I live in the city, and yet, I grew up in white suburbia. I cannot not help but carry with me the juxtaposition between the two. You see, where I grew up it was safe, free from drug dealers and trash on the streets. My family had the means to send me to a good school. (No doubt due to my ancestral line of white privilege.) Yes, my parents worked incredibly hard to give me the opportunities I have. When I look around my neighborhood though, I see parents working hard too, but their kids have nothing to show for it.
My life’s journey is beginning to show me just how segregated our society is, with minorities in the ghettos and majorities in the suburbs. This however, is not America’s most segregated point. No, the most segregated time occurs across America every Sunday morning. For some reason, when it comes to the sacred act of worship, Blacks stick with Blacks, Latinos with Latinos, the rich with the rich, and the poor with the poor. There is something comfortable in worshiping next to what we know. It keeps us safe from questioning who we are.
The fact that churches are segregated is something I learned in a sociology course I took. However, the recent events around Obama’s campaign illustrate this dark reality in strikingly obvious terms. As I have been reading up on Jeremiah Wright (Obama’s reverend), I am not taken back by what he says. I can see perfectly well why he feels the way he does. I however, find myself pondering what the societal ramifications would be if the Christian church was One. What would it look like if rich worshiped with poor? Asian with Latino, Black with White? I cannot help but to think that if this Church, which is the social network with the most power, resources and people to mobilize and facilitate change in America. If it were to unite, all walls surrounding race and social class in America would slowly fade away.
A lot of Christians today, are talking about the Kingdom of God coming to Earth. They are trying to invoke and embody the alternative, and they are doing so in wonderfully beautiful ways. Yet they are missing the one way that could actually make their dreams come true.
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I agree, and these boundaries are so solid that it is very hard to break these walls down. However through worship the walls of Jericho fell (credit to Shane Claiborne for that quote) so I think that if the focus is on the Kingdom of God and worship to our Lord then it will happen.
The far worse reality is that if we become so overtaken with the idea of activism that we lose sight of Jesus, we will be just as bad if not far worse than our preceeding generation. Which was so overconcerned with religious attitudes and outward shows of faith that we are now cleaning up their mess in the church. This overephasis on activism is of the same spirit.
I think if we focus on Jesus we will find the attitude He has for this generation, which is probably a mixture between dissent toward a corrupt goverment and a love towards the people running it. It is not a moltove coctail neither is it passive attitudes. Claiborne’s book is pretty on point with this idea and attitude.
We also cannot become so overcome with this grace that we forget that God has a standard and a president that condones a perverse sexuality or abortion is not God’s choice, how could it be God’s perfect choice if he is not in keeping with God’s perfect will. This mean’s no president is really God’s perfect choice, however God may use them in spite themselves. The idea that being a continual homosexual is OK is absurd. It all hinges on what the TNIV would like to wrongfully translate “practicing homosexuals” and that there is a difference between those non-sexually oriented and those that are. Homosexual is a term used for sexually active gay men or women, not merely a man who reall really loves another man, the later would better be defined as brothers.
Now does Christ forgive all. MOST CERTAINLY. But Paul as well speaks of the fact that once Jesus saves that people will undeniably change and not turn back. In most Theology classes it is taught that salvation is truly exhibited outwardly as a result not as the cause of salvation, and the Epistle speak of this as well.
So while we have a Christian liberty it is not permissable to carry on in homosexuality as it is not permissible to continue in adultery. As well is it no longer necessary to continue in our “racism” that we were born into.
If some of you are wondering why I am responding with all of this, I am responding to the last two posts.
W.
A bit of hope :
I live in Canada and at my church, in the year 2007 we noticed a lot of new people that weren’t white and we are pretty stoked about it.
We got some latinos, some black people even a man from Afghanistan.
We find it pretty awesome, since they all would have other churches (latino churches or black churches) to go to if they had the chance, but they came to ours.
My church in suburban Philadelphia (West Chester, if anybody knows where that is) is, as far as I know, the only church in the town with a substantially multi-ethnic congregation. It’s essentially a white church reaching out to the black and hispanic families and residents in the neighborhood.
The only thing I find saddening about this is that this is, indeed, a minority among American churches.
A church that looks like the church. Fancy that, right?