Efforts to reconcile black and white churches are currently occurring. Is reconciliation needed or is there something else?  Calls for reconciliation are based in the notion that one race was harmed by the other race.  Is that valid?  Yes and no. That is a judgment, however, I believe, to be exaggerated.  Why? 

In American Christianity today two issues have become culturally and morally interjected and integrated into churches and denominations that deny or diminish biblical principles. The two issues are race and sexual morality.  This article addresses the issue of race.

American church history appears to highlight a tendency towards segregation —not only racially but ethnically, linguistically, and class.  Churches were composed of Germans, Irish, Serbians, Syrians, Chinese, Koreans, Blacks, mixed whites, and other nationalities, usually related to immigration. Segregation by the branches and denominations of the Church occurred. Instead of churches resembling early churches constituted biblically, American Christians tended to group related to comfort zones based on particular likenesses. Nonetheless, what is considered the primary and most controversial segregation is that between blacks and whites.

As Christians, regardless of any of the above diversities, we belong to a family—a family that should be recognizable to the world as well-integrated, non-divisive, and one in unity.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female.  You are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3: 28).

Efforts to reconcile black and white churches are currently occurring. Is reconciliation needed or is there something else?  Calls for reconciliation are based in the notion that one race was harmed by the other race.  Is that valid?  Yes and no. That is a judgment, however, I believe, to be exaggerated.  Why?

First, because entire races are not guilty for what some have done; otherwise, all races would be culpable.  Secondly, it may be due to the tendency to be with one’s own group. Blacks and whites were both involved in slavery—blacks capturing, selling, and owning other blacks as slaves; and whites mostly selling, trading, and owning blacks as slaves. However, the majority of both races were not involved in the institution of slavery.  Reconciliation is rarely called for between blacks and Native Americans who owned black slaves, or between American blacks who owned black slaves and those who didn’t.

To choose only one race as being involved in slavery seems unjust. To purport everyone of a specific skin color is guilty is presumptuous.  In fact, biblical reconciliation relates more to offenses between individuals—not entire races; also between tribes or nations. Saying this, some white churches, seminaries, and Christian schools historically denied blacks access and are candidates for reconciliation.

We must recognize the large gaps in time. Do whites who never owned slaves or never offended any blacks need reconciliation with blacks who were never slaves, never refused access to a white church, nor personally offended by a white person or church?  Reconciliation demands a genuine victim and a guilty party.

If reconciliation is not biblically or morally required, perhaps black and white churches could meet on the grounds of unitedly resisting prejudice and racism in both directions in order to be one in faith and in fellowship.  Prejudice and racism are undeniably found in both races—in fact, in all races.  This doesn’t deny the need for sensitivity to any and all true inequalities. Is this possibly the real problem today?

Our surrounding culture, media, and politicians presently engage in sowing racial discord, disunity, and division. Jesus’ followers must neither allow nor participate in the world’s war against Christianity or its principles by promoting bias, hatred, prejudice, or racism.

In addressing this subtle racial divide promoting disunity and enmity, churches and denominations should do so ensuring both sides are on equal status having a voice.  No one should be told to listen and not speak; all should come to the table with agape love and genuine respect for one another speaking truth based on those premises.  Endeavor to exercise racial sensitivity recognizing races aren’t monolithic.  Good and evil are in both.  People of the same race do not all think alike or believe the same.  Viewing the past unbiasedly reveals complexity, conflict, and circumstances that more accurately reveal gray perplexities, as opposed to black and white clarity.

“Is reconciliation needed or something else?”  We need to promote mutual love and respect; to emphasize efforts to mitigate any biases or racial prejudice based on the evils of some within any race.  Black and white Christians must live in today’s time; nothing can change yesterday.  We are called to live in the present for the sake of the future.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13: 34-35).

Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.