Crossing Racial Barriers

One of the main duties of the Christian is to foster Christian fellowship across the racial lines. “In Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile, bond nor free, male nor female.” In the area of race relations today, the church is weak. It is so partly because it usually denies Christian fellowship across racial lines.

Most of our churches are not churches of God but churches of men, of custom, and of tradition. Until the individual Christian and the clergy are able to set themselves over against the state, against tradition, and against custom and say by words and deeds that when a member of any racial group crosses the threshold of this house, he is no longer in the custody of men but in the custody of God, and that in God’s house the state or society has no voice and no jurisdic- tion, the church will be weak and impotent; it will have no right to speak to the secular order about its behavior.

Freedom of worship, if it means anything at all, means freedom to worship God across racial lines and freedom for a man or woman to join the church of his or her choice irrespective of race. Separate churches for the people may not be un-Christian but segregated churches are un-Christian.

Denominational churches, for example, are not necessarily un- Christian; but churches organized purely along racial lines can hardly qualify as Christian. If worship and fellowship are denied because of race, it is definitely un-Christian.