“There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
Paul of Tarsus, Galatians 3:28 (NRSVUE)
As the United States and Canada celebrate Black History Month in February, I believe it is important for the church to look at racial reconciliation within our history as we seek a better vision for our larger culture.
When Paul makes the above statement to the church at Galatia, it was a radical idea for his time and still seems to be today. The categories that he lifts up were definitive. It was easy to see that you had more rights as a man in that time just as you had more rights as a free person. Culture privileged free males over female slaves. "Jew or Greek" had religious connotations for Paul’s audience. Jews were understood as preferred by God over Gentiles in the early church which initially emerged as a sect of Judaism.
Paul is not erasing these categories in Christ so that we might dilute or diffuse our individual identities within our culture. Rather, Paul is saying that God does not prioritize one over the other with regards to the grace offered.
The church has struggled with this for years and many branches still regard feminine calls to ministry as illegitimate. And racially, our church has often mirrored the culture at large rather than lived out an example of who we could be.
When United Methodism formed from the merger of the Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church in 1968, we moved to end a formal system of segregation in our denomination. The Central Conference of the Methodist Church in the United States was a segregated body where African American congregations had their own pastors and their own bishops. White pastors were not considered for appointments to these churches and black pastors were certainly not allowed to oversee white congregations.
Once the Central Conference was dismantled, black churches and black pastors merged into the annual conference where they were located geographically. As cross-cultural appointments (very slowly) began to be made, the pioneers often paid a steep price.
Just as there would have been more tension for United Methodists located in southern states following the integration of the black churches, clergy and laity into the annual conferences, the payment of this new apportioned item likely received initial resistance.
Many local congregants would have pushed back against paying this line item, just as Paul’s original letter to the Galatians would have been criticized as unbiblical.
As we celebrate Black History Month in February, we highlight our participation within African American culture, and we confess our sins where we've fallen short. Certainly, our confession would include the Central Conference. We are seeking to rename the remaining Central Conferences (which are geographical and located overseas but named at a time when they were seen as different from how we operated within the United States) as Regional Conferences in amendments to our Book of Discipline’s constitution at annual conferences across the connection. The United States will also be named as a Regional Conference. But we also honor where we've done well in following Paul's original prophetic letter to the church.
If there's no preference from God for those in Christ in heaven, how do we lift up that same egalitarian ideal here on earth?
Our support for the Black College Fund has served us well for 53 years. It is a prioritization that reminds us of who we can be and who we seek to be in Christ.
Photo by Felipe Gregate on Unsplash
New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
