COGICWest.Org: Church of God In Christ: Western States Jurisdictions

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Welcome To COGICWest SUBMISSIONS

Sunday is the most segregated day of the week for the Christian church. While there are, indeed, a growing number of “multicultural” churches, here in Ourtown, at least, those churches tend to be white churches, founded by whites, led by whites, with white folks in the key power positions. These are ministries led by men and women who, following the conviction of the Holy Spirit, have made strides to reach out to the community at large, no longer satisfied by clear racial and cultural demarcations. Black churches, on the other hand, do almost no work in reaching out to whites. I’ve observed black churches being fairly hostile to or, best case, indifferent to whites, as we blithely go about our business of hollering and wailing.

In my personal experience, both here and back east, black churches give to the needy only reluctantly and exceedingly sparingly, and only after subjecting those in need to an invasive and humiliating battery of means tests. It’s meant to send a message: don’t ask us. The last place I’d ever go for help would be a black church, which is likely the reasoning behind their methods. White churches, by contrast, often support missions and other churches. They build schools. They invest. Black churches survive.

The fear of a black church, from many whites’ viewpoint, is likely not even racial so much as it is financial. Many whites become anxious about their property values when they see blacks move into the neighborhood. Having an investor's mindset, many whites view the arrival of blacks at their church in terms of value depreciation; perhaps fearing too many black faces will signal an exodus of their white congregants (and their checkbooks), replaced by blacks who will give little or nothing, or worse, will line up for handouts from the church's benevolent fund.

Multiculturalism, in practical application, is usually lip service. It’s usually surface. It usually has little or no teeth. To my observation, multiculturalism is simply a structure set in place to relieve white folks’ conscience while protecting their interests. Following unwritten rules safeguarding their investment, they open their doors to us, they warmly receive us, perhaps even recruit us to sing and dance and what have you. But the glass steeple is firmly in place. We are welcome there, to be sure, but are welcome much the way a houseguest is welcome: we are extended every gracious thing, but the house clearly belongs to someone else.

The black church whites SHOULD be afraid of is the black church of Martin Luther King, Jr. The black church of Charles K. Steele and Fred L. Shuttlesworth and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The black church of Rosa Parks and Ralph Abernathy. The black church of James Meredith, Emmet Till, and the Little Rock Nine. The black church of Maya Angelou and W.E.B. Dubois. The black church of Medgar Evers and Thurgood Marshall. We should all fear the black church of Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins who were killed while attending Sunday School when a bomb exploded at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on September 15, 1963.

Ironically, this is a black church most white churches would actually welcome with open arms. That black church, that effective black church, that powerful black church, could actually be a threat to white churches in a way the black church of today never could be. But the discipline, integrity, and genuineness of that institution likely would have made it a welcome addition to most white churches today. This isn’t a church today’s white church would fear, though they should. The black church many white churches fear is one they have absolutely no reason to fear—the black church of today.

The black church of today is nothing for whites to fear. We have no unified message. We do not, by and large, preach Jesus or even offer salvation. Watch the Word Network all day if you want, and count the number of times black ministers actually talk about salvation. Then count the number of times they actually spell out how one can be saved, the literal process. Then count the number of “offers” that pollute these broadcasts—books and tapes and DVDs and CDs for sale, cruises and conferences and all that mess. If salvation is offered at all (and I have never seen a black minister on TV offer it), the aggregate time spent offering salvation (if any) is only a fraction, the merest nano-sliver, of time comparative to time squandered offering deals, products, trips and conferences. It’s all a bunch of clowns preaching to the choir.

We have no apparent economic or political clout. White conservatives virtually run the tables at every election because politics are not widely discussed in the black church, and black Christians are easily as disenchanted with the political system as black non-Christians. The black church poses zero economic threat as the church is so fractured that no organized boycott of anything is reasonably sustainable anymore. Remember Black Solidarity Day, when black America is supposed to point out its economic and political clout by taking the day off—literally boycotting everything and not spending money on anything that is not black-owned? Whatever happened to that?

The biggest civil rights event in recent memory was the Million Man March on Washington, and it was organized by the loudest and most credible voice in black civil rights—Minister Louis Farrakhan, a Muslim. A Muslim who has won the hearts and minds of black Christian America, largely because no voice in black Christian America speaks as loudly, as truthfully, and as articulately as Farrakhan’s. We politely disregard his religious doctrine, as he does ours, and we make vague noises about all worshipping the same God.

