American history is marked by innovation, space exploration, and technology. Over the last twenty years, America advanced from dial-up internet—to high-speed internet, WI-FI, and mobile hotspots. Arguably, the United States is experiencing measurable racial and social progress over the last 50 years. According to research, African Americans have progressed into positions of visibility, authority (the 44th U.S. President), and have made significant gains in economic wealth and status. Even though there is a great number of minorities that have progressed, there remains a greater number distressed by disparities of incarceration rates, poverty, segregation, unequal education, over-policing, violence, and the color of crime perpetuated through media. Events concerning race in American culture such as Charlottesville and Ferguson have fueled feelings and emotions even more. The outrage often distracts from the proble
...m of inequality intertwined throughout American history. Candid discussions concerning social discrimination and inequality are rarely the focus of media. In fact, social injustice often remains silent even when issues of inequality are publicized, American Christianity, often remains silent and seemingly non-existent.
Yahweh Elohim, the Creator of heaven and earth, created humanity unlike another creation on the face of the earth. Man and woman were created in the image of God to have dominion over the earth, and steward it in virtuous harmony; However, the fall distorted humanity, and the harmony found within diversity, especially in the body of Christ. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, one of the most shameful tragedies in our nation is at 11 a.m. on Sunday morning, is one of the most segregated hours in Christian America. This remains true today. Research has shown that that only 13.7 percent of America
Churches are multiracial, and 86 percent remain segregated. Racial segregation in American Christianity also shapes society as a whole.
Christian America should not remain silent, as if this is a problem best left alone. Racial and ethnic harmony within American Christianity is an important issue for the sake of the Gospel and unity. The topic of racial and ethnic division in American Christianity remains a point of friction when the Gospel is shared, both foreign and domestically. How can the church in America remain segregated, preach love and unity in Christ? This paper will (1) highlight historical narrative of the racial divide in American Christianity, (2) provide lessons learned for my current ministry, (3) taking the positive from the issue to engage a lost world for the Gospel of Christ.
To understand the growth and progression of our contemporary culture, one has to come to terms with the consciousness of race. The mandate to come to terms with race is easier said than done. The problem of race raises more questions than answers, particularly in the current post-racially aware society that tends to question the very category of race. To raise the issue of race one might ask, “why, at this moment in time, is race still a question?” This question is not only valid, but it forces one to rethink the role, function, and status of race in America. However valid the question may be, it does not negate from the racial tension that resides within the heartbeat of American culture. Without a moment’s notice, that invisible tension can culminate with the latest social injustice event gone viral. If one were to dig to unearth the
roots of racial division in America, at its core, one would discover race, religion, and politics. I stress religion because Christianity and religion oppose one another. Religion and faith in Christ are not the same. Jesus makes this explicitly clear. Religion imposes rules and laws of moral perfection and of moral imperfection. As if salvation is predicated by one’s actions; as if people must earn or even keep salvation. However, Christianity—faith in Christ—is not based on merit. Salvation which is not earned by moral perfection, cannot be lost by moral imperfection. If it is, then the work of the cross is of no value. Faith in Christ is achieved by belief and continued belief in the finished work of the cross. Salvation is based on His completed work and not the failed attempts of human morality. This is the freedom found in Christ but lost in religion.
Perhaps, race and religion form two of the most crucial and often challenging ideas to think through as it relates to North American history. The idea of race and religion can find its geneses as early as the Enlightenment. Dr. Corey Walker writes concerning Christianity and race; he declares the reformist of the Enlightenment framed an argument against religion in Western culture, and proposed other means to understand humanity. The same ideologies paved way for historical and evolutionary thinking, racial theories, and color imagery that made the economic and military conquest of various cultures justifiable and defensible. As a result, racial thought received inspiration and legitimation with the emergence and growth of Enlightenment rationality. Science eventually combined with Christianity in cultivating understandable theoretical concepts that rendered racial consequences that
surged in the New World—America.
At the beginning of the 17th century, North America was considered the promise land for many English Christians seeking religious freedom from the British Crown. Puritans that were oppressed by the government, and the Church of England, traveled across the Atlantic to the New World. Their desire to live by the principles of a “puritanical Christianity” shaped the identity of America and the later United States. The Puritans wanted to break from the Church of England due to unfulfilled reforms which began during the Reformation. Interestingly, Western Christianity, the Enlightenment, and racial ideologies entwined once the first slave ships arrived in the New World. Between the 17th and 19th centuries, intellectuals confronted race as a theological matter. As a theological issue, Christian conversations of race grew from the allegory of Scripture and ascribed discriminatory ideas to the tangible features of race and ethnicity. Thus, theological and intellectual systems based on race were created. The ideas spread and became institutionalized. The institutionalized religious practice of subservience of color to the superiority of whites was deemed rational. Within this chaotic reasoning, we find the evolving arguments for evolutionism associated with the absolute science of race. A science which deprives humanity of its Scriptural heritage—created in the image of God.
