Racism at GCx?

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[Ned_Flanders]

Can racism be added to the list of grievances you saw at GCx?

Not long after leaving GCx, I read a book called Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America by Micahel O. Emerson and Christian Smith.  It's a very good book which talks about the problems and perceptions that many White evangelicals bring about that actually hinder racial reconciliation rather than bridge the gap.  

I searched through the archives of the De-Commissioned Forum using search words such as "racism;" "African-American;" "blacks;" etc.  I didn't find much that people talked about on racial issues and experiences.  And looking back on my experiences at GCx (I was in GCx for 8 years), I can't say that race was much of a subject that was brought up by the leadership or the congregation.  In other words, I don't think there was a lot of overt racism going on.  But looking back on that leadership and congregation... it was overwhelmingly White.  I'm not saying there was or is anything wrong with a Church being overwhelmingly White.  But I wonder sometimes about a Church that talked so much about "reaching the world with the Gospel" ended up with congregations with very few or no Black people.  In my GCx experience, I remember a lot of time was spent figuring out how to reach people and brainstorming ideas on how to "reach the world."

I was also a part of the Church in Silver Spring, Maryland for a while and there they had a group called "Positive Focus."  As I recall, the group was set up as a ministry for Black people.  At the time, though, there were other ministries, like the drama ministry; the student group ministry; the career ministry; the production ministry; and so on.  Pretty much every Black person in the Church there was part of Positive Focus.  Looking back, it seems a little funny that here was a situation that to be a part of a drama group or whatever, you had to have a special skill or talent.  But to be a part of Positive Focus, all you needed to do was be Black.  I mean, if you were Black and into music, were you still expected to be a part of "Positive Focus?"  

Martin Luther King said that "the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning.”   He died over 45 years ago yet for a lot of places, this has not changed.  Since this board is an ongoing discussion about the grievances of GCx ministries, I'm just curious about what you saw in the Church as well.  

http://www.amazon.com/Divided-Faith-Evangelical-Religion-Problem/dp/0195147073/ref=cm_rdp_product

http://abpnews.com/opinion/commentaries/item/7833-the-most-segregated-hour#.UisS66zD-1s

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/race-and-religion-rachel-platt-and-renee-murphy-switch-churches/1v7bo0sv7

[EverAStudent]

For all of its sins and faults I would not have attributed racism to GCx.  Our church did have mixed races, small as the church was. 

The "color" of the leadership was most likely due to the fact that only friends of Jim became leadership and if Jim had a predominantly white circle of friends then racism need not have been the cause but rather Jim's limited taste in friends. 

[Huldah]

I never noticed any racism. If it was there, I was oblivious. Our group was mostly white, and most minority members were Asian (specifically of Chinese heritage), but there were a handful of members who were black Americans or were from India. We also had close ties to the Columbus Chinese Christian church. So while Solid Rock happened to be overwhelmingly white, it was by no means a whites-only club.

For convenience, since most of us lived near campus and didn't have cars,  recruitment was done in the dorms at OSU or in housing adjacent to the campus. That meant that the recruitment was done in a pool of mostly white candidates. It's just the way it worked out, rather than a deliberate policy of racial exclusion.

For all of Solid Rock's many faults, problems, and errors, at least racism doesn't appear to have been part of the picture.

[Amesguy2001]

I did see something that bothered me in Ames.

I was part of a group that reached out to internationals (Chinese mostly) and at the time the Ames church was training their first Chinese Pastor. Yet I left because the Rock Pastor decided to end all connections with the Rock and Internationals (That finally changed not to long ago, after I left). Basically I did an English Corner with some Rockers and we were making disciples and 1 Chinese girl came to Christ from our outreach and the Rock Pastor called us into a secret meeting and asked everyone to stop being involved in English Corner. It was a sad day for all. The Rock Pastor had different ideas for the people involved and we had pretty much all been asked to drop our Chinese friends and send them to another church. When I heard that, I lost it. I left the meeting and ended my involvement with the Ames church , but I waited a year to see if we could get the pastor to change his mind. In the end, he thought I was a heretic and insubordinate and my friends pretty much left me. I know GCM Ames Church isn't "racist" but they are foolish when it comes to outreach to other ethnic groups. 

[EverAStudent]

Amesguy, thanks for sharing that. 

It is my opinion that GC was (is?) intentionally youth-centric and based their programs around attracting the young American.  They claimed their strategy was "biblical" in some obscure way, in part because Paul supposedly concentrated on large metropolitan centers where education and single-language speaking was emphasized.  They also claimed their youth-centric strategy was efficient and pragmatic because if they convert a college-age youth they have them for a lifetime of dedicated service.

Sadly, that strategy, oft repeated in other denominations beyond GC, is biblically flawed and historically ignorant.  We all know that Paul did not concentrate his evangelism on only the young (see the names of such people as Phoebe, Priscilla, Aquilla, high court officials, etc) nor did anyone record that he ever went to a school campus to preach. 

Historically, the universal Christian church has drawn its population from adult conversions.  In fact, only adult conversions (like thousands in one day in Jerusalem) explains it rapid rise to global proportions in just a few hundred years. 

So, why do denominations like GC go after the young if such a strategy has neither biblical nor historical precedent?  Well, that is a matter of speculation, but I do have theories:
1)  college kids tend to be lonely, open to new relationships, and gullible
2) youth tend to be less well trained and far less discerning in the Scriptures than do older people
3) the pastors in GC are often young, poorly trained, and immature in understanding the Scriptures, so they seek congregants less well trained than themselves
4) it is easier marshalling young people than serving the needs of old people
5) young people have fewer immediate spiritual problems with spouses, children, debt, mid-life crises, and consequently "need" less Bible training in life skills (such training in Christian life skills is seen as a distraction to the "mission of global evangelism")

Sorry if that appears synical, but, why else pursue the young so aggresively when the approach just simply is not historically valid?

[BTDT]

(Ned - Nice to see another Silver Springer here!  )

I'm a Regular White Guy (TM), so I don't know if I would notice subtle racism.  But I didn't notice any racism at Silver Spring, either.  There were separate groups and even separate churches for groups of people:  Positive Focus and the Howard University mini-church, the "International Church" (mostly students, I think), a separate college student group (that went under GCM eventually) and a predominantly-Hispanic home group.  It was always said that these groups addressed common needs that may have been different from the church at large, so I never gave it much thought, except that I missed the diversity a more integrated church would have provided.

Interestingly, once Valley Brook left GC, it seemed to become a lot more racially diverse.  Perhaps that was because Positive Focus people mostly stayed with Dan Baty; whatever the reason, it was *really* nice to have everyone mostly together.

-Ed-