Race and the Church: A Progress Report

Twenty years ago the highly regarded Kerner Commission report appeared, summarizing months of research with an ominous prediction: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white—separate and unequal.” Today, partly because of the commission’s report, that prediction remains largely unfulfilled. Yet racial relations are still touchy at many points. How satisfactory are they? How much injustice remains? And what should the church do about it? To get some idea of how evangelical Christians might answer these questions, CHRISTIANITY TODAY decided to survey its readership.

Of 505 surveys mailed, about 13 percent were returned. Reflecting the magazine’s readership, most of the respondents (94 percent) were white. Though the response of 13 percent is not high enough to allow absolute statements about the beliefs and practices of the CT readership as a whole, it is high enough to allow the tentative generalizations that follow. Four Christian leaders close to the issue of race relations reviewed and analyzed the statistical data. Their comments appear throughout.

Thinking about the issue of race relations, especially between blacks and whites in North America, brings images not of a fresh wound but of an old scab—one that keeps getting bumped and refuses to heal.

Many citizens, Christians not least, are frustrated. They sense that they have yet to outlive the injustices dealt to minorities. Yet they feel at a loss when it comes to speaking to the issue in 1988. What can they do or say that has not already been done or said?

A few respondents to the CT survey thought the answer to racial conflict was clear. As one put it, the races must “share bed and board”; integration is “one meaning of ‘Choose Life.’ ”

But is this “solution” tenable? Says black Presbyterian Church in America pastor Carl Ellis, “If we were to homogenize all the races today, we’d come up with some other way to discriminate against people: Some have tan wax in their ears, others have dark wax. There’s no way around the sinfulness of the human being.”

Besides, Ellis adds, “I don’t want integration to mean I have to obliterate my [black] culture, completely throw it away. That’s a price I’m not going to pay.” So much for simple answers. There are none. That’s why the scab persists.

What CT Readers Think

There was only one expression of overt racial hostility against blacks in the CT survey. A few additional white respondents either stated or implied their objections to interracial (black-white) marriage.

However, most respondents said they would like to see more integration:

• Sixty-nine percent would like to see more integration in the workplace;
• Seventy percent would like to see more residential and social integration;
• Eighty-eight percent would like to see more integration in churches.

But CT readers do not regard improving race relations as a top priority. Asked to reveal which issues they regard as “very important,” they responded as follows:

• Seventy-three percent, dissolution of the family;
• Sixty-four percent, sexual behavior and sexual ethics;
• Sixty-one percent, abortion on demand;
• Fifty-two percent, pornography and its availability;
• Forty-six percent, poverty in America;
• Twenty-eight percent, race relations and racial reconciliation;
• Twenty percent, nuclear arms proliferation.

Matthew Parker, associate vice-president of urban academic affairs at William Tyndale College and a CT consulting editor, said that while he is not surprised by the apparent apathy, he is disturbed. Parker regards race relations as the key question this country must address if it is to play a prophetic role in world affairs. “The majority of the world’s four billion people,” Parker explains, “are nonwhite. These people interpret how they will be treated by Americans by looking at how people of color are treated in America.”

Youth minister Buster Soaries stressed the things white people stand to lose by not prioritizing race relations. “When we talk about segregation in this country, we usually think of the social gains that are due blacks. Most white people have totally overlooked the level of intellectual loss they suffer from segregation. I talk to white kids, for example, from a perspective no white man can share. When I talk about self-esteem, I talk from the perspective of a kid who grew up knowing he could never be President.”

A Closer Look

Several respondents expressed the view that class barriers are more difficult to overcome than barriers of race. Wrote one, “I’ve seen a black man in a white pulpit, and I’ve seen a white man in a black pulpit. The congregations have stayed the same. The real barrier would be to have a poor man in a rich man’s pulpit and a rich man choose a poor man’s pulpit.”

William Leslie, pastor of Chicago’s LaSalle Street Church, located in a racially mixed community, agreed, observing that class barriers present a greater problem because “class buys experience.” He said, “The poor, more so than minority groups, have few people to represent them in places where decisions are made.”

