Trayvon Martin Million Hoodie March in New York City was one of many such protest marches conducted in reaction to the shooting of the teen by a neighborhood watchman in Florida. (Photo/Frank Daum)

Periodically, racial tensions that have simmered beneath the surface bubble up, some Christian leaders note, illustrating just how far-removed modern America is from the “beloved community” envisioned by Martin Luther King Jr.

“We can legislate fairness, but we cannot legislate love. That is up to us,” said Mark Croston, pastor of East End Baptist Church in Suffolk, Va., and president of the Baptist General Association of Virginia.

Christians must lead by example to improve race relations, he said.

“I believe that all truly Christian churches must be open to racial inclusion and human compassion. We sing, ‘Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. …” This is true, so we must, too,” said Croston, an African-American.

Croston points to the vision in the New Testament book of Revelation of people representing every nation, tribe and language worshipping Christ. If Christians are serious when they pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” he said, they must “with intentionality work toward this reality.”

But the heavenly vision seems remote for many, and racial divisions remain a clear and present problem, some observers noted sadly.

Predictable pattern

When stories about racially inspired violence capture public attention, events follow a predictable pattern, said Alan Bean, executive director of Friends of Justice.

Inspired by preachers like Martin Luther King Jr., African-Americans in the early 1960s marched to secure civil rights. But some social observers note King’s dream of the “beloved community” still is far from reality, as evidenced by the recent rhetoric surrounding the Trayvon Martin shooting.

“When the status quo is threatened by systemic racial bias, the propaganda machine goes into overdrive. This normally involves the assertion that a liberal media is making excuses for thuggish behavior. If the folks on the receiving end of unjust treatment can be redefined as one of ‘those’ people, the horrific details no longer matter,” Bean, an American Baptist minister in Arlington, wrote in a recent column for Associated Baptist Press.

As the stories gain media attention, he continued, “America quickly divides into protestors claiming that the narrative du jour is a prime example of systemic racism, and debunkers insisting it is nothing of the kind.”

The church’s role

Historically, African-American churches have played a central role in providing a voice for people who have felt victimized and for exposing racism. In many cities, a particular church or a few churches continue to play a key role as ombudsman in the African-American community, said Michael Bell, pastor of Greater St. Stephen First Baptist Church in Fort Worth.

“It’s where people go for direction when they are seeking resolution of difficulties and solutions to their problems,” said Bell, a past-president of both the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Texas African-American Fellowship.

More specifically, African-Americans know which churches are able to do something substantive about their problems, he noted.

“They go to a church where the pastor has a reputation as being a prophetic voice,” Bell said. “My church expects me to speak up. I have never received a negative email, text or letter from a church member complaining that I was too involved in community issues outside the church.”

Elizabeth Eckford, one of the Little Rock Nine, is pursued by a mob outside Little Rock’s Central High School. (UPI Photo/Library of Congress)

However, in many—perhaps most—predominantly white churches, pastors do not feel that same degree of freedom, he added.

The African-American church has become even more relevant and gained increasing influence as racial tensions have heightened in recent years, Bell insists.

“Distrust and suspicions that had been under the surface have bubbled up. Racism has become more overt and evident in in the last few years,” he said, comparing racists to “roaches so bold they don’t run from the light anymore.”

A cloud of suspicion

Relations between white and blacks, even among Christians, suffer from a failure to address deep-seated issues such as the way African-Americans often are viewed with suspicion—a matter brought to the forefront recently when George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., he observed.

“It’s like putting cold cream on cancer. Unattended, the malady will intensify, because it hasn’t been addressed. We try to move on without really dealing with it,” Bell said.

“We (African-Americans) have a historical memory informed by a hermeneutic of suspicion. Periodically that will come to the surface, and the obvious issues will be addressed. The symptoms will be addressed without dealing with the disease. We won’t go beneath the surface. …We fear it will take too much out of us.”

