Something that has been a recent topic of conversation and debate is the small church in Kentucky (Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church) that has voted to ban interracial couples from virtually all church activities, except for funerals. I read a few of the articles that covered the story, and I was completely shocked by what I was reading. I was even more surprised to read that it was the church’s pastor who first brought the “issue” to the attention of the parents of the young, white woman who brought her black fiancé to a Sunday morning worship service. Pastors are supposed to be religious leaders to whom church members can turn to for support, encouragement, and teaching – categories in which blatant racial discrimination does not fall. We can hear and see frequently about how far society has come from the days of Jim Crow and segregation, but this situation seems to take a number of steps back to square one.
While the Bible commands Christians to “love one another” on a number of occasions, it seems as though the congregation of this Baptist church are doing just the opposite. While there were only 42 church members that made up the congregation at that time, very few decided to vote when the matter was brought up at what was supposed to be a church-wide congregational meeting. This, to me, was unbelievable – choosing not to vote in something like a presidential election (just for example) is one thing, but choosing not to vote on such a local, personal issue is another game all together. Personally, I find it just as offensive that so many members chose not to vote. In this case, it seems that choosing not to vote simply means that you don’t want to get involved. By not voting against the motion, in effect they voted in favor of the motion, which is just as offensive. Part of the motion stated that the church “does not condone interracial marriage” and that interracial couples “will not be received as members” of the church. However, a portion of the official motion tried to remove the burden of responsibility for discrimination: “The recommendation is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but indicated to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve.” I find it laughable that a group of people, especially a group that identifies themselves as good Christians, would try to write off such a motion for racial discrimination as an effort to “promote greater unity among the church body and the community” when, in reality, this sort of regulation ultimately does the opposite.
Fortunately, I found a story on cbsnews.com that reports that the Sandy Valley Conference of Free Will Baptists, after being asked to convene on the issue by the new pastor of Gulnare Free Will Baptist, has declared the ban invalid: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57336390/ky-churchs-ban-on-interracial-couples-voided/
Although it’s been highlighted on a number of news websites, here’s a link to the article I used and quoted from on ABC news: http://abcnews.go.com/US/kentucky-church-bans-interracial-couples/story?id=15065204#.Ttk6YGOBqU8
This is interesting because this is a very similar argument to what Martin Luther King Jr. used when fighting for civil rights in his "Letter From a Birmingham City Jail". In his letter, King questions why white religious leaders would not help their fight for equality. Religious leaders should be morally obligated to see the justice in King’s cause and could have been a huge help to the black race’s fight if he had preached God’s love for all people to their whites-only congregations. This is the same thing. With church officials, banning interracial marriages, they are going against God’s love for all people and inserting their own personal political views, which are not meant for church.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite issue brought up was the church's rationalization of the motion.
ReplyDelete'The recommendation is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but indicated to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve.'
They are completely negating their argument when they mention unity. Unity is made possible by joining individuals together as a whole. In their case, they are uniting, but they are only uniting one race. I'm assuming they are also referring to how individuals can relate to each other. However, again the idea of unity doesn't hold unless they believe white and blacks can't relate to one another. Yet, even that assumption is irrelevant because if the church did allow all races to attend, they could all relate with one another on their faith, which is a dominant theme amongst most churches.