By Marv Knox
Baptist Standard
Christians undermine their ability to reach society with the gospel because they segregate their churches by race, sociologist/author George Yancey told participants in a workshop aimed at racial reconciliation.
Yancey, assistant professor of sociology at the University of North Texas and author of several books, including Beyond Racial Gridlock: Embracing Mutual Responsibility, presented two keynote speeches at “Becoming a Racially Reconciled Church and Community.” Mission Waco, an inner-city ministry in Waco, Texas, sponsored the event.
Unfortunately, only 8 percent of American churches are multiracial, Yancey lamented. He defined a “multiracial church” as one in which no single racial group comprises more than 80 percent of the participants.
This contrasts with society as a whole, which is remarkably integrated, he said.
Catholic churches are most likely to be multiracial, with 12 percent of congregations meeting that standard, Yancey reported. Evangelical Protestants are next, with 5 percent of churches qualifying as multiracial, followed by 2.5 percent of mainline Protestant churches.
Churches face several challenges in becoming multiracial, he noted.
First is differing racial ideas, he said. While whites tend to see racism as “something that is overt and only done from one individual to another individual,” people of color tend to see racism as “structural as well as individual, and social institutions perpetuate racism even when individuals do not tend to be racist.”
Tragically, the views of whites and nonwhites in churches are even further apart on this issue than their counterparts in society at-large, he said.
A second challenge to multiracial churches is “our different cultural ideas,” Yancey added.
People tend to think cultural ideas that differ from their own are wrong when, in fact, they simply are different, he noted. In church, differing cultural ideas range from communication styles to customs to time-orientation. Those differences aren't right or wrong, just matters of taste and expectation, he said.
To illustrate how cultural ideas can divide church people, Yancey pointed to politics.
“Some white Christians wonder, ‘Can you be a Democrat and Christian at the same time?' [but] some blacks wonder, ‘Can you be a Republican and a Christian?' ” he observed. “I'm distressed by the political polarization in our society. We have to learn to quit judging people based on their political ideas. We're just different.”
The third multiracial challenge churches face is the reality that some people will resist a mixed-race congregation, he said.
Some of this resistance comes from within the church-growth movement, he said, citing church-growth advocates who say homogenous churches grow fastest.
But that contrasts with the reality of society, he countered. “In the U.S. today, we are very much a multicultural society. And churches are not homogenous; they vary by age, income and gender. … Since churches rarely are organized by a single culture other than by race, why can't we have multiracial churches?”
The fourth and final challenge to multiracial churches is prejudice, Yancey said, stressing this problem originates from both sides of the racial divide.
“Whites are most likely to leave a church that is becoming racially diverse when they have children of dating age,” he reported, acknowledging this denotes racism. But from the other perspective, “many people of color look at church as a place of refuge so that they can escape from whites,” he added, labeling this also as prejudice.
Despite the challenges, multiracial churches are more than worth the effort, Yancey contended. He cited five reasons why Christians need multiracial churches:
• Multiracial churches are effective in presenting the gospel in multiracial communities.
Such communities are composed of groups that naturally embrace racial diversity, he said. These include “integrated subcultures,” such as artists, athletes and the homeless. They also include college students, who are more racially diverse than the population at-large. And they include interracial families and multiracial individuals, who do not feel comfortable in single-race churches.
• Racial reconciliation requires the kind of Christian model presented by multiracial churches.
“Christians have been the followers, not leaders” in racial reconciliation, Yancey maintained. “We have failed to look at race as a moral issue, [but] multiracial churches will be an important part of solving racism.”
• Multiracial congregations can repair “our damaged Christian witness.”
Paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jr., Yancey stressed: “Sunday morning still is the most segregated time of the week. We are damaging our Christian witness. If we can offer real solutions to racism, we can witness to others.”
Instead, churches lag behind secular society, he said.
“If schools can integrate, why can't churches?” he asked. “If we can't integrate our churches, we show that society is stronger than [anything] our faith can produce. If Christians can't deal with racism, … we present a small God to our nonbelieving world.”
• Multiracial churches reflect obedience to God.
Yancey cited multiple examples of Jesus and the early church reaching across racial lines to show love and acceptance. “God is trying to reach people of different groups, but we get in the way,” he said.
“Do you think God would want only 8 percent of all churches to be multiracial in a multiracial society like the United States?”
Associated Baptist Press