Segregated Sunday

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Segregated Sunday
Rev. Henry Williams, Jr.

Over the past three hundred years, we as Americans have made tremendous strides to mend and blend cultures of diverse ethnicity.  Regardless of how we arrived in this country, either on a voluntary boat ride, or on a forced one, we found ourselves on the shores of America.  From its earliest history, and even more in the present, America has always cultivated a society of diversity.  The method and process of achieving such diversity may have been abrasive in most cases; however, the overall goal was to coexist in a culture of differences.  In spite of how inept the process may have come forth, or even the distance we need to travel to attain racial and cultural equality, progress is peaking through shinning pin holes of change and promotion. We live as next door neighbors, we live as co-workers, we shop together, we play together, but yet we don’t worship together.

According to the latest data collected by the American Religion Identity Survey (ARIS), seventy five percent (75%) of Americans proclaim Christianity as their religion.  Moreover, that number is divided when viewed from the standpoint of the Black Church, White Church, or even Hispanic Church; all of which in my opinion do not, and should not exist. Racial and cultural segregation in the church has been perpetuated from the dark days of lawful separation in America.  In addition to this, church segregation also was birthed out of new immigrants being drawn to the congregants that spoke their native language.

Before we as Christians can make an impact on society, we must first look within the church at our own demons. Prior to changing the world, the world must witness the total unity of the Church of Jesus Christ.  Sundays should not be a time for gathering steam of division, as some Christians think, nor a time to conjure or manipulate political ideologies.  The desegregation of Sundays does not swing on the hinges of lawmakers, but rather on the hearts of the true people of God.