I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church in the 1960's in a small county seat town. The issue of race relations, or more to the point the issue of civil rights was something we watched on TV, it seemed far removed from our everyday small town life. It was not until Dr. King put a prophetic voice to the cause and it was not until the TV images of fire hoses and beatings of black men and women were broadcast into our homes that we began to realize the true nature of racism in this land, or perhaps more to the point, we could no longer deny its brutal existence. There were a few pioneers in those days, white evangelicals who marched with the civil rights leaders working for a just cause. There were certainly those in the old Home Mission Board of the SBC in the 1960's who worked for change, many of them risking their own "careers" in the process....but by and large the majority of white Southern Baptist came to this issue with too little too late. Today, things are changing. I am the Associate Director of Missions for a metropolitan Association of 130 Baptist churches in the greater Kansas City area. Of those 130 churches, more than 20 are predominantly black. This past year our Association elected a black pastor to serve as its moderator. Still, there is much that needs to be done, but more about that in a latter article. For now just read this words by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and let the truth of these words sink into your heart, as they did mine.
Judge Thomas said:
“It seemed self-evident ... that the treatment of blacks in America cried out for the unequivocal condemnation of a righteous institution that proclaimed the inherent equality of all men. Yet the Church remained silent, and its silence haunted me. I have often thought that my life might well have followed a different route had the Church been as adamant about ending racism then as it is about ending abortion now.”
-- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who attended but dropped out of Catholic seminary, writing in his new memoir, “My Grandfather's Son.” He was quoted by The Washington Post.
