| Author | Message | ||
| Susan |
Lydell, in the "time to laugh" discussion you gave a funny story. But that lead me to thinking. Why are many SDA churches segregated? Was there racisim in EGW's past? I know mormons have a racist history but I'm not up on all of SDA history. Once I discovered EGW was a false prophet, that all I needed to know! But I've often wondered, why the need for seperate churches? I think my mom's reason went something like, "they have a different style of worship" when I asked. The only time I remember seeing minorities in church, was when we lived in the D.C./Takoma Park, MD area. I would enjoy any information on this. Also, is it common that SDA churches are segregated in other parts of the country? That has been my experience (with the exception of the D.C. area).Thanks for any input! Susan | ||
| maggieb |
Susan, Ellen White's reasoning in the Testimonies, as I recall, was that the Lord was coming soon, and since the Civil War was such a recent event, it would only stir people up to no avail to press racial equality, when the most important issue was the Advent. (If I remember correctly, Testimonies, vol. 9 has some pretty strong statements. Some of her words about the "colored people" really grate on my late 20th century ears, e.g., they should have white male leaders, etc. Here we are 100+ years later. To me, from here, it looks like she missed a great opportunity to enlighten people on what Christ's mission was truly about: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath annointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; He hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. Luke 4Maggie | ||
| Bob |
I think that if you look into the history of "segregated" SDA churches, the black members at one point in time wanted separate congregations, because they felt that given the racist and hostile attitudes that prevailed, they could serve the Lord more effectively that way. I am not a church historian, so I am willing to be corrected about this! | ||
| Lydell |
Maggie, I remember seeing those comments as well. And, goodness knows, we heard them spouted enough in our "white" church to justify their hateful attitudes. David heard one of his teen sabbath school kids spout what he had heard at home, "well, black people will be in a different heaven from us.." Excuse me?! Where is that verse located? Reportedly, before we arrived at that awful church, the conference office had once sent a black speaker. The head elder actually said in prayer that day, "and Lord, forgive the conference for sending us this n------ to speak"! Just incredible.... After we left the "white" church, we got the bright idea of joining the "black" church (it was our own idea, not God's, as His thought was to get us out of the error of the denomination all together). You know they welcomed us with open arms. We could count on one hand the folks their (mostly old people) who were obviously openly unhappy that the "whities" were in their midst. Yeah, we heard the argument that "they" want their own worship style. Well, if they had ever attended our white congregation I surely couldn't blame them! Nobody sang there!! Their was a much more open and heartfelt participation in singing there. Guess the Lord actually used that to move us into learning about true worship. So we can be thankful for a part of that experience. You know, funny thing was that in a board (bored) meeting once we were told that, "well if I brought one of my white neighbors in here one sabbath and they saw a black man in the congregation......whyyyy they'd turn around and walk right out the doahr." The sad part was that we had lost track of the number of folks who had told us that they choose to make an 80 minute drive to church every week because they couldn't stand the thought of the segregation in that congregation! But, lest anyone be tempted to look down on the attitude so prevalent down here of the black/white thing, you got to admit that it all comes from the same basic lack of love that is in the SDA church. There it is a very conditional thing, "if you measure up to our long list of dos and dont's, in other words, unless you are what we consider to be a fully formed 'mature' Christian, we simply do not love or accept you." We are so thankful to be in a church body now that joyfully welcomes everyone the instant they walk in the door. It doesn't matter how they look, where they have been, or what they are caught up in at the moment, they are loved. | ||
| maggieb |
Bob, I'm not an historian either, but I have a feeling you're right about the blacks wanting their own services because of the prevailing attitudes, and who can blame them? At the same time, I still think Ellen White missed a leadership opportunity at a critical time in history, and bears some responsibility for these attitudes. (How much responsibility, God knows, I don't.) This is one of the big problems I have with her. Why would a God-led church be decades behind the general population in racial relations? If church isn't about people, pray tell, what is it about? Lydell, would you please figure out a way to clone your church? Thanks! Maggie | ||
| maggieb |
I just reread some of Ellen White's material on "the color line" in volume nine of the Testimonies. These events took place so very long ago that we, in 1999, have little sense of the social milieu that the people were living in. It doesn't seem fair to judge Ellen White too harshly, because she definitely comes out against racism. I could take sentences out of context that would sound really bad, but, on the whole, I would have to say that she is counseling wisdom and process in the race issue. On the other hand, I don't see how one could be "preaching the Gospel" in any real sense without meeting racism head-on. But that's easy for me to say in 1999. I wish it were a simple matter of rejecting Ellen White and exorcising one's mind of all her sayings. Alas, I think I shall be chewing on some of them for a very long time. Maggie | ||
| Lydell |
Ah, but Maggie, I don't need to clone my church. God has already done it! Truly, honestly, he has so very many of them out there. It makes me so ashamed that all those years in the blackness of the SDA denomination that we were actually looking down on these folks as not quite "knowing" the truth! Sure there are some weird protestant churches out there. But I can't help think about the others. The congregations who step in and help those whose churches have been burned down because of racial prejudice, my folks church that rallied around them in such touching support when my brother committed suicide, a church here that arrived in an instant during the night to help members sandbag their house and save it from a flood, those who step in and help those whose homes were filled with mud clean up, the church in Atlanta that has a "hug line" that people walk through when they arrive at church (because they have come to realize that so many people never feel a loving touch in their lives). The ones who frequently go out to give away groceries to the poor and help them find jobs. Then there are the teens who ban together to go out and paint the houses of elderly folks. |
