Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
Today we ‘celebrate’ Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy. Ethics Daily has a very appropriate column up today by Miguel de la Torre, entitled, “Help Wanted: Black Friend”. He uses a segment from the Colbert Report to begin a discussion of what it means to have diversity and integration in our churches.
Colbert’s approach to racially and ethnically diversifying his cadre of friends is unfortunately similar to the approach many churches take in trying to diversify their congregations. For some churches, the hope of diversification is more for the sake of political correctness than to create a new community.
About 30 white pastors gathered years ago to discuss how best to diversify their congregations to set an example to their community. Tired of preaching to a sea of whiteness, they wanted to have their congregations conform closer to the ideal church model illustrated in the book of Revelation where those surrounding the throne of God represented “every tribe, language, people and nation.”
While I appreciated their sincerity, I knew we were in trouble when I noticed that, including myself, there were only two ministers of color in the room. For about an hour the white pastors mainly congratulated each other for their foresight dealing with issues of diversity within their congregations and towns.
They went on to devise plans of action to achieve noble goals, such as inviting a pastor of color to preach from their pulpit, forming a committee with a church of color to bring the congregations together and providing charity to a church of color in financial need.
No one bothered to ask the only two ministers of color in the room for their advice or concerns about some of the ideas being floated. Finally, after an hour of listening to strategies that I knew would never work–and worse would give these pastors the excuse of saying that they tried but the communities of color were simply not interested–I spoke up.
Read his thoughts here.
I reacted to this column on several levels- one, the Celebration of a New Baptist Covenant is coming up. The purpose of this is “Unity in Christ”- including a significant component of racial reconciliation. The four largest African American Baptist denominations have been pulling out all stops, getting their congregations to come. I’m not sure that the denominations who are primarily white have done as well. The excuse for many not coming is that they assume the event will be too “political”. I don’t think so, but even if it were- perhaps the reconciliation that will happen in the name of Christ is far more important than whether one disagrees with a particular former politician who is one of many different people speaking at the event.
Secondly, for the Texas Baptist Young Professional Network, we want diversity to be a priority. But I am ashamed to say that we are not where we seek to be in connecting with African American and Hispanic communities and young adults. Thoughts on how we do this better? How we truly honor Dr.King’s legacy in our relationships? I don’t know about anyone else- but I am tired of hearing that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in the United States. I want to do something about this. And I have a feeling that it WON’T be starting in church, but in my day to day relationships.
