Did God intend churches to be segregated?

Did God intend churches to be segregated?

http://www.app.com/article/20100711/NEWS03/7110336/Did-God-intend-churches-to-be-segregated-

By MICHAEL RILEY
July 11, 2010

Back in 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called 11 a.m. Sunday
"the most segregated hour in this nation."

Nearly a half-century later, his statement about church segregation
still is largely true.

For King and other Christian theologians, the tragedy of church
segregation was both political ­ one more sign of the racial divide
still prevalent in America in the late 20th century ­ and
theological. Christianity was supposed to break down racial barriers.

In his New Testament letter to the church at Galatia, the apostle
Paul wrote, "For all of you who were baptized into Christ have
clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek" ­ Jew
and Greek, for Paul meant different races ­ "for you are all one in
Christ Jesus."

It was, and remains, a grand statement of how the Christian church,
by definition, breaks down racial distinctions and sweeps them away.

That hasn't happened in America.

While congregations have become more ethnically and racially diverse,
the integration has been modest. And it has been mostly a one-way
street: More blacks are attending white churches but not vice versa,
according to Mark Chaves, a professor of sociology, religion and
divinity at Duke University and director of the National Congregations Study.

Chaves said there has been a significant increase in the presence of
some minorities in predominantly white congregations.

But there has been no corresponding trend within predominantly black
churches. Those churches are no more likely to have whites or Latinos
today than they once did.

In 1998, 20 percent of churchgoers were in congregations that were
completely white and non-Hispanic, compared to 14 percent in 2006-07,
he said. During that same span, the increase in predominantly white
congregations with some Asian attendees increased from about 17
percent to 20 percent.

Predominantly white congregations with some Latino attendees jumped
from under 30 percent to more than 35 percent, as did mostly white
congregations with some African-Americans in attendance.

"There's been progress," Chaves said. But there has not been any
significant increase in what he calls "deeply diverse" congregations,
meaning congregations that have roughly equal numbers of blacks and
whites, a relatively equal mix of black, whites and Asians, or a
sizable proportion of Latinos in a predominantly non-Latino, white
congregation.

But is this even an issue in today's America?

As Phillip Jenks, spokesman for the National Council of Churches
points out, congregational membership is a matter of free
association. People choose where to go to church, after all.

"I don't know of any large-scale programs in our denominations to
increase congregational diversity," Jenks says. "But that is part of
the normal outreach of many congregations."

He prefers to talk about a broader kind of diversity.

The National Council of Churches, Jenks says, is made up of 36 faith
communities ranging from Orthodox congregations to peace churches,
and from historic African denominations to mainline Protestant
denominations, all working together.

Catholic churches are substantially more likely than Protestant
churches to have some minority presence even when they are
predominantly white, but the jump in minority presence has occurred
in Protestant as well as Catholic churches.

Interestingly, there is no corresponding trend within predominantly
black churches. Those churches are no more likely to have some
whites, Latinos, Asians or immigrants today than they were in 1998.

"It is too soon to discard the old saw that 11 a.m. Sunday is the
most segregated hour of the week," Chaves says. "Our congregations,
like our society, are still far from a place in which color and
nationality are invisible. Somewhat like black-white intermarriage ­
which is increasing even though it remains relatively rare ­
increasing minority presence in predominantly white congregations
represents some progress, however small, in a society in which
ethnicity and, especially, race still divide us."

Church attendance in America, says Chaves, is primarily a voluntary
association of people, and people tend to sort themselves into groups
in which they feel most comfortable.

The Rev. Gil Caldwell, a retired Methodist pastor living in Asbury
Park who once marched with King, knows that racism was at the heart
of segregated congregations in this country. Now, however, he
believes that while racism still exists, the primary reason for the
continuing segregation may well be more "cultural."

Those cultural differences, he says, have to do with differences in
worship style: longer services, musical choices, and the
call-and-response style of preaching in predominantly black churches
presents a distinctly different church experience from white churches.

The Rev. Dr. Ronald L. Owens, pastor of the New Hope Baptist Church
of Metuchen for two decades now ­ and an African-American ­ agrees.
But he would go beyond that.

Some African-American pastors, he says, would go so far as to label a
black congregant moving to a predominantly white church an act of
"betrayal," turning one's back on one's culture.

"I wouldn't use that phrase," Owens says. "But it is a paradigm
shift," a different way of seeing the place of church attendance in one's life.

Paradigm shifts go both ways, he admits. There are a handful of white
congregants in the New Hope Congregation. Owens tells the story of
one of them who was in attendance when a guest speaker began calling
for support of an African mission project.

"And you know," the speaker said, "we can't depend on white folks to
take care of our people."

Owens said that his white congregant took umbrage at that statement
and later told the pastor about it. Owens' reply: "Oh, you know, we
don't think of you as white."

Of course, there is no reason to make a paradigm shift if you've never moved.

Mae Edwards was a charter member of Lincroft Presbyterian Church in
the Lincroft section of Middletown and belonged to the congregation
back when it was a community church. One of the few African-Americans
in the Lincroft church, she's been comfortable there, because it is
what she knows and loves.

And while one of her grown sons belongs to a black Baptist church and
another belongs to a predominantly white congregational church in
Maine, she is happy they are finding their faith needs met, she says.

That's mostly the point, says Ellieen Ancrum, director of the Office
of Black Apostolate for the Diocese of Trenton.

"Worship style is more than color," she says. "Church is finding the
place where your spirituality is nurtured."

Ancrum's own faith journey took her from Calvary Baptist Church in
Red Bank to baptism as a Catholic at St. Anthony's Roman Catholic
Church in the same town and eventually on to work in the diocese.

"We have miles to go," she says, before the church achieves the
apostle Paul's view. Nevertheless, she says, "We have wonderfully
diverse parishes in the diocese."

This dovetails with Chaves' research, which shows that larger
Catholic and Protestant congregations alike have more diversity than
smaller ones.

Ancrum believes that this diversity will increase: "Consider," she
says, that young people today go to school with and socialize with a
far more diverse group than ever before.

The church is still a work in progress, Ancrum says. And what
diversity reveals is "the experience of all to experience the One
whom we all serve and worship."

And today, it is in communitywide ecumenical services where the
diversity is displayed and made real.

Owens says the same thing about the ecumenical services in which he
has participated.

But he also remembers, in the South of his youth, when white Baptist
churches and African-American Baptist churches would exist side by side.

"And if you walked past them on a Sunday morning, you'd hear both
congregations singing the same hymns," he said. "The black churches
may have had a little more "swing' in their singing, but they were
the same hymns." At least now, he adds, there are opportunities for
them to sing those hymns side by side in the same pew.
--

Michael Riley: 732-643-4019; mriley@app.com

.