The Beloved Community

Race, Reconciliation, and The Multiethnic Church

In 1963, when Carol was eight years old, her parents took her to a local amusement park. On this balmy Baltimore evening, she scurried onto the tilt-o­-whirl with her 14-year-old brother. When the ride stopped, the police were waiting. They escorted Carol, her parents, and her brother to the gate. Police lights flashed against the dark trees as uniformed officers interrogated her parents. ''Who are you? Where do you come from?"

She remembers her father explaining that the family had German roots, but had lived in Baltimore all their lives. His explanations did not help. Carol and her family were forced to leave the park. They never returned.

Carol now knows they were ejected because of her. Although the rest of her family is white, Carol is biracial, and in 1963, African Americans were not allowed in Gwynn Oak Park.

What was it like for Carol to grow up in a white family in segregated Baltimore? Her dark, kinky hair and olive skin marked her as different. Her brothers, seven and eleven years older, were pale-s kinned with straight brown hair. While her parents loved her and treated her with great affection, she encountered racism outside the home. African Americans could not sit at lunch counters or try on clothes in department stores. They were banned from whites-only swimming pools. Did the sting of racism stick to her every day? Did people make her feel less-than-worthy, unwanted, an interloper? I imagine the cruelty of children unleashed on a self-conscious, tall, biracial child in an all-white classroom. Did other children question her brothers:

''Why does your sister look like that?" Once, a relative snapped, 'We never had any black in our family until you came along."

In high school, Carol became a Christian and began to app ly the gospel of Jesus' unconditional love to her wounded heart. In college in the mid- 1970s, she participated in a campus Christian ministry that included both black and white students, and she had friends from both races. But on Sunday mornings at 11:00 A.M., the racial mixing ended. She had to choose between a white church and a black church. For many years, she was the only non-white member of her church .

 Divided Church

According to Michael Emerson and Christian Smith's groundbreaking Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (Oxford University Press, 2000), Carol's church experience was typical. These sociologists found that 90 percent of African American Christians attend predominately black congregations, and more than 95 percent of white believers attend predominately white churches.

They estimate that of the nearly 300,000 congregations in the United States, less than 6 percent are truly multiracial (in which no one racial group accounts for more than 80 percent of the congregation). Rather than leading the way toward healing and unity in our highly racialized society, churches often unwittingly perpetuate racial separation.

This is all the more alarming as we consider America's rapidly changing demo graphics. The 2000 Census revealed that in the last twenty years, America's non-white population has grown by more than 35 million. The percentage of non-whites has more than doubled since 1960, to approximately one-third of our population. In fact, minorities are now the majority in Texas, Hawaii, New Mexico, and California. If present population trends continue-and they show no signs of flagging-by the year 2100, only 40 percent of Americans will be non-Hispanic whites.

What does this have to do with the Church?

Keeping Doors Open

Churches in racially transitioning neighborhoods have traditionally struggled to enfold newcomers. As communities become more diverse, churches that cannot effectively reach across racial and ethnic divides will stagnate. Some will close their doors altogether.

The strongest argument against multiethnic churches has come not from theologians but from church-growth advocates. The homogeneous unit principle, which many denominations and churches embraced in the 1970s and 1980s, argued that churches grow faster if people do not have to cross racial or ethnic lines. In other words, birds of a feather like to flock together-and so do Jesus' sheep, apparently. However, our actions should be based not on human predilection but on the pages of Scripture. What does God have to say about enfolding diverse peoples?

Quite a bit, it turns out. Jesus' ministry and message were radically inclusive. In Luke 4,Jesus inaugurated His ministry by reading from the prophet Isaiah. When He expounded on the text,

the attitude of His listeners changed from "all spoke well of Him" to fury and attempted murder. His offense? Jesus had reminded the assembled worshippers of God's favor to non-Israelites.

When He cleansed the temple of moneychangers in Mark 11, Jesus quoted Isaiah, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations?'" The moneychangers were cluttering up the court of the Gentiles, the space God had set aside for worshippers from other nations. Flapping doves, bleating lambs, and bartering merchants hardly created an atmosphere conducive to worship.

The Church was multiethnic and multilingual from its earliest days by divine design, and will be so in heaven. As DeYoung, Emerson, Yancey, and Kim point out in United by Faith: The Multiracial Congregation as an Answer to the Problem of Race (Oxford University Press, 2004), "the diverse and inclusive nature of early congregations did not occur by accident. This outcome was the result of embracing the vision and strategy ofJesus." On Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out not only on Jews from Israel, but

also on those "from every nation under heaven," creating a smorgasbord of three thousand believers from Asia, Africa, and Europe. This new faith was so inclusive and radical that a new vocabulary was needed; the word Christian was coined in the multiethnic city of Antioch, Syria. In Acts 6, the apostles intentionally included diverse groups in the distribution of food and in the selection of the first deacons. Paul tells the Ephesians that in purchasing our redemption and reconciling us to God, Jesus has also broken down "the dividing wall of hostility" between

formerly separated people groups. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul writes, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." The book of Revelation describes a heavenly city of worshippers from every tribe and nation.

Pastors who lead multiethnic churches agree that including people from diverse backgrounds is difficult. If you scratch beneath the surface, America's painful racial history lurks, fueling resentment, anger, denial, and guilt. Differing perspectives on church culture or worship styles can take on a racial subtext. "The struggle to maintain unity in Antioch reminds us that racial reconciliation and multicultural congregations often come at a cost and with sacrifice," write the authors of United By Faith. Nevertheless, they call for a multiracial movement: "The twenty-first century must be the century of multiracial congregations." As Billy Graham said, "No other force exists besides the church that can bring people together week after week and deal with their deepest hurts and suspicions. Of all people, Christians should be the most active in reaching out to those of other races, instead of accepting the status quo of division and animosity."

We Have A Dream

When my husband and I moved to urban Baltimore in 1981 to start a multiracial church, we heard mixed respon es from other Christians. "This is a nice experiment you've got here," one visitor remarked. Others reminded us of multiethnic churches that had exploded along racial fault lines, leaving bruised saints. Another said, "Only the blacks can reach the blacks."

Inspired by Scripture more than by church-growth experts, we envisioned that Faith Christian Fellowship would be a spiritual community committed to racial reconciliation and social justice, a church bridging the gap between the educated and the street-wise, between those who lived on the edge and those who rose to the top. We dreamed of seeing black and white, rich and poor come together to fulfill the mandate of the Old Testament prophet Micah: to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.

In 1994, Carol began attending our church. "I loved coming because there were people who were like me - biracial kids, interracial couples, black and white," she told us. "Now I really feel like I fit in. I think Faith is a glimpse of what God wants us to be." Carol's sensitivity to being an outsider has led her to serve as an usher and greeter, and to befriend international students. "A multiethnic church is not without problems, definitely," she says, "but I see people trying very hard to work out their differences."

As Carol serves, she keeps the end in sight, remembering the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: "The end is reconciliation; the end is redemption; the end is the creation of the beloved community."

Published February 2007 in BreakPoint Magazine.