The Segregated Church

Last week I had a great discussion with a co-worker.  It was one of those rare moments when two people, who believe in the same Risen Lord, can put aside all the anxiety over talking about issues of race and ethnicity to have an honest dialogue about such difficult topics.

It started when we began to discuss our plans for the Easter weekend and "Jill" asked me if there were any black people at my church.  I told her that we had some black people but not very many.  Then, I felt like that question has opened the door for me to express a recent lament of my soul...that the Bride of Christ is one of the most self-segregated institutions in America.

It seems to me that God desires all people from all nations to come together and worship him as brothers and sisters, yet we (who are supported to be full of grace and love) cloister ourselves away from those who are different.  And the sad thing is..."we" do it to ourselves.  There is no law or unwritten social rule that says we couldn't go to church together, its self-imposed.

I know that there are some diverse congregations in urban centers like downtown Atlanta, but head out to the suburbs and its typical to find either a 99% black church or a 99% white church.  This phenomenon really bothers me and I used my conversation with Jill to try and figure out some reasons why things are this way.  I had not gotten much opportunity to discuss this issue with anyone from a different ethnicity before, so I was excited to talk about it.

I told Jill that I felt as if musical worship style and an emphasis on temporal theology were the two main factors that keep white and black believers so separate from each other.  I said that I felt as if both sides are often two far to their respective sides and not enough in the "gospel centered middle."

On the worship front there is a profound difference in the musical styles of white and black Christians.  While the musical style of most white churches is heavily influenced by either old 19th century hymns or modern 24/7 (named as such for repeating the same 24 words in 7 stanzas) rock songs, the black church gets it roots from African tribal music and old slave spirituals.  This makes for a serious gulf in style.  The white churches are either stuffy or loud and somewhat disordered, while the black churches are rhythmic and extremely lively.

It seems to me that many believers put a huge emphasis on the style of music that they like when they choose a church.  If white people tend to gravitate to "white church music" and black people do the same with the style that they like, nothing can change.  We need to be willing and open to the idea that many different expressions of music can be used to glorify the Lord.  We should try and live out of our comfort zone and embrace the fact that musical style does not make or break a church.

On the theology front, we have a much more serious issue.  I tend to think that the church was an outlet for social issues within the black community much more than it ever was within the white community.  In many ways, historically speaking, the spiritual culture and the place of faith were the only parts of a black persons life where they could meet with relative safety and discuss the issues of their day.  Since much of the black American experience was riddled with racism and injustice, it was natural that the black church became a place that largely focused on issues of the day.

Rather than place a heavy emphasis on the ethereal theology of old dead white guys like Augustine, Calvin, or Edwards...the black church decided to use their platform as a means to achieve some temporal equality.  You see this particularly in the Civil Rights Era.  Of course, white people simply didn't relate to this idea.

For white believers, the church being about social change was a foreign concept.  White people have always been the majority in America and were never threatened into using the church as a means towards racial justice.  For white Christians the church was a place to discuss and worship the eternal mysteries of God.  To dwell in the content and context of Scriptures written 2-4 thousand years ago.  It was a place to escape the reality of our current time an to look forward to heaven.

Of course, both parties got the idea of church wrong because they both pushed their views to an extreme.  Black churches stripped themselves of the riches of a deep love for theology and Scripture while white churches got so heady and distanced that we failed to see the impact of the Holy Spirit in modernity.

Unfortunately, these long running traditions have continued and largely morphed into the abhorrent "prosperity theology" or "liberation theology" within the black community and a "dead orthodoxy" or "liberal activism theology" in the white churches.

I know that my thoughts on this deal with big caricatures and don't encapsulate all the nuances associated with the issue, but I think they do provide a good starting point to get the discussion rolling.  Jill agreed with my thoughts and said that she was personally challenged in this area once when her husband (a world traveler for his job) took her to a predominately white church.  She mentioned how the sight made her bolt back to her car out of discomfort.  I understand her sentiment, but I hope that all of us will, as she finally did, get the courage to move out of our own context for awhile and fight for more racial unity within the Bride of Christ!