2/19/61

Scripture: Ephesians 2: 11-22

Text: Malachi 2: 10; "Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us?"

The Old Testament is a great source record of the God of justice; of creative power and purpose. It is full of the recognition that His chosen people owe the devotion of the created to their Creator. More than that; God is father of all. And since He is father, his creatures of mankind are his sons. In the second chapter of Malachi, this minor prophet whose writing composes the last book listed in the Old Testament, says: "Have we not all one father? Has not one God created us?"

It is a theme that was addressed to divided folk of the Jewish fold. But New Testament Christians believe that the observation applies not alone to the chosen Jews but to all mankind. (This morning’s anthem underlines the faith beautifully.)

For it is the substance of much of the teaching of Jesus, when he said that his followers ought to love one another as he has loved all his followers. More yet, he enjoined his followers to regard even their enemies with love. He taught his disciples to pray to "our Father," therein acknowledging their togetherness in a brotherhood of belief. Paul, after his conversion, taught repeatedly of love -- simple, genuine, unadorned, unboasted, sincere love of one another in the name and spirit of Christ.

This may be a good point at which to begin in this 1961 observance of Brotherhood Week. The special observance of such a week has been sponsored for many years by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Here in our city, there has been some community observance of it in most seasons for at least 15 years. And, of course, brotherhood has been taught, and preached, and to some degree practiced in the churches long before that!

There are certain areas where its practice is especially needed and, in some ways, long overdue. This is tragically true in the field of race relations. Here is one of the most urgent problems of mankind. Galen Weaver has remarked that "if there is one single word that requires saying in connection with contemporary race relations, it is ‘urgency’!