Almost unanimously, respondents who brought up the issue of affirmative action in answer to one of the survey’s questions opposed it. One representative response read, “I’d like to see everyone earn their place by effort and ability, not government regulation.”

Thirty-eight percent of the respondents strongly agreed that the civil rights movement was a net gain for the country, while 15 percent strongly disagreed. Ellis observed that had this statement been put before blacks, “Ninety-nine percent would say it was a gain, because the civil rights movement was directly related to our survival as a people.”

Ellis adds that “not everything that goes on in the name of affirmative action is right. It can be a ceiling instead of a floor. And it can foster mediocrity. But by and large, whites have not realized that they continue to benefit from what I call the ‘old affirmative action.’ By that I mean the legacy that has come to them by way of racism. The old affirmative action also fostered mediocrity by excluding black resources. In this country, we have been terrible stewards of the human mind.”

Though he is disturbed by some of the attitudes expressed in the survey, Ellis does not characterize the response as racist. “It’s a problem of cultural dynamics, of majority versus minority culture. If black Americans were the dominant culture, we’d be the ones everybody would complain about.” But he adds, “Just because the problems are explainable does not mean they are excusable.”

Is Integration The Answer?

Fifty percent of the survey respondents strongly agreed that race relations should be improved. But only 20 percent said they were dissatisfied with their degree of contact with other races. And only 10 percent strongly agreed that racial integration should be a top national priority. Thus it is uncertain how respondents believe improvement in race relations should be accomplished, although a commonly expressed view was that, in the words of one respondent, “Integration is best accomplished by individuals rather than forced by law.”

Said Leslie, “When people of different races find out who each other are, and that we have the same hopes and desires for ourselves and our children, that’s when real harmony will come. This is happening now, and will continue to happen whether we want it to happen or not.”

Of course, some of the concern about racial integration comes not from whites, but from the black community. Many black social workers, for example, oppose the adoption of black children by white families. Said Parker, “The problem is that when people talk of interracial adoption, very seldom do you hear of nonwhite families adopting white children. This subtly communicates that blacks are not good enough to bring up white children.”

Ellis discourages marriage between blacks and whites because of his concerns for the preservation of black culture. “Because of the current state of the black family,” he explains, “we are desperately in need of black Christian family models.” However, once an interracial couple is married, Ellis says, “I become a champion for just treatment. Today, interracial couples are the new niggers.”

CT readers think the church is primarily responsible for integration. However, 32 percent said it would not be “very advantageous” for a pastor to be of a different race than the congregation, while 6 percent said it would be “very advantageous.”

One black respondent asserted that the church is the one place where there should be less integration. He suggested the black church might not flourish independently of the culture that has nourished it. As another respondent put it: “Dutch Calvinists will never acquire the class requisite for the ‘soul’ of a black worship service; blacks (unless they shed their black identity) will not become ‘soulless’ Presbyterians.”

Directions For The Moment

Analysts of the survey responded in virtual unison to the question of what must be done in order for race relations to be improved: “Let’s get to know each other.”

Said Soaries, “You still have a legacy of fear, of superstition and rumor. It works both ways. Blacks have historically based their own self-esteem on the contributions of other black people. Because every President has been white, the average black kid does not know how it can be that white people have self-esteem problems.”

Parker said when he encounters a white person who wants to do something about racial tension, his first response is, “Let’s get together.” He adds, “Some people don’t think they have racist attitudes. They’re willing maybe to go into the city and help a black family remodel a house. Yet these same people might be uncomfortable submitting to black leadership or taking orders from someone at work who is not white. So I don’t encourage people to do something. I try to encourage white people to become friends with a black couple or a black individual.”

“The goal,” said Leslie, “is to be able to move in and out of black and white communities without batting an eye, without thinking race. The only way to pick that up is to live in an integrated environment, where life experiences are shared among the races. Where there is not shared experience, it must be created.”

As one respondent put it, “It’s one thing to live next door, go to work, or go to church with blacks. It’s another thing to really allow another person to enter your ‘space,’ your life.”

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