Why Do Churches Seem Split along Racial Lines?

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.

The frame, and the principle: inclusion, against racism

• The frame opens with the reverend martin luther king jr.'s observation: it is appalling that the most segregated hour of christian america is on sunday morning. He was noting the racial divide in the american church at large, but his observation unfortunately seems to apply to oneness pentecostals also. The question posed: if all oneness pentecostals believe and preach the same message, why are organizations split along racial lines?
• First: the church of jesus christ must stand for racial inclusion and must stand against racism. Racism is a sin — we must be very clear on that. Any practice that promotes segregation, or is racist, or excludes people or puts them on a secondary status, is contrary to the scripture and to what the church should be: in revelation chapter 5 verse 9, you have people of every language, every tribe, every nation, all worshiping god in heaven together — so that's what the church should be like.
• Of course america has a history of racism, from slavery to jim crow laws; thankfully the civil rights movement of the 1960s brought great equity in a legal sense — that doesn't mean everybody's hearts were changed, and there's still an ongoing battle to implement and practice what our nation professes. We are founded as a nation on the premise that all people are created equal — the first nation founded on that principle — and even though it was imperfect, we progressed steadily; thankfully we've arrived at a point of tremendous progress, and we still have more progress to make. He answers on a big picture and a little picture.

Scriptures: Revelation 5:9

The early movement: interracial — and the Jim Crow splits

• The pentecostal movement arose in the early 1900s, and one of its amazing features, which you can see in the azusa street revival, was its interracial character. One of our founders — from the deep south — wrote how amazed he was that for the first time in his life he could see white and black people sitting together, having dinner, worshiping together in church; he thought it was amazing that that could happen. Another chronicler, the actual historian of the azusa street revival, frank bartleman, who became a oneness pentecostal, said: the color line was washed away in the blood. The early oneness organizations were interracial.
• However, we were living in a jim crow society, especially throughout the south. If you tried to have meetings together you would often be attacked, or even arrested: interracial tent revivals drew people throwing rocks, tearing down tents, burning the tents at night; if you tried to have a conference, you couldn't rent a venue where blacks and whites could meet together; you couldn't have a hotel as headquarters where blacks and whites could go together; you couldn't go to a restaurant together. The reality of all that caused a split along racial lines in 1924 — four organizations, on regional lines and racial lines. He thinks it was a great tragedy: no doubt there was some prejudice at work even within the church, but by the testimony of both blacks and whites at that time, the real pressure was not so much within the church but society. James tyson has written a book, the early pentecostal revival — he's african-american — and he wrote a history of christian doctrine, volume 3; both try to recount that history.
• The oneness people were so uncomfortable with that division — even though it seemed required by society's pressures — that in 1931 the two largest groups tried to join again interracially. That survived until 1937, when there was another division: most of the black ministers left because they didn't feel it was being administered fairly. He would have to say it is a great tragedy, and the majority of responsibility has to fall upon the majority, which was white. Nevertheless, it was the segregated pressures of society: at that time all major denominations were divided on racial lines — the unions, the democratic party, the military — every major institution of society was divided on racial lines, or almost all. The oneness pentecostals struggled longer and more effectively than almost any — but still it ended in failure. He wishes they could have held together for twenty more years: then we would have entered the civil rights movement, and we could have had a positive impact in a way that we didn't.

The UPCI record: striving for inclusion

• All that was before there was a united pentecostal church. The united pentecostal church was formed in 1945, a merger of two organizations that were predominantly white but not exclusively white: there were african-american ministers at the founding of the upci, and we also have some hispanic and asian ministers who were founding members.
• Over the years the upci has struggled to become more and more inclusive — probably for the last forty years there's been an intense desire, step by step: we've adopted policies, official statements, and practical applications. Today, across the world, the upci is vast majority non-white; in the united states and canada, our home base, about one-third minorities of all kinds and about two-thirds white. Our general board, and every one of our other governing boards, is now interracial — typically through the electoral process we have both black and hispanic membership; most of our districts throughout the u.s. and canada will have african-american and/or hispanic, and even other, representation on their district boards and leadership teams. So that statement is not true of the upci — though in some areas, a very strong majority-white population could make it true, or in minority neighborhoods it could be true. For example, in austin, texas, the church he started: when he stepped down as pastor it was 50 percent white, caucasian, anglo; 26 percent hispanic, the largest minority in our city; 18 percent african american or black; 6 percent asian american or native american. For most of our large churches, urban churches, growing churches, you do see quite a bit of diversity.

The strategy: open churches, planted churches, inclusive leadership

• We have to be intentional. The first thing: every church should be open and welcoming to all — not just in theory, but in the way they operate: who they use in leadership, the types of services they conduct, needs to be culturally and racially inclusive.
• The second thing: because of the unique needs of minorities, we should be intentional about training pastors and ministers who can go into minority neighborhoods and establish churches — while they also should minister to everyone, they will specifically try to reach the minority populations in their immediate neighborhood. In some cases that's important because of language, such as spanish and other languages; in some cases, culture, geographic area, or the demographics of the neighborhood. So we need a twofold strategy: every church being inclusive, and intentionally planting churches in minority neighborhoods and constituencies.
• And maybe a third point: we must be intentional as an organization to be inclusive at every level of leadership. His goal as general superintendent: our church should reflect the demographics of our society, and our leadership should reflect the demographics of our church.

Fellowship across the old divisions [captured text ends mid-sentence]

• Going back to the divisions, now almost a hundred years old: there are several different apostolic organizations that are predominantly african-american or predominantly hispanic. He believes it is also important to have fellowship among the various groups. Over the years each group has developed its own traditions, its own culture, its own form of government — so we're not necessarily saying we all have to join in one organization; he doesn't think that's necessary. But we should work together as brothers and sisters. Before he was general superintendent, when he was president of the graduate school of theology, he invited the leaders of the seven largest apostolic pentecostal organizations in the u.s. to come together for a meeting; every year since then we've had the annual apostolic fellowship summit, and we have worked together on many things — one of the notable ones in recent years, the national apostolic day of prayer.
• So he is happy to tell you that, to a great extent, within the united pentecostal church international we do not follow that quote that was stated: we are truly an interracial, inclusive church; we're striving to be more so. And why is that? Not to be politically correct — because god loves souls, all souls; the church must do the same; and because the church on earth should [the captured text ends mid-sentence here; see this record's truncation flag].

Scripture index: Revelation 5:9.