So if having a black man or woman in the pulpit does not change racism in our churches, what will?
Is our crusade for racial integration in mainline churches limited to and dependent upon people of color being in a position of crisis and need?
Does our hope of truly integrated worship hinge on merely sharing in the festivities, foods and fabrics of ethnic groups?
Maybe I am taking the conversation to a place it's not supposed to go. If so, I apologize in advance.
ReplyDeleteBut what if we stopped trying to build racial integration within the walls of individual congregations, and started integrating in our local communities with other believers from the other local congregations?
If we were able to connect the believers in a given neighborhood or town, and helped them all recognize that they are part of the same Body of Christ (regardless of where they attend on a Sunday), then couldn't we begin the process of integrating our lives, and not just our worship services?
This way, people of any color can go to any church where they are called to be, and forced integration wouldn't be an issue, because where they spend a few hours on a Sunday won't be the most important issue; rather, where you live/work/play and who you do those things with will become the focus.
I know this seems 'idealistic', but to me, trying to do integrated things on a Sunday is a poor attempt to place a band-aid on a much larger wound. Let's get to the source of the wound, and the surface issues will heal on their own.
Again, I apologize if this doesn't make sense, and/or isn't relevant to the conversation!
This makes total sense. It reminds me of my corporate life when Fridays were casual, and we were allowed to wear certain kinds of casual clothes. The idea was that for 4 days we had to look "professional" and then for 1 day we got to be comfortable. But the comfortable was still controlled (no sweat pants, no leggings for women, nothing with holes). Never mind the fact that we worked for a greedy and arrogant organization often with lousy customer service. As long as we looked whatever part they told us to on any given day and for any specific agenda.
ReplyDeleteI came to realize that "casual" in the corporate world really meant whatever was on the mannequins at the J.Crew or Banana Republic, which was worlds away from my reality.
What I meant in the corporate casual day comment was: It's all about appearance.
ReplyDeleteAgree with anonymous, integrated worship will be a natural by-product of integrated communities. Integrated communities will become a greater reality when each one of us seeks out significant relationships with persons culturally different from ourselves.
ReplyDelete“Integrated communities” seem to have a class-driven boiler-plate in our country. Uppity, educated blacks usually insist on living around educated, upper class whites, or in places like Atlanta, they may settle for uber-upper-class black neighbors. Middle-class suburban blacks and whites can hang together pretty well, but peripherally, in some areas. Far less often do we see poor blacks and Latinos living noticeably together with poor whites. Inner city yuppies seem to do the integration thing pretty well, until they have babies and move out of the city, and they usually do not intentionally head for integrated neighborhoods. So if we’re not creating integrated communities where we live, how in the heck can we create them in church once or twice a week? Many of the white congregations stuck in the cities and townships where they built their churches 100+ years ago are hardly true houses of worship. They are more so mere social services agencies to the constituencies around them, and in my experience, not much real dialogue or real anything, especially relating, is going on between these churches and their neighbors.
ReplyDelete