Color-coded Christians ? - The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. called 11 o’clock Sunday morning the most segregated hour in America. It still is.
For all the gains in social justice in the decades since King died, local clergy say, black and white Christians mostly still worship separately.
“Sunday morning is still the most segregated time in the nation,” said Rick Jones, pastor of Mount Zion Baptist Church, 2019 Fisher St., on Madison’s south side.
Jones was joined by other local clergymen on Sunday, the eve of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in an ecumenical service celebrating King’s legacy. It was an effort to bridge the divide in Madison.
Photo by Michelle Stocker/The Capital Times
Carola Gaines leads the Adult Choir Sunday night at Mount Zion Baptist Church.
“There’s only one rule at Mount Zion: Glorify God,” Jones said as the service began. “You can jump up, you can run down the aisle, you can sing loud, as long as you praise God.”
By the end of the service, the pastors were vowing to continue to work to make their coming together transformational for the community.
Alex Gee, pastor of Fountain of Life Family Worship Center, 633 West Badger Road, told those assembled that true diversity is more than a one-shot deal.
“It takes more than singing ‘Kumbayah’ and smiling at people you won’t talk to the rest of the year,” Gee told the group.
“You have to do service together - to all the poor, all the hungry, all the homeless, all the dejected, all the things that need to done in this wonderful land of Oz we call Madison, Wis.”
It may take more than good will and good works to break down the segregation of Sunday morning.
Rev. Mary Pharmer is pastor of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 605 Spruce St., not far from Mount Zion.
She said in an interview that her church tries to reach out to its mixed-race neighborhood and is pretty well integrated by race or economic class in parts of its ministry - the food pantry, the community meal, a program helping ex-offenders re-enter life on the outside.
But on Sunday morning, the people in the pews are nearly all white. Pharmer said she can understand why.
“Racism is institutionalized in government, schools and the church. If on Sunday morning someone doesn’t want to go through the gauntlet of racism, I completely understand.
“As someone in a privileged majority, I don’t think we know what it’s like to have the release of being a worshipper with someone with whom we share common experience,” she said.
Rev. Gregory Armstrong’s church was forged in a rebellion against the segregation of African-Americans in the Methodist church in Philadelphia, back in 1787.
Scholars say that African-American worship practices - call-and-response, rhythmic movement, jumping, dance, weeping, groaning and shouting - annoyed the church’s white leaders.
The Methodist roots of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church convey a “dignified” flavor to the worship services of the traditionally black denomination, Armstrong, pastor of SS Morris AME, 3511 Milwaukee St., said in an interview.
“Methodists don’t demonstrate a whole lot of emotion,” Armstrong said. “They don’t tap their feet, they don’t clap their hands, they don’t say ‘Amen.’ The Baptists do.”
But the AME church is changing, he said. “We are feeling compelled by the Holy Spirit to demonstrate our religiosity more than perhaps some of our ancestors did.”
Armstrong’s ideas about what Sunday mornings should look and sound like still steer people toward one church and away from another.
“Some of us do have different expectations of worship and some of them are cultural,” said the Rev. Curt Anderson, pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ, 1609 University Ave.
But worship style doesn’t always correlate with ethnicity - or politics, he said.
Anderson preaches before a banner that reads “Embracing Diversity Among God’s People,” but acknowledges that there are few ethnic or racial minorities among the church’s members.
Congregationalists have a long history of fighting discrimination against racial minorities and women, and in recent years the priority at First Congregational has been to embrace lesbian and gay members.
“I think it is the desire in our church for relationship with churches and Christians who are different from us in a whole variety of ways,” Anderson said. “In some situations, we don’t know how to go about it, frankly.”
Is a diverse congregation needed if diversity is the creed? “What matters is if our separateness in church leads to other kinds of separateness,” Anderson said. “So much of our lives are separate and there are very few places to interact with people from a different culture.”
At Second Baptist Church, 4303 Britta Parkway, the sign of peace that worshippers share is no mere handshake. It’s a full-out embrace.
“Ask God for them what you would ask for yourself,” Pastor Donald S. Moss entreated one recent Sunday.
“May God change your life,” a young woman whispered as she embraced a visitor.
Sisters and brothers joined the choir in “Jesus Is on the Main Line, Tell Him What You Want.”
“God is getting ready to do something to you!” Moss called out. “It’s going to happen so fast, you won’t see it coming.”
Cries of joy broke out from the group. Hands were lifted in praise. Tears flowed. “Jesus,” a woman called out. “Jesus!”
In a later interview, Moss said that the congregation is trying to draw a more diverse membership. “I believe every person has an ability that others do not have … we’re all here to help each other,” he said.
The spirit rises to the rafters at James C. Wright Middle School on Sundays when Fountain of Life takes over the gymnasium.
“If you know the Lord got you up today, put your hands together!” an impassioned Gee implored in a recent service.
The music here is contemporary gospel spiced with hip-hop. “Mighty God, Mighty God, Yes You Are a Mighty God,” the mostly African-American group sang as lyrics rolled on screens at the corners of the gym.
Gee has worked to attract a diverse membership. A recent survey counted 58 percent African-American members, with significant numbers of Asians and Caucasians, he said in an interview.
“It takes endurance, patience and grace,” he said of building a rainbow congregation.
Worshipping together helps people build more natural relationships than, say, the workplace. “It erases people’s ability to hold stereotypes,” Gee said.
The pastor hopes whites know it’s wrong to think “that this is our asylum and whites are not welcome.” He challenged the majority whites to be the ones to cross the threshold and enter an experience outside their comfort zone.
“Blacks have to get up and do it every single day,” he said. “Most whites don’t know what it feels like to be outnumbered.”
Chris Godar is one of those whites who crossed the threshold. He wanted a glimpse of God in an image unlike that he had envisioned growing up in the United Church of Christ. And he found what he was looking for at Fountain of Life.
“The freedom to worship God however you felt led was wonderful. It affirmed that part of my personality in a way my culture never did,” he said in an interview.
But both his and his wife’s parents seem uncomfortable with the style of the services when they visit, he said.
And, committed as they are, the Godars face challenges, too. He recalled having to choose to sit with whites or “people who didn’t look like us” at a picnic. “We chose the second. But it wasn’t easy.”
Yet, stepping out of a culture where he knew all of the expectations to one where he knew none has helped him grow. “I had to figure out who I actually am,” Godar said.
“When we open ourselves up, we make ourselves vulnerable, and that’s an intimate experience,” he said.
Everlene Harris is among a growing number of African-Americans finding a spiritual home at the conservative Calvary Gospel Church, 5301 Commercial Ave., on Madison’s far east side.
“It’s been wonderful,” Harris said of the two years since she followed her husband to Calvary. “Coming out of an all-black church to a predominantly white one, I didn’t know what to expect. But there is not a color barrier here.”
Congregation members have been welcoming, she said, and willing to lend a hand. “If you have a need, it’s done.”
The contemporary evangelical music was different from what she had known, “but I got used to it.”
Pastor Richard Thomas said that Calvary had been “reaching out into the Section 8 community for five years” with little success in gaining members.
“We found out as we talked to people that we needed to make some changes that probably wouldn’t be recognized by Caucasians, but to people of a different color pick it up the moment they walk in the building,” Thomas said.
What changes? Putting people of color in leadership positions.
Also, Calvary, a United Pentecostal Church that can draw 700 to a Sunday worship service, has developed a Hispanic ministry, a ministry for the deaf, and a ministry for prisoners, who are transported to services each week.
Last week’s Wednesday night service included a preview of a national Christian simulcast designed to bring the local business community into the church.
“Some people have never had the opportunity to socially interact with different cultures there’s a certain aMt. of hesitancy,” Thomas said. “Not everyone is willing to reach out and shake the hand of a prisoner.”
On the far west side, a diverse congregation also is growing at High Point Church, 7702 Old Sauk Road, where evangelical Christians meet in a 1,100-seat modern sanctuary.
A trio of white, black and Asian women on a recent Sunday greeted visitors. A 35-voice choir, accompanied by a string section, piano and recorded music, led the congregation in contemporary Christian music and traditional Christmas carols.
The nondenominational service included a dramatic skit fully produced with scripted roles and stage lighting - on the presence of angels in everyday life.
Pastor Jeff Wegner said the church has drawn on its ministries helping the poor and homeless to attract more diverse members.
Many have only recently come to Madison. “There’s a wide variety of people who are part of our community now. They’re looking for ways to connect,” he said.
Bill Mugford is senior pastor at High Point, and a growing affinity with Mount Zion was plain in his remarks at Sunday’s ecumenical service.
“I pledge that you can call on me,” he told Mount Zion’s Jones. “We’ll work on some things together.”
Jones said the group was committed to hold an ecumenical service honoring King every year and to find ways for the congregations to work together.
“In a year, we’ll look back and realize what God has done through us,” Jones said.
Tonight’s program
Gloria Johnson-Powell, associate dean at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, will be the featured speaker tonight at Madison’s annual commemoration of the life and legacy of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Johnson-Powell was a student of civil rights hero James Lawson, and later became the first black female full professor at Harvard Medical School.
The 21st annual Dane County and City of Madison Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance starts at 6 p.m. today at the Overture Center’s Capitol Theater, 201 State St.
Madison City Channel 12 will broadcast the event live.
The event will again feature the presentation of the annual city and county King awards presented by Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz and Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk.
Entertainment will be provided by the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Choir, led by noted local music director Leotha Stanley.
By Pat Schneider
