The Pitfalls of Racially Segregated Worship
What began this series for me was the 50th anniversary celebration of the 1963 March on Washington in August, and my thinking about this landmark moment regarding school desegregation caused me to think about the church. When in 1968, just before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a sermon at the National Cathedral said, “We must face the sad fact that at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning when we stand to sing ‘In Christ there is no East or West,’ we stand in the most segregated hour of America,” I doubt that Dr. King could have imagined the small strides we’ve made in 50 years toward desegregating our houses of worship. While we’ve made huge strides in most arenas of public life, I believe Dr. King’s 1968 observation is just as true today as it was then. While some churches are fully integrated, many (dare I say a majority) of our churches don’t look much different in terms of racial and ethnic diversity than they did 50 years ago. How can this be?
What began this series for me was the 50th anniversary celebration of the 1963 March on Washington in August, and my thinking about this landmark moment regarding school desegregation caused me to think about the church. When in 1968, just before his assassination, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in a sermon at the National Cathedral said, “We must face the sad fact that at eleven o’clock on Sunday morning when we stand to sing ‘In Christ there is no East or West,’ we stand in the most segregated hour of America,” I doubt that Dr. King could have imagined the small strides we’ve made in 50 years toward desegregating our houses of worship. While we’ve made huge strides in most arenas of public life, I believe Dr. King’s 1968 observation is just as true today as it was then. While some churches are fully integrated, many (dare I say a majority) of our churches don’t look much different in terms of racial and ethnic diversity than they did 50 years ago. How can this be?
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