http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_ChristChurch of Christ
<snip>Racial integration within worship
The Church of Christ's development against the post-Civil War racial backdrop of the American south produced debates on whether African-americans should be "permitted" to worship in "white" congregations. Following the war, some households among the Church of Christ were racially integrated, with white parents raising black children and bringing them to services in predominantly white congregations. This practice alarmed and infuriated critics who railed against it using the racist rhetoric of the period. A common charge was that racial inclusiveness in the context of a single congregation invited division by offended whites and was therefore Biblically forbidden as a divisive practice. The most extreme argued that black people were "beasts" and "without souls," and that black people had a greater tendency to commit rape than people of other races.
David Lipscomb, while maintaining his generation's attitudes on the social inequality of blacks and whites, militated against the racist position in the pages of the Gospel Advocate in a heated exchange published in 1907. Lipscomb pointed out that racially integrated congregations had been a fact of life for many congregations in the Church of Christ for years, that he himself had grown up with black children, and pointed to both New Testament example and the "principle of silence" in denying that any basis for racial segregation existed:
There can be no doubt as to religious duties and rights. "There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female, for ye are all one man in Christ Jesus. And if ye are Christ's, then ye are Abraham's seed, heirs according to promise." (Gal. 3:28.) This means the Christians of every different nation, tribe, country, of every social or political position, have equal privileges and rights in the service of God. No one as a Christian or in the service of God has the right to say to another, "Thou shalt not," because he is of a different family, race, social, or political station. While these distinctions exist here, God favors or condemns none on account of them. Jesus Christ personates himself in the least and most despised of his disciples; and as we treat them, we treat him. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." (Matt. 25:40.) To object to any child of God participating in the service on account of his race, social or civil state, his color or race, is to object to Jesus Christ and to cast him from our association. It is a fearful thing to do. I have never attended a church that negroes did not attend.....
The exchange did not write the final chapter on race attitudes in the Churches of Christ. Mirroring much of the surrounding culture of the American south, while some leaders in the Church of Christ supported the concepts of civil rights and attempted to operate schools for black members of the church, others either continued in an overtly racist attitude or, while acknowledging the validity of civil-rights-movement ideals of racial equality, either advocated an approach of gradualism or insisted that the church not involve itself with secular "organized agitation for reform.".
According to Richard T. Hughes' Reviving the Ancient Faith: The Story of Churches of Christ in America, white Church of Christ leaders connected civil rights "riots" to Communism. James Bales, a former Harding College (now University) professor, argued that Martin Luther King supported Communism:
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
