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Is This A Wakeup Call to the Church?
“Did anyone read today’s paper?”, she asked her presentation started? She is H. Sook Wilkinson, Ph.D., Chairperson of Michigan Governor Granholm’s Advisory Council on Asian Pacific American Affairs. As a participant in New Detroit’s Multicultural Leadership Series, I was intrigued as Wilkinson provided information about the purpose of the Advisory Council and their work in support of issues affecting Michigan government policies and concerns impacting Asian Pacific Americans. The New York Times article that Wilkinson was referring to stated that “Ethnic and racial minorities will comprise a majority of the nation’s population in a little more than a generation, according to new Census Bureau projections.”
Note to self: `Read the article after class.' Upon reading the article, the statement by Mark Mather, a demographer with the Population Reference Bureau, a Washington research organization, wanted readers to understand the importance of these demographic projections, stood out. "No other country has experienced such rapid racial and ethnic change."<!--break-->
Even though there is much progress to make still, minority presence and participation in political, professional, health, business and legal arenas, among others, has progressed. Transitioning from their previous characteristic as unacceptably racially exclusive to varying degrees of racial inclusion, these arenas give reason to stop and stare at the racial inclusiveness of our religious institution. <!--break-->
What's important to note about these changing demographics is the speed at which they're occurring. In a time where many aspects of American culture reflect a greater degree of diversity, however it might be measured, I wondered about the response of our leaders in the church to this and other similar demographic projections. The American Christian church, in its four hundred year existence, seems to be the least impacted by the changing social demography it serves. I felt a sense of alarm for the church. The church has been the slowest human enterprise to wake up to the call for change. The church appeared to me to be standing in the middle of the tracks as a fast approaching train as the engineer blew the horn in panic, desperately warning the church to get off of the track!
The centuries-old pattern of constructing and maintaining racially and ethnically isolated places of worship stands in defiance to rapidly increasing racial diversity in American culture. Can Christianity resist the trends of change by grasping tightly to the stronghold of status quo? Can the church continue to be the single exception to racial inclusion in maintaining the characteristic as the most racially segregated religious institution in America? What does it take for the American Christian church to see that this pattern is at or near its end? Does the changing social demographics that this article portend inspire the realization that an urgent and strategic response is required? I believe that that response begins with racial reconciliation.
Among the many complex reasons why the patterns of racial isolation exists among Christian churches is the state of festering, unforgiven relationship transgressions. Pertinent to the hard work of reconciliation is the willingness to recognize that there is a problem, that there are benefits in resolving the problem, and a mindset of openness to the possibility of compromise is necessary for all parties involved. So, in considering that racial reconciliation has to move beyond its current state whereby we agree to disagree, forget about the past while we wave at each other on the way to worshipping in our own racially separated congregations, is this article a wakeup call for the church?
The New York Times article referenced can be viewed at
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