DixieDestroyer
Hall of Famer
There should be ALOT more of this IMO. I don't want any part of a Christian church that embraces "diversity" (aka - cultural marxism).
Houses of worship"¨ still divided by race
By Christopher Quinn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Eleven o'clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1963.
If churches want to repent and move into the arena of social reform, King said, they must first "remove the yoke of segregation"Â from their own bodies.
More than 40 years after King's death, Protestant churches are still one of the most prominent social institutions that remain monochromatic. There are exceptions, from the Mennonite church's effort in the 1960s to form an interracial congregation to the recent growth of a mixed congregation at the church of Southern Baptist stalwart the Rev. Charles Stanley.
But few have made the kind of effort, sometimes costly, that Pastor John Fichtner of Liberty Church in Marietta has. He knows well the tripwires of church integration. He slowly lost about half of his 1,600-member congregation when he began moving his white church toward a racial mix 13 years ago.
Liberty is an independent charismatic church where worship services exude a homey and emotional warmth. The Book of Acts told Fichtner that the early church was "incredibly multicultural."Â Fichtner, 52 and white, says God impressed him to lead his church the same way.
He began by preaching about issues of race. But he knew sermons would be empty words until he hired a diverse staff in positions of authority.
He now has three white assistant pastors, three black pastors, a Latino pastor and a black worship leader. The congregation, growing again, is close to 2,000 people. The church is 40 percent white, 40 percent black, and 20 percent is Latino and immigrant.
Fichtner tells other pastors seeking to emulate Liberty's success "to get some people on your staff who don't look like you, and in five years your church will change."Â
And he warns them of the coming problems. A handful of white families left for racial issues in the early days. Many others left for more subtle reasons, and Fichtner learned the difficulties of spanning the cultural divide. It took a lot of trial-and-error and a few years before the turnaround took hold.
Roy Craft knows churches like Liberty are the exception. He has visited close to 500 churches in the region. On occasion Craft, the director of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College, sees a handful of blacks in white mainstream Protestant congregations. More rarely, whites will be a minority in a black church.
There are reasons for the divide that have nothing to do with hate, he said. Worship is an intimate act. Learning to share that with people who are different raises a complex set of questions about style, expectation and comfort.
Integration on a meaningful scale doesn't "just happen"Â without intention, said Margaret Aymer, professor of New Testament at Atlanta's Interdenominational Theological Center.
Things have come a long way since the center sent out black seminarians in the 1960s to try to visit white churches. Many were turned away. Today, churches are not segregated intentionally, as much as by economics, custom, culture, social comfort and geography.
White and black churches grew up apart and developed their own sacred traditions, styles of worship and music, theology and power structures, Aymer said. The complex sets of religious social rules and regulations rising from that has grounded many good intentions.
Michelle Tanner, 29, grew up in integrated schools in Louisiana and called some black students friends. But an unplumbed racial tension remained.
When she and her husband Will moved to Cobb County about five years ago, they visited Liberty Church. When they saw faces of every color in the seats and on stage, it wasn't jarring, it just blended in with the newness of Georgia.
She describes herself as conservative and Republican. She did not vote for President Barack Obama but was able to talk about and experience the joy of her black friends when he was elected.
"I think my relationship with our friends now gets me to see their side of things,"Â Tanner said.
Such change is critical if churches are going to play a role in leading, rather than following society, Morehouse's Craft said.
"I think [King] would say you have got to do more than build monuments and celebrate my birthday,"Â he said. "You have to practice it Sunday morning."Â
***Reference article...
Houses of worship"¨ still divided by race
By Christopher Quinn
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Eleven o'clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1963.
If churches want to repent and move into the arena of social reform, King said, they must first "remove the yoke of segregation"Â from their own bodies.
More than 40 years after King's death, Protestant churches are still one of the most prominent social institutions that remain monochromatic. There are exceptions, from the Mennonite church's effort in the 1960s to form an interracial congregation to the recent growth of a mixed congregation at the church of Southern Baptist stalwart the Rev. Charles Stanley.
But few have made the kind of effort, sometimes costly, that Pastor John Fichtner of Liberty Church in Marietta has. He knows well the tripwires of church integration. He slowly lost about half of his 1,600-member congregation when he began moving his white church toward a racial mix 13 years ago.
Liberty is an independent charismatic church where worship services exude a homey and emotional warmth. The Book of Acts told Fichtner that the early church was "incredibly multicultural."Â Fichtner, 52 and white, says God impressed him to lead his church the same way.
He began by preaching about issues of race. But he knew sermons would be empty words until he hired a diverse staff in positions of authority.
He now has three white assistant pastors, three black pastors, a Latino pastor and a black worship leader. The congregation, growing again, is close to 2,000 people. The church is 40 percent white, 40 percent black, and 20 percent is Latino and immigrant.
Fichtner tells other pastors seeking to emulate Liberty's success "to get some people on your staff who don't look like you, and in five years your church will change."Â
And he warns them of the coming problems. A handful of white families left for racial issues in the early days. Many others left for more subtle reasons, and Fichtner learned the difficulties of spanning the cultural divide. It took a lot of trial-and-error and a few years before the turnaround took hold.
Roy Craft knows churches like Liberty are the exception. He has visited close to 500 churches in the region. On occasion Craft, the director of the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College, sees a handful of blacks in white mainstream Protestant congregations. More rarely, whites will be a minority in a black church.
There are reasons for the divide that have nothing to do with hate, he said. Worship is an intimate act. Learning to share that with people who are different raises a complex set of questions about style, expectation and comfort.
Integration on a meaningful scale doesn't "just happen"Â without intention, said Margaret Aymer, professor of New Testament at Atlanta's Interdenominational Theological Center.
Things have come a long way since the center sent out black seminarians in the 1960s to try to visit white churches. Many were turned away. Today, churches are not segregated intentionally, as much as by economics, custom, culture, social comfort and geography.
White and black churches grew up apart and developed their own sacred traditions, styles of worship and music, theology and power structures, Aymer said. The complex sets of religious social rules and regulations rising from that has grounded many good intentions.
Michelle Tanner, 29, grew up in integrated schools in Louisiana and called some black students friends. But an unplumbed racial tension remained.
When she and her husband Will moved to Cobb County about five years ago, they visited Liberty Church. When they saw faces of every color in the seats and on stage, it wasn't jarring, it just blended in with the newness of Georgia.
She describes herself as conservative and Republican. She did not vote for President Barack Obama but was able to talk about and experience the joy of her black friends when he was elected.
"I think my relationship with our friends now gets me to see their side of things,"Â Tanner said.
Such change is critical if churches are going to play a role in leading, rather than following society, Morehouse's Craft said.
"I think [King] would say you have got to do more than build monuments and celebrate my birthday,"Â he said. "You have to practice it Sunday morning."Â
***Reference article...
