love in action
During the US civil rights struggle, lovingkindness required the demolishing of unjust laws, but it also required that individuals take deliberate action. It was not enough for whites to take down the “Whites Only” signs or allow blacks to vote. True welcome and relationship required whites to move toward friendship; and it also required blacks to embrace (again and again) the risk of stepping into friendships within contexts where they had been wronged and excluded. It required love in action.
smashing serpents
Martin Luther King Jr. famously said that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. He meant that white Christians and black Christians often worship in separate churches. Recently I’ve noticed a new kind of Sunday morning segregation. It’s increasingly common for churches to divide according to worship style, holding traditional services for older folks who…
spiritual unity
Segregating ourselves along ethnic and social lines is a common human practice. We’re simply more comfortable around “our kind” of people, and we tend to keep our distance from those who seem different from us.
In his letter to the church at Philippi, the apostle Paul addressed the challenges faced by a group of people from mixed backgrounds. Within this…
justice
Two of my neighbors, Eugene and Lorraine Williams, have lived a story we all need to hear. Back in 1958, they bought a house on Ridge Street, and the welcome from their white neighbors wasn’t exactly warm—most of them moved away. Soon the Williams family also realized their third-grader Scheryl would be bussed to a black school across town, while…
