"White Flight and the Subtle Racism of the Church" by Greg Arthur for Monday, 30 October 2017Racism is a subtle and destructive virus that has so infected the White Culture and the American Church that I am continually awakening to its realities in new ways. My awakening and deeper consideration does not mark any particular breakthrough. There have been bountiful voices in the church for years, naming and dissecting the racism inherent in our practices. So let me add my small voice to those voices today, confessing ways in which Whiteness has often led the American Church to destructive practices.
I absolutely love the Church of the Nazarene. Our tribe is peculiar, weird, and far too often struggling from self inflicted wounds, but it is also beautiful. I have never felt more hopeful for our future than I do today. That being said, here are some things that we need to confess and own, for how they have taken us away from our mission and purpose. This is how we have been influenced by our Whiteness.
There is a strange phenomenon in the Church of the Nazarene. We have a lot of churches named after cities that they aren't located in. I grew up at Baltimore 1st Church which is located in Ellicott City, MD. (The name has been changed to Crossroads Community since my time there) Ellicott City is a beautiful town about 15-20 miles from downtown Baltimore. Not far from my parents house in NC is Raleigh 1st Church of the Nazarene. They are in Garner and they are selling their property and moving to yet another town further away from Raleigh. I was on staff at Denver 1st Church of the Nazarene. It is in Englewood, CO. Our church in Chesterton was planted by someone from Gary 1st Church of the Nazarene. It is now located outside of Gary in the middle of a stretch of cornfields on a state highway. These are but a few examples of churches in our denomination that were once part of the inner city but moved out to the suburbs.
Why did we do this over and over again? There must be a variety of answers, most of them rooted in good investments, ministry strategies, long term visions, and best intentions of God loving people. But, with what we know about white flight, the homogeny principles of the church growth movement, and the desperate desire for preservation that is inherent in White culture, we have to question why the church of the Nazarene has regularly and readily abandoned the city over and over again.
Unquestionably in the NW Indiana District our greatest mission fields are the cities of Gary and Hammond. Despite the obvious opportunity and need to be good news in these communities, the district has struggled to do so. Why? Well a huge part is because we aren't present in these communities. We left, our churches dwindled there, and we have a hard time finding churches and leaders that want to go back into these communities to be incarnationally present. That is why I am so thankful for my friends who Robbie and Mac who have taken the challenge of helping the church return to Hammond. They have taken on the challenge of building a missional presence and truly being good news there.
Increasingly we are seeing Nazarene churches taking on the call to go back and root once again in the city. As we do so, however, we need to wrestle with our need for repentance. Where have we allowed the ease of gathering similar looking, same culture, same race congregations to prevent us from actually being the church? Where have we accepted the status quo of a racially divided country to be the status quo of the church? Where have we participated in White Flight and allowed the systems of poverty and violence to go one without our attempts to interrupt them?
As we struggle to see power and transformation breaking through the church in America perhaps we must wrestle with our abandonment of reconciliation one of our primary witnesses to the world. We have too often chosen an easier way forward for immediate gains and forfeited our future in doing so.
Monday, October 30, 2017
Categories: Scripture and Discipleship
Do not forget the repentance the Church of the Nazarene needs to do for creating separate Black Districts and Schools in the 1940s.
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