Seven years ago LEADERSHIP raised a topic most Christian publications politely avoided: sex. Readers told us they appreciated that issue and rated it higher than any before it.
Since then, sexual issues in ministry have become even more pressing. Sexual harassment, barely mentioned in 1988, is now a household phrase. Lawsuits for sexual misconduct have soared; as of September 1993, the Church Insurance Company alone had paid $6.2 million in settlements and faced $4 million more in claims. Hard-core pornography, once restricted to seedy parlors, comes as close as any TV remote. Amid the changes, how can ministers demonstrate sexual health and encourage it in others?
We offer this new issue, then, with the prayer it will be honest, helpful, hopeful, and holy.
Sex is not the only thing on our minds.
Not long ago I attended a “Convocation on Racial Reconciliation” sponsored by the National Association of Evangelicals and the National Black Evangelical Association. Friends asked how it went. I struggled for an answer. Finally I settled on two words: painful and hopeful.
What made the event painful was realizing how deep-seated racism is within the Christian church. It hurt to hear an African-American woman at my table tell of being cut out of a project at work. Another black leader, educated at Harvard, had a colleague on a Christian college faculty make a racial slur about him. Meanwhile, whites spoke of their frustrations with “reverse discrimination” and with being considered racist when they didn’t feel they were.
Afterward, I asked myself, When was the last time you taught or wrote on issues related to racism? When was the last time you heard a sermon devoted to racial reconciliation? I couldn’t answer; I didn’t remember.
I fear we have been silent, assuming the problem has been solved or isn’t our problem. As ministers of Jesus, we don’t have that luxury. Effective evangelism depends upon Christian unity; as Jesus prayed, “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me” (John 17:23). If we’re going to reach a divided world, we need to present a united front.
I see how high the obstacles are to true reconciliation. And I know how few and faltering my steps have been. But I am moving forward and inviting others along, because I believe the Spirit of God is sovereignly bringing separated Christians back together. Promise Keepers has made one of its seven commitments to “reach beyond racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity.” More books and magazines are emerging; recently I’ve appreciated “Let’s Get to Know Each Other” by Tony Evans and “The Reconciler” (P.O. Box 32, Jackson, MS 39205; e-mail: urbnfamily@aol.com).
In October, the predominantly white Pentecostal Fellowship of North America disbanded in favor of a new, racially inclusive group that includes most major African-American Pentecostal bodies. (At that conference, white leader Donald Evans knelt and washed the feet of Bishop Ithiel Clemmons of the Church of God in Christ, helping that meeting to win the name “Memphis Miracle.”) From conversations, I know many of LEADERSHIP’S readers and advisers are working to build relationships across racial lines.
I look at my children, Andrew and Anne, and I wonder whether racism will be significantly lessened in the Christian church within their lifetime. I don’t know. But I want them to be able to say, at some future date, “My dad was not just part of the problem. He found a way to be part of the solution.”
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Kevin A. Miller is editor of LEADERSHIP.
Copyright (c) 1995 Christianity Today, Inc./LEADERSHIP Journal
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Copyright © 1995 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