Some African-American ministers note the fear young men in their communities feel about being stopped by police for “DWB—driving while black.”

White citizens rally at the Arkansas state capitol, protesting the integration of Central High School in Little Rock. (U.S. News & World Report Photo/Library of Congress)

In a video on the American Baptist Home Mission Societies website, Executive Director Aidsand Wright-Riggins appeared in a hoodie to tell stories from his own experience about the cloud of suspicion under which African-American young men live.

Wright-Riggins recalled how he was stopped by police officers—once while knocking on the door of a white church member and once while approaching his own home. He also told how his son was pulled over twice driving between his parents’ home and his university dormitory.

“I appeal to all of us, as we look at the millions of persons around us, and particularly those of color—particularly black boys—that we don’t make an automatic assessment because they might be dressed differently or look different or somehow feel that they are out of place in our society,” he said, “that we relegate them to the margins or, even worse, that we assign them to the morgue.”

A troubling divide

The Trayvon Martin case illustrates “a troubling divide in public perception,” Bean wrote in a recent blog on the Friends of Justice website.

“On one side of the fault line, people identify with George Zimmerman’s suspicion of young black males wearing hoodies. On the other side, folks identify with a victim of racial profiling and vigilante justice,” he wrote.

The 1963 March on Washington for civil rights featured blacks marching alongside Christians and Jews. But some social observers note the dream of the “beloved community” still is far from reality, as evidenced by the recent rhetoric surrounding the Trayvon Martin shooting. (RNS FILE PHOTO)

In his opinion column written for Associated Baptist Press, Bean noted: “Real-life narratives are messy because life is messy. Victims of injustice get caught up in the mess. They don’t play their roles with the disciplined panache of a Rosa Parks. They talk back; they fight back; they come out swinging. And that’s when bad things happen. That’s when the tragedy quotient gets high enough to catch the media’s attention.”

“Why did George Zimmerman feel called to defend his neighborhood from intruders?” Bean continued. “Why did he see Trayvon Martin as out of place, an anomaly. Because he was wearing a hoodie? Because he was walking with a particular gait? Because he appeared overly interested in his surroundings?

“Eliminate Martin’s blackness from the equation, and it is impossible to imagine Zimmerman reacting as he did. Zimmerman defined criminality in racial terms. Who, or what, taught him to think this way? … Our national conversation will continue to revolve around messy narratives.”

The Church at Clarendon sits in the heart of one of the most densely packed neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. (PHOTO/Courtesy of Church at Clarendon)

• Understand the context. “Learn your community and fall in love with it,” said Tom Ogburn, pastor of First Baptist Church in Oklahoma City. Remaining downtown “is not a death sentence. It’s a gift of life.”

• Describe the community’s strengths from the pulpit, said Bill Shiell, pastor of First Baptist Church in Knoxville, Tenn. “I’ve found that inviting community leaders to the church, telling stories and finding great visible examples become a way to help baptize the imagination with possibilities.”

• Maintain excellence. “In most large cities, whatever a person is interested in is being done at a world-class level,” said Steve Wells, pastor of South Main Baptist Church in Houston. Churches should aim for the same standard, he said.

In downtown churches, which often have a long history, that high standard often is reflected in its music, said George Bullard, strategic coordinator for the Columbia Partnership, a church consultancy. “Because of their heritage, they tend to have an excellent music ministry, which they work hard to sustain,” he said. Musical excellence may be enhanced by a downtown church’s sanctuary, which may be 50 years old or more, acoustically strong and include a pipe organ.

“The default standard in worship styles for Baptist churches is contemporary,” said Wells. “Because of our architecture and the size of our city and our location in it, we do things a little differently. We have a robed choir, a pipe organ and instrumentalists. We’re pretty traditional, and the caliber of music we do is high.”

• Partner with a nonprofit. Both First Baptist in Knoxville and Third Baptist Church in St. Louis found value in collaboration with Dallas-based Bucker International. “They gave us tools and resources we didn’t have before,” Shiell said. “They taught us and trained us in asset mapping, community resourcing and becoming more focused on the needs of the community.”

“We did an extensive community needs survey with the help of Buckner,” said Warren Hoffman, pastor of Third Baptist. What emerged was a much clearer understanding of potential ministries in the church’s neighborhood.

• Treat facilities as essential ministry tools. “We have intentionally paid attention to the needs of our public spaces,” said Hoffman. “Several years ago, many areas of our building looked tired and haggard—a little like Macy’s clearance basement. We invested in not only beautifying but intentionally developing ways for the spaces to work for outreach and for use in the community.”

Black church music chronicles the African-American experience, and veteran minister George Harrison wants to see that heritage preserved and passed along to the next generation. (PHOTO/Ken Camp)

The end of Jim Crow laws that dictated “separate-but-equal” schools, services, facilities and public accommodations for black and whites opened up opportunities for African-American advancement—and for whites to benefit from the contributions of black Americans, he noted. 

“Desegregation was good for the nation. … Desegregation had great value in terms of opening up opportunities to learn about other cultures,” he said.

Even so, Harrison acknowledged, segregation created a unified—albeit restricted—black community with the church at its center. When black children saw the same people in their schools, neighborhoods and churches, they developed a clear—if confined—sense of communal and individual identity, he noted.

“There was a richness in the close-knit community,” he said. “You can’t gain without losing. You can’t lose without gaining.”

In a closed, segregated society, Harrison got an early start in ministry as a church musician and composer. He began playing the piano at age 3 and wrote his first song, “Flowers in the Spring,” at age 6. After he taught the song to the other children at Macedonia Baptist Church in Belton, where his father was chairman of deacons, the church called him to direct the children’s choir and begin leading music in worship. At age 12 he began preaching.

But without question, Harrison recognizes he gained personally from the changes that occurred as a result of the Civil Rights Movement. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, where he directed the premiere choral group.

After graduation, he worked several years in a significant post with a railroad company that allowed him to enter a master’s degree-equivalency program in engineering. He also served as pastor of other churches. In 1987, he became pastor of First Baptist Church-NBC in Waco.

About that same time, he was named director of cultural affairs at Baylor University and the first director of Heavenly Voices, the university’s black gospel choir.

He went on to serve in several posts at Baylor, returning in 2003 to UMHB, where he is now director of digital media services.
Through it all, Harrison has maintained his love for music—particularly music distinctive to the African-American church. And he has made it his mission to help preserve that heritage.

Harrison produces a local radio program, “Gospel Now.” He also leads occasional seminars that explore the meaning of spirituals dating back to days of slavery, as well as more recent black gospel songs.

“There a rich culture in those songs, and it’s endangered. There’s a richness in our worship, and the new generation has no idea about it,” he said.

Even so, Harrison hopes the black church can regain its central role in the lives of African-Americans and recapture its ability to instill a clear sense of identity in young people. And he wants to teach the rising generation of black church leaders—as well as anyone else who will listen—about the history chronicled in African-American church music.

“The music tells the story,” he said.”

Ethnic labels and segregation at the Lord’s Supper table thwart Christian unity, a Baptist international leader told participants at a  Christian ethics lecture series in the United States.

Neville Callam, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, delivered the 12th annual Maston Lectures April 16-17 at Hardin-Simmons University’s Logsdon Seminary in Abilene, Texas.

“‘Ethnicity’ … is a term that is used to convey a diversity of meanings,” said Callam, a Jamaican Baptist leader and the first person of African ancestry to head the BWA. The way “ethnic” and related terms are used presents problems for the church, he added.

Neville Callam

To illustrate, he cited occasions when European and American religious groups spoke of “ethnic churches” and “ethnics” to describe immigrants and people who are not part of the majority in those specific regions. 

Sometimes, “race” and “ethnicity” are used almost interchangeably, which is inaccurate and misleading, he said.

“To speak of ethnic groups is to point to constructed identities which often depend on notions of common origins, common heritage and memories of a shared past, which are not necessarily grounded in confirmable historical fact,” Callam reported.

“In popular American usage, as also elsewhere, the label ‘ethnic’ seems to reflect a categorization of people not in order to affirm their common belonging in the species homo sapiens, but to highlight the contrast between them,” he explained.

Recounting the history of the term, Callam noted that by 1940 in America, “ethnics” was used to refer to “Jews, Italians, Irish and others deemed inferior to white Anglo-Saxon Protestants.”

Among Christians, “the use of the expression ‘ethnic churches’ is caught up in the politics of establishing borders, defining separate identities [and] classifying people over against each other, notwithstanding their common bonds in Jesus Christ,” he said. In that context, “the term ‘ethnic’ refers to people who are not ‘white.’”

Callam leans toward the “constructivist” perspective on ethnicity, he said. It is “the belief that ethnic groups are artificial social constructs that have no exact correspondence in actual society.”

“Terms such as ‘ethnic’ and ‘ethnicity’ need to be understood as mythical concepts which play a major role in social differentiation and may actually serve to promote negative stereotypes that should be abandoned,” he said.

“Ethnicity is not about people’s essential being. It is instead about people’s affiliation. It pertains to … their behavior rather than their being,” he explained. “In some cases, it refers to the group to which people assign themselves. In other cases, it refers to the group to which people are assigned by others. In other words, ethnicity may be understood as a sign of a person’s choice of self-recognition or a sign of society’s classification of people.”

Often, discussion of ethnicity establishes “borders of inclusion and exclusion,” he said. Positively, it can provide “understanding, … rootedness and belonging in the context of a multi-ethnic society.” Negatively, it becomes “a device to stigmatize people as belonging to a marginal subgroup of a society.” It also imprisons people in one single, imprecise identity.

Christians much rethink how they use terms such as “ethnic,” “ethnics” and “ethnicity,” Callam urged.
“It is unfair to simply place people into imagined communities and then make sweeping generalizations about them based on the group identity conferred on them,” he said. “Those who do this are guilty of creating caricatures that are capable of providing grounding for just the kind of prejudices that attach themselves to the popular use of the language of ethnicity.”

Christians can demonstrate appropriate behavior by “affirming what they have in common as human beings created in the image of God and as persons being formed in the image of Christ,” he stressed.
Fortunately, Christians can demostrate unity by partaking of the Lord’s Supper, also known as Holy Communion and the Eucharist, Callam said. But unfortunately, they often fail to eat the Supper together, he added.

While they participate in the Lord’s Supper in the present, Christians also identify with past events and anticipate a future for which they long, he observed.

The communal na-ture of the Supper, in which Christians intentionally eat together, projects strong social implications about shared identity and shared values, he said.

Callam quoted British anthropologist Maurice Bloch, who said: “In all societies, sharing food is a way of establishing closeness. … Eating together is not a mere reflection of common substance, it is also a mechanism that creates it.”

As both a symbol and an agent of unification, the Lord’s Supper is “capable of overcoming the boundaries we construct through the use of ethnic categories,” Callam said, lamenting, “It is unfortunate that the Holy Communion has become a compelling sign of the disunity of the church, even though it was meant to be a symbol of the unity followers of Jesus share.”

Because of doctrinal differences over the nature, practice and meaning of Communion, denominations have divided over the symbol of Christian unity. And because they focus on genetics and cultural background, they worship indifferent churches.

“It is regrettable that the separation of people at the table of the Lord is occasioned not only by concern for doctrinal orthodoxy, but also by the distinctions we create among people on the basis of their ethnicity,” Callam noted. “The divisions in the church in the United States appear to be most evident on a Sunday morning when, separated by their ethnicities, many Christians attend their churches where they celebrate the Lord’s Supper without any sense that this reflects a scandalous failure on the church’s part.”