I do not worship the god of Louis Farrakhan. Of Hagar and Ishmael. I worship the God of Sarah and Isaac. Of Jehovah and His Son Jesus. I respect the minister a great deal and applaud his courage and his efforts on behalf of social justice. But I haven’t forgotten who my God is. I talk about Jesus. I offer Jesus. I want everyone to come to know Jesus.

Today’s black church is in grave danger because they have allowed, generationally, a move towards a kind of social religion that doesn’t keep the banner of Christ front and center. Our pastors are just tired of preaching the same sermon over and over and so have gotten off on these flights of doctrinal fancy, trying to impress one another by how deep their exegetical theses might go or how colorful their oratory. They act more like TV producers, assuming the audience has been with them all along and thus they’ve already seen the episode where salvation was offered, so no need to re-run it.

We should be preaching Jesus. We’re not. We’re just not. We’re entertaining the crowd, saying what itching ears want to hear and embracing men like Farrakhan because there are none among us with the strength of character to stand up for what they believe. We used to be preachers. We used to be men of God. No we’re all a bunch of pot-bellied clowns.

So, I do understand the anxiety. I do understand the hesitation, and I do understand the safeguards white ministries put in place before “welcoming” blacks and other minorities into their midst. That hesitation is fair condemnation of not our culture, not our race, but of our failure to honor the proud legacy of men and women who suffered and died to make our materialistic, petty, lazy, selfish way of life possible. That’s the root of white anxiety. I understand it. After all, it’s not a church I want any part of, either.

The very best sense of multiculturalism never needs to be announced. A truly multicultural church never has to actually call itself “multicultural.” A truly multicultural church will be all things to all people, that all visitors might find something of themselves there in your worship, in your smile, in your love. And they’ll know they’ve come home.

6Darfur

Zero. That’s the number of times I’ve heard the crisis in the Darfur region of The Sudan mentioned from a black pulpit or from a black TV ministry. The ongoing African genocide, which the U.N. has characterized as, “the world's worst current humanitarian crisis,” has not, in my hearing, been spoken of from a black pulpit here. The Bush administration and major US news outlets have also given the crisis, which has resulted in 60,000 (US State Dept.) to 400,000 (Coalition for International Justice estimate) deaths, short shrift. It is an ongoing disaster and terrible shame for black people to be so unconcerned about back people. For the black church to be seemingly unaware of the conflict, it’s origins, efforts to stem the violence, or the Bush administration’s response. For the black church to be so obsessed over Annual Days, anniversaries, musicals and other pageants and to leave our people so under informed about the world around them.

6Who Is Adrianne Archie?

This may very well be the most sensual Christian album ever recorded. Adrianne Archie's music reminds me of being in love, of what that felt like. The CD radiates an unapologetic sensuality that translates into an unapologetic and uninhibited humanity—a full and complex humanity, not the plastic, “safe” humanity of most Gospel releases. Archie seems to live in the same world we do. As such, she seems to be able to speak to us with the authority of someone who's in the struggle with us. She earns our trust because she appears to be human in every dimension, not just the “safe” ones.

6Daddy

Patterson's voice was his signature, a deep, resonant and flexible voice capable of expressing a wide range of emotions from solemn to sanctified. His voice had many modes, from “talk” to “preach,” from “whisper” to “quiver” to “sing.” He doesn't read Scripture, he transmits it. He doesn't carry a tune, he transports it. His sermons start off low and slow. He's in no hurry. He knows where he's going. The congregation knows he'll get there soon enough. Jesus told him not to change the world, but to preach the gospel. The gospel changes hearts. That changes the world

6Still Here

I came to a point in my walk that I wondered if God really cared. In the midst of the pain and being sick so much I just could not understand how a loving God would allow his child to go through all of this. I was hurting and felt all alone. I have learned that I can call on God even though I don’t understand why I had to go through this all. He has shown me that He has a 911 for me to call. The line will never be busy. There won’t be any mix up with the address. There won’t be any traffic jams to slow down the response. God is an on-time God. He will be with us in our time of need.

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