and shame? What I hear from leaders of color is that they don't need my guilt or shame. They don't need a shared article on social media - they need me to move from being an ally to being an accomplice. My great grandfather was in the Klu Klux Klan in Nebraska. I saw a photo of my mom dressed up in black face for Halloween when she was a teenager. Racism ran deep in my family and it still runs deep in my family. So part of my journey has been addressing my own narrative.

The goal isn't a post-racial society. It's a rich, multicultural one with equality for all.

Wallis: In the biblical narrative, I love the beginning of Genesis, and I love the end. Revelation 7: 'After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.' This is no post-racial society. This is no homogeneous Christian society. This is in the richness of what God created. It's a matter of getting back to the text and then applying the text.