Conversation With the Church - HOW DID AMERICA COME TO HAVE A BLACK CHURCH
(First, let me say that I am unapologetically evangelical and Christian.) - The Christian community in America pretended that it didn't notice it had a "race" problem until its submissive subjects refused to continue to be submissive and point out how the church had been implicit throughout America's savage brutal history and Blacks started speaking up and walking away.
The new catchphrase of many evangelicals (mostly Whites) is "there is no white church, there is no Black church. We are all one...the Church!" The problem is White Christians created the Black church when they refused to allow enslaved, freemen, and later descendants of enslaved people to worship in their churches alongside them. White Christians forced the establishment of "Black" organizations (that were open to all and sometimes lead by various ethnicities), and congregations, because some refused to allow Negroes or N****rs (as many were noted to have referred to their fellow Black counterparts) to be in their organizations or be led by non-white leaders. Blacks did not choose to worship in separate congregations or segregated sections of the congregations.
Today, most multi-ethnic congregations allow Blacks to serve as music director, lead vocalist, director of communications, serve in areas of hospitality, and maybe even allow a couple to lead a small group. Yet they seldom allow Blacks to lead their organizations, serve as a staff pastor, sit on their boards, or make real attempts to create a multi-ethnic worship environment (they just assume the Hillsong or Bethel worship style is the universal way to do worship experience). While they try to sell the idea that there is no Black church or White church, neither past actions nor their current ones are convincing of their words. Before they deny the existence of a segregated "church in America" they have to admit they created it and must commit to working to dismantle and heal the damages that their fathers created and they have continued to facilitate until it has become too costly or embarrassing for the American Christian community.
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