Segregated Worship

In a recent commentary ("Become an Antiracist Disciple of Jesus"), the Rev. Chester Jones, general secretary of The United Methodist General Commission on Religion and Race, wrote about attending the recent reunion of Methodists who had been part of the officially sanctioned, segregated Central Jurisdiction from 1939-1968. He observed that despite having abolished official segregation and the Central Jurisdiction, The United Methodist Church is "not done yet in our efforts to bring about a complete merger of racial-ethnic people into all levels of our denomination." He wrote:

"We agreed at the reunion that more progress has been made on the general and jurisdictional levels of our church than at the local levels. Why are we open to electing bishops, general secretaries and general agency and conference staff, but not open to female pastors or pastors of a different race or ethnicity at the local church level? Why have we made so little progress toward implementing a plan for racial inclusiveness on the local church level? Why is it that 11 o'clock on Sunday morning in most of our churches does not look much different than it did in 1968?"

It is the Rev. Jones' last question that particularly interests me here. As he says, we have made great strides in eliminating racism from our denomination. I offer the following accomplishments, while acknowledging the mixed success of some of them, especially at the congregational level:

• The primarily Caucasian Methodist denominations that divided over slavery have rejoined.
• We have abolished the segregated Central Jurisdiction.
• Ethnic clergy are being increasingly ordained and cross-culturally appointed.
• We are increasingly electing ethnic bishops and appointing ethnic superintendents.
• Our general church agencies are diligent in implementing affirmative action policies as well as policies and practices for the elimination of institutional racism.
• On behalf of the entire denomination, General Conference has apologized and repented of our past racist history to those African-American Methodist denominations that left the denomination as well as to those African-Americans who remained faithful and loyal to the denomination despite its racism.
• We are engaged at a variety of levels in cooperative and mutually supportive activities with the Pan-Methodist denominations, and there seems to be a genuine longing for closer relationship and reconciliation.

In addition, consider the following developments specifically related to the 11 o'clock Sunday worship hour:

• The present United Methodist Hymnal (1989) took a quantum leap in the number of texts, tunes, and worship resources from non-Euro-American, non-English-speaking sources. For example, the 1966 Methodist Hymnal contained only one hymn by an African American and only five Negro spirituals, and those were listed as "American Folk Hymns." (See Carlton Young, Companion to The United Methodist Hymnal, Abingdon, 1993, page 26.) The present hymnal's repertory has grown to 28 spirituals plus many more hymns and songs by African Americans such as Duke Ellington, the Johnson brothers, Andraé Crouch, and others.
• General Conference has mandated official denominational hymnals for a number of ethnic constituencies that primarily speak Spanish and Korean. The general agencies, including the Discipleship Ministries, have been active in bringing about others in Russian, German, Hmong, Cambodian — with others a possibility. We have produced other hymnals and collections for African Americans, Native Americans, Asians, and Hispanic/Latino constituencies.
• There is now a Spanish-language companion volume of liturgy and worship resources to go along with the official Spanish-language hymnal.
• We are working to translate the church's liturgy and worship resources into a variety of languages and cultures.
• Discipleship Ministries and The United Methodist Publishing House jointly developed The Faith We Sing, which is filled with hymns and songs from a great variety of ethnic, cultural, and language traditions and sources — intended primarily for use by the English-speaking North American majority church. Its reception since publication in 2000, measured in popularity and use along with continuing strong sales, speaks to the enrichment of the majority church worship by songs of many races, cultures, and styles.

So where does that leave us with the segregated worship hour? As General Secretary Jones asks, "Why has the ethnic mix of United Methodist Sunday worship not changed much since 1968?" Let me offer several observations and opinions:

• Unlike the church of even 40 years ago, today there is no official or prescribed segregation of our worship.
• Worship today is ordered much more on matters of style, content, language, and culture than on race. The most significant factor in church identity is worship style: preaching, praying, liturgical language, sacramental observance, musical style, congregational singing, use of choir and soloists, use of instruments, use of technology. These factors simultaneously (1) help to give a congregation its identity and (2) are determined by the make up of the congregation. Segregated worship today results from a conscious choice of the worshipers of all races. We worship in one church or another because that is the style, content, language, or culture of worship that speaks to us and that we desire. That is the worship style that helps us encounter God.
• Local congregations are just that — local. They serve and are embedded within neighborhoods that have different ethnic, cultural, and language characteristics. Even with our ability to drive considerable distances to worship in a specific church, the attraction of the local congregation is strong.
• General Conference and the general agencies seek to serve all the church's constituencies — ethnic, cultural, geographical, and lingual — by offering a wide array of products and services to all of them. General Conference and the general agencies, through their funding of work and ministry and their focusing of hymn and worship resources to specific ethnic and language constituencies, may have contributed to de facto segregated worship in the church. However, in this worship, the sins of slavery, segregation, institutional racism, and discrimination do not play a role as they did prior to 1968.

As the Rev. Jones says, "We still need ambassadors . . . to complete the 1968 General Conference mandate that the church be challenged to embrace racial ethnic persons at every level of its life and mission . . . the promises made at the 1968 merger have not been kept." The question I ask is, "Can we do this and still cherish and preserve our worship traditions and heritage?" If we want to become acquainted with and celebrate the best of other worship traditions and cultures within a context of our own, and if we want United Methodism to truly embrace the diversity of global human experience, then let us recognize and affirm that the best way to accomplish that is out of an understanding of the identity of the local congregation.

How do we integrate the 11 o'clock Sunday worship hour? What else could we do on Sunday morning to bring about integrated worship? What might a plan look like — as asked by the Rev. Jones — to implement racial inclusiveness on the local church level? What role would worship, preaching, and music play in it? Is integrated worship as the normal pattern for local congregations a reasonable goal?