Can We Talk?

Never let it be said that the mainline denominations don’t have a herd instinct. Since the United Church of Christ, in an act of blatant subject-changing following the Jeremiah Wright blow-up, has called on its members to ignore Trinity Sunday and engage in a “sacred conversation on race,” the Presbyterian Church (USA) has decided to say “me, too!”:

On Sunday, May 18, 2008, we invite Christians to engage and promote “sacred conversation” on the issue of race in the United States with the hope that discussion around the issues of race and racism will begin. Use the resources below to engage your congregation in dialogue on this important matter.

Because there’s never been any “discussion around the issues of race and racism” before.

The current political season has made all of us aware that racism is still a reality in our common life and that we need to renew our efforts for reconciliation across racial lines. Toward that end, the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. has invited all of its member churches to make May 18, 2008 (Trinity Sunday), a day for “sacred conversations” on race in the 35-member communions of the National Council of Churches

The NCC did this in a joint letter between General Secretary Michael Kinnamon and UCC President John Thomas (who went to Kinnamon and cried, “I’m under fire! Can you give me some cover?”) on May 5. Unlike normal NCC procedure, this wasn’t trumpeted on the Council Web site, and it still isn’t there. Maybe Kinnamon ran out of ammunition? For that matter, I couldn’t find it on the UCC site, either. The PCUSA has it here. In it, Kinnamon and Thomas let us know that churches are either victims or oppressors:

There are numerous issues of pressing concern for the churches in this election year, including
continuing violence in the Middle East, a domestic economy that is squeezing the poor, the escalating price of food around the world, and the need for affordable health care and immigration reform in our own country. Alongside all of these, however, must be the issue of racial justice.

The United Church of Christ has taken a lead in calling for “a sacred conversation on race” prompted in part by the controversy surrounding Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr., pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ where Senator Barack Obama is a member. But all of our churches are affected by the persistent, appalling legacy of racism in this culture. And all of our churches are committed to the biblical truth that every person, regardless of the color of their skin, is an infinitely-valued child of God to whom Christ says: “I have come that you may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10)

With this in mind, we urge you to encourage this sacred conversation in your own communion.
Materials that may be useful in your setting, including prayers and litanies, are available on the UCC website.

Every church, of course, is different. Some of you have been victims of white privilege; others have been more complicit in the continuation of systemic racial prejudice. All of us, however, have much to contribute to, and take from, such a conversation. All of us can ask: What does our faith have to say about this evil? How can our church respond to help make this society more just for every one of its citizens? [Emphasis added.]

So which is your church? Are you a “victim of white privilege,” or have you been “complicit in the continuation of systemic racial prejudice”? They don’t mention any other possibilities, so I assume your church is one or the other. Which is it?

This is what the mainline churches have been reduced to: their clergy and laity are called to start a conversation (oops, make that a “sacred” conversation) about a subject that has obsessed them for decades, all to cover up for one loony Chicago preacher. And the PCUSA happily goes along. In the process, they all degrade what should be an utterly serious, central proclamation of the churches–that in Christ, by the power of the gospel, all the barriers that humanity has erected to divide itself have been overcome, and that in Christ there is “neither Jew nor Greek” (Galatians 3:28)–to the level of a frivolous political stunt.