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[on SoundCloud](<https://soundcloud.com/psalmstogod/why-i-miss-a-segregated-church>)
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https://soundcloud.com/psalmstogod/why-i-miss-a-segregated-church
As children we are taught to be tolerant and inclusive. It is in our very nature (well, for most of us at least) to reject the idea of being exclusionary. Yet, not quite a year ago, I found myself deeply missing the segregated churches I grew up in. I missed Negro Spirituals and Black History programs. I missed how black pastors related the trials of the Israelites to the trials of black people today. I missed the fact that the people at city hall fighting for justice where the same people sitting in the congregation. I missed the unity that comes from shedding some aspects of diversity.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Last May, after the death of Ahmaud Arbery, Breona Taylor, and George Floyd, mayhem ensued. I don't mean the riots. I mean the conversations between members of "the church." We were 2 months in to COVID, and where the church was already struggling to maintain meaningful communication, the fracture of race and culture became truly apparent. It felt like every day some non-black church member was saying something insensitive. Leadership was quiet and when those of us with a short fuse (like myself) chose to speak, we were reprimanded. The ire I felt culminated with me blurting out that I no longer wanted to attend a multicultural church and removing myself from all church communication.
I thought I was reacting in the moment. I thought a month would pass, and the feeling along with it. I thought I didn't really mean it...
Months passed, and to my surprise, I ended up in a few more heated conversations. I didn't feel any different, and realized I actually do miss attending an all African-American church.
The western church (re: Catholicism and its offspring, known as Protestantism) is responsible for racism. Europeans twisted the curse of Canaan into a non-existent curse on Ham and attempted to legitimize the mistreatment of Africans based on this fraudulent interpretation. From there, we saw "devout" Christians torture, maim, brand, rape, and otherwise dehumanize black people. From Europeans whitewashing the people discussed in the Bible during the Renaissance, to white Americans refusing to let blacks worship in the same spaces, to the KKK, racism and Christianity in America are almost synonymous. I did a three part series going over some of this history along with my personal experiences last year. I'm linking them below instead of repeating myself.
Instead of admitting to the role white America has played in racism, there is a push to leave it in the past. Instead of white pastors openly admitting that the white man pictured in churches and homes across the world is not Christ, they defend those who don't want to part with the tradition of breaking the second commandment to honor some random European man. Instead of addressing white flight, pastors ask minority congregants to make sure they invite their white friends. Instead of uttering a truth that might offend one group, we stick to sugar coated messages that don't challenge anyone. And while churches are fighting desperately to create these diverse congregations to show they are colorblind, black youth are leaving God because the message they need to hear is too much for the white people who put us in this position in the first place.