Racial Attitudes in Churches of Christ

[Booty]

talulah,

Welcome to the board and thank you for the quotes from religious tolerance. A site we all should visit more often in my opinion.

I would like to ask you to give serious consideration to registering. You may accomplish it anonymously should that be your desire, but it does open up the private message feature which can be invalueable.


And would you be telling me Talulah how old Bugsy Malone would be keeping himself these days? :cool:  :cool:

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (Nevertheless @ Feb. 18 2003,00:04)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--][!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]In fact, since the hate-based sins go straight against the law of Love that Jesus brought us, I'd say racism definitely beats out homosexuality.

Why do we tolerate it the way we do?
[/quote]


Is it perhaps because of the little bit of racist inside each of us?  Isn't it \"natural\" to be drawn to those who are like us?  Isn't it \"natural\" to be wary of those who are different?  We all react that way to a certain extent, so it is easier to excuse such behavior.

However, as God replaces the \"natural\" within us with the spiritual, sin of all kinds becomes less tolerable.  So perhaps if we tolerate racism it is because we haven't grown enough to recognize it as sin?

Never[/quote]
Race and color never had an impact on who I have been drawn to.

[Booty]

LOLOL Right there in the panel on your left, it's next to the rabbit smiley!!!

LOLOL!!







or possibly it was here?

For those who wish to see a positive and inspiring story of overcoming racism look to the life of John Perkins.  Perkins is like the father of the Urban Ministry movement (not quite but surely a patriarch).

I first met John a few years back in Jackson, MS attending the Mission Mississippi conference (an organization that he founded to work towards reconciliation in the Body of Christ).  

Opposite of John is Thomas A. Tarrants, III.  Tarrant was a Grand Dragon (or something like that) in the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi.  He was arrested in the early 1970's for shooting a black person and spent years in Parchman (MS's legendary prison).  

To make a long story short Tarrant somehow was converted, repented of his evil views and now works with John Perkins.  Tom preaches for a rather large multiracial congregation.  This wonderful story -- a story of how one learned to hate and how the love of God changed his heart -- is written by John and Tom in a great book called:

HE'S MY BROTHER: A Black Activist and a Former Klansman Tell Their Stories

(Baker, 1994)

It makes a great way to illustrate Ephesians chapter 2.  And it shows that all of us CAN overcome our racist past.  We can be what God has called us to be.

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine
Milwaukee, WI

[Bobby Valentine]

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (Talulah @ Feb. 20 2003,1:18)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--][!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]In your response to me you say those who pay attention to historical and literary context are simply trying to reconcile our present moral beliefs with the 1st century.  Then in the next you state that you know Paul was not a racist and what you were taught was not biblical!  Did Paul live in the 1st century??

No, folks who pay attention to historical and literary context are not trying to do as you assert [/quote]

No, there was no inherant contradiction in what I said.  In the comment I made about historical context, I was referring to people who try to justify slavery in the bible.  The fact that Paul wasn't racist (against Greeks) is another topic.  Again, slavery and racism aren't tied in the bible, however much they may be tied in our consciousness.[/quote]
Talulah, I hope you made it past the fifth line of my post  :blush:

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine
Milwaukee, WI

[Barb1957]

Here's another smilie site that's linked to from the site Booty gave:
http://mysmilies.com/

[marc]

we have now set a new record for   posting.   But ulnike the little guy holding the sign, this doesn't make me frown.

[James Rondon]

And some people wonder why B.H. was so incensed by Wallace, when he started a thread about him several weeks ago.

Thank you, Lord, for bringing us farther along... I pray that you would, through your Spirit, continue working to extinguish the flame of racial hatred, and bigotry that remains among us... Help us truly realize that we were all created in your image, and that, as Christians, we are all one in Christ Jesus... There is neither Jew, nor Greek... Neither male, nor female... Neither black, nor white.



[!--EDIT|James Rondon|Feb. 15 2003,3:15--]

[david johnson]

i'm older than most of us here, and i always was taught about the eunuch, simon of cyrene, and the wife being black.
maybe the arkansas church of Christ(s) were always ahead of the editors in recognizing truth.
i'm sad so many folks have never figured this issue out and hateful things were said.

dj

I asked once before and it got edited out, so I'll ask it again:  What should be done to minsters, elders, and church members who supported segregation and will not repent?

I know folks like Segell jump all over my butt for demanding discipline, but if you don't do that people will just wink at such things.  Racism led to murder, physical violence, and long lasting distrust and hate and so cannot be compared to \"minor\" little grievances some of you try to make it out to be.

[Trois]

Hey guys,

I never really experienced racism in the church. I experience it alot elsewhere but very seldom have I seen any overt racism in the church. Most of the white Christians I have dealt with have been loving and respectful. Of course there are a few knuckleheads who happen to be white, but I don't take that as an indicator of the feelings of the entire white population in the church. I just figure they are knuckleheads like some of my AfAmer. brethren are knuckleheads and leave it at that.

I remember once when I was on tour singing, I stayed with a man who was a former KKK guy :0. He even showed me his belt buckle with the insignia on it. That was a little scary, but I guess he just wanted to show me how far the Lord had delivered him.

The only problem I find in dealing with some of my white brethren is that many of them just don't really understand. Not that they are bigots or racists on purpose, they just can't relate because they have a sociological distance from my life. :lookaround:

[nerdneh]

Bobby, thanks for the Lipscomb quote, as I remember that he wrote somewhere (you identified it) that if two congregations existed in the same community and the only difference was racial makeup, then sin was being committed.

I had an experience at Lipscomb College in my senior year. I had been elected Student Body President (not sure anyone else wanted the job) and I visited the president of the school. I was generally welcome in his office. This was 1964. I asked him when he thought Lipcomb would integrate and he replied, somewhat gruffly I thought, \"We will integrate when the churches integrate. It is not our duty to lead the way, but to follow the direction the churches are taking.\" Well, so much for moral leadership!

Then, in Baton Rouge, when working with the church there in the 60's, I happened to baptize a black lady, and then I got word \"through the back door,\" that the Klan, which as you know had a prominent leader right down the road in Denham Springs, LA, would like to run me out of town \"on a rail.\" Blessedly that did not happen, but it still amazes me that \"Christian\" people could be so incredibly blind in their racial prejudices. The Klan member was a self-declared Christian, but I have a hard time believing that.

[kmv]

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]Then, in Baton Rouge, when working with the church there in the 60's, I happened to baptize a black lady, and then I got word \"through the back door,\" that the Klan, which as you know had a prominent leader right down the road in Denham Springs, LA, would like to run me out of town \"on a rail.\" Blessedly that did not happen, but it still amazes me that \"Christian\" people could be so incredibly blind in their racial prejudices. The Klan member was a self-declared Christian, but I have a hard time believing that.[/quote]

I don't mean to offend, but if it was, say, an practicing, public, Queer-Nation-style homosexual man who declared himself a Christian, would we have a hard time believing him, or would we dismiss his claim to Christianity outright?

Why do we exclude homosexuals (or whoever) from our congregations but not exclude racists?  Do we bear any guilt when we let another continue in his hate?  

And by the way, why do we treat sexual sin as somehow 'worse' than the rest?  What justification in scripture is there for that practice?  

As to the idea that slavery was/is okay with God-doesn't He expect us to grow?  Individuals, communities, the church, the human race-aren't we supposed to grow?  Moses allowed divorce because our 'hearts were hard', but Christ expected us to grow into understanding of God's true will in marriage.  Why would we not be expected to grow into understanding of His will in slavery as well?  

Kari

[kmv]

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote [/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]segregation = sin?  you must prove this.  
it's a distasteful practice ususally arising from prejudiced attitudes,  but that doesn't make it sin.[/quote]

I was going to say that 'de facto' segregation is not necessarily sin, just the offspring of sin.  

But, since segregation can't exist without the sin of prejudice, AND segregation also enables the sin of prejudice, on second thought I would have to say that segregation is sinful as well.

Obviously, racism is a sin.

Kari

[Bobby Valentine]

[!--QuoteBegin--][/span][table border=\"0\" align=\"center\" width=\"95%\" cellpadding=\"3\" cellspacing=\"1\"][tr][td]Quote (Barry Manners @ Feb. 16 2003,8:00)[/td][/tr][tr][td id=\"QUOTE\"][!--QuoteEBegin--]David Johnson,


Consider Booty's reply my reply.  You have your answer.


Why are you wanting segregation to be \"proven\" a sin?   Are you one of those folks who longs to see things the way they were back \"in the day\"?[/quote]
Barry, Booty and DJ, I consider segregation to be a direct violation of the theology of scripture.  I think my presentation at the head of this thread seems to indicate the evil that exist in that notion.  It is based upon the notion of inferiority which clearly denies the biblical truth that all men are bearers of the Divine Image.   I see less than zero grounds for its justification.  

Shalom,
Bobby Valentine
Milwaukee, WI