The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Race in the Church

Dear TJ,

Brother in Christ, I concur. Our inner-city church has wrestled with these issues over the last 35 years, and I appreciate the wisdom our pastors have shown. Here are a few thoughts based on what we have seen here:

From jump-street, I will admit there are some churches that probably can't help being homogenous, at least for a while; e.g. in a 1st-generation non-English-speaking immigrant community, like the Koreans in the 70's. But if they remain that way once the bulk of the community can function in the English culture, they run the risk of becoming mere cultural centers where one can remember how good it was "in the old country". Needed: the minority elders should attempt to cross-pollinate their flock with events, speakers, classes; surrounding majority elders should offer all assistance possible (ESL, financial, meetings) to their new neighbors.

Now for the big elephant, racial interaction where primary language is no issue, black/white/hispanic. (BTW, I think Pastor Ken Jones' take on the sorry history, of neglected church discipline and twisted theology, that led to this point, is excellent.) While a quota system to achieve an artificial "diversity index" would be misdirected zeal and boneheaded, our natural, fleshly abhorrence of the "other", especially where there is a history of hurt, produces an inertia which must be constantly resisted. Unresisted, this inertia, even if we consider our particular church to be officially "open", can send increasingly clear signals to "the other" about which is our preferred kingdom. This is true whether the church is mimicing the majority culture or the minority culture.

Solutions? Elders have got to cross racial, and if necessary denominational, lines to meet "other" elders and talk and pray and weep and plant and reap and rejoice and rebuke and repent and restore together; teach and lead their flocks to do the same; offer real, not token, assistance, from dollars to dogmatics. Although gospel preaching must scatter the seed wherever we can, other decisions can affect how comfortable the redeemed feel in the sheepfold. One elder has dissuaded his sons, though they would have been capable, from training to replace their father here, because one goal is to have the 2nd-generation leadership be indigenous.

I share your lament about under-representation of minority leaders in reformed circles; as real communication is opened, redressing those issues should be paramount and could have massive implications. I was thrilled when the president of Erskine Seminary in SC, in response to personal contact with one of our members, saw that the time had come to start to climb out of their rural stronghold and open a branch campus in Harlem. Other local personal contacts have opened classes that several of us have been asked to teach at a nearby RCA church. I am especially grateful that my favorite student of several years ago, an intensely earnest young black deacon in the predominantly hispanic church, who sees the cracks in the semi-pentecostal foundations, has now taken over leadership of the education division, and is calling us back this year to present: Intro Theology, Church History, Apologetics, Hermeneutics courses.

One final thought (for the rest of you out there!). Francis Schaeffer warned about dire consequences for church and culture if our callings are motivated primarily by the pursuit of personal peace and affluence. As one manifestation, I fear that a disproportionate majority of the Reformed community have "felt led" to live where the need ain't. James Montgomery Boice in Two Cities, Two Loves was a lot more blunt than TJ has been in his recommendations: