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Racial reconciliation does not mean that evangelical whites have to vote for a certain party or candidate, but it does demand that they assess and speak out about how the issues and positions of candidates affect minority communities.

Whites also need to assess how their collective actions will be interpreted by communities of color. For instance, I believe pk should cancel its planned march on Washington this year if it cannot ensure it will muster more than a token minority representation. Otherwise, the sight of nearly one million white, conservative religious males marching on the capital mall will strike fear in communities of color already feeling under assault by Washington's policies.

I believe the road to true reconciliation will involve whites coming on our turf, eating our food, listening to our music, and being uncomfortable as they experience faith, history, and culture through our eyes. It is not enough to come in as a tourist who returns home with souvenirs and a pen pal but rather as someone who has come to be among us.

Also, the glass ceiling must be shattered. As long as people of color are not in decision-making positions in churches, parachurch organizations, seminaries, and Christian publications, true reconciliation cannot be complete. This, more than any other issue, has undermined racial progress in the evangelical movement. "They talked the talk, but when it came to sharing the power there was a brick wall," says Bill Pannell of Fuller Theological Seminary. Shared power would be proof of the dominant culture truly treating us as equals.

CHRISTIANITY TODAY itself struggles with employment of minorities. The magazine has come a long way since the days when CT coeditor Frank Gaebelein's dispatches from Martin Luther King's marches in the South went unpublished for fear of giving the impression that civil rights should be part of the Christian agenda. However, despite some short-lived breakthroughs, CT's editorial staff is again all white. This, of course, is not atypical. According to a recent study, only 8 percent of employees at 25 of the largest evangelical organizations is nonwhite, less than half that of the secular workplace. This is an appalling statistic given that nonwhites constitute over 30 percent of the U.S. population (a percentage that will exceed 50 percent in the next century), and the fastest-growing evangelical churches are not white.

Whites need to recognize that racial reconciliation is not just the right thing to do; it is good for whites as well. During the pk pastors conference at the Georgia Dome last February, a Latino pastor commented, "They can pat me on the back and clap for me, but I think this is helping whites more than it is helping me right now," as white pastors wept in repentance for their racism. I suspect that whites are subconsciously recognizing their need for their brothers and sisters of color.

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February 3 1997, Vol. 41, No. 2