By Keith Carpenter, Lead Pastor, Kent Covenant Church
On the weekend of February 16th and 17th, it was Kent Covenant Church’s privilege to host Tigard Covenant Church pastor, David Greenidge and his wife, Trish (Patricia). One of KCC’s stated mission initiatives is to “Teach Biblical Justice.” David and Trish came to help our predominantly white congregation (located in an ethnically diverse community) better understand issues of racial justice and what it will take to get to true racial reconciliation. Saturday night featured a “Dinner and Dialogue” session in which Pastor David addressed steps that can be taken by evangelical congregations like Kent Covenant, to pursue racial justice as a priority of Christ’s mission. David and Trish then answered questions about issues like white privilege, and the wealth and educational gaps. In the process they told stories about profiling and prejudice they have experienced in the Portland-Vancouver area. An especially poignant story David told was about showing up to a Saturday morning men’s breakfast in his church shortly after another police shooting of an unarmed young black man. At the breakfast, there were eight white men present and eight black men. David expressed outrage about the shooting in an angry tone, and a spirited discussion followed. Some were empathetic toward David’s perspective, others sided with the police officer. David came away feeling good about the candor of the discussion, believing these kind of honest conversations need to take place for progress to be made in race relations. However, in the weeks that followed, two of the white men and their families withdrew from his church and decided to attend elsewhere. They left on good terms with Pastor David but were clearly uncomfortable with a discussion about racial justice taking place in the church.
On Sunday morning Pastor David preached from Luke 7 about the Roman centurion who came to Jesus seeking healing for his servant. Jesus quickly offered to come to the Roman’s house (a violation of Jewish law) to heal the servant but the Centurion stopped Jesus and told him, “just say the word from where you are and my servant will be healed.” Pastor David stressed that Jesus, and later the apostles, were willing to cross any and every cultural boundary to bring the Good News to all people. Pastor David challenged our congregation to be willing to do the same in ethnic outreach and seeking justice for others. David included in his message more stories about ways he had experienced racial discrimination in recent years. He noted that there has to be racial justice before there can be real racial reconciliation. Several in attendance commented to the effect, “It helps a lot to hear these stories about profiling and prejudice. Being white, we don’t experience these things so we don’t get it. But hearing these stories opens our eyes to the reality of how far we have to go as a society, and the important responsibility we have as Christians to lead the way.”
It was great having Pastor David and Trish with us to illuminate these issues and to challenge us. In looking back over more than 36 years as a Covenant pastor, I am saddened that Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s early 1960’s statement that “the most segregated hour in America is 11 am on Sunday,” is still true. I am convinced that racial injustice and discrimination in America will end when white evangelical churches (like mine) decide to end it. We may not think of ourselves as the initiators of racial injustice but we are complicit in keeping it going through our silence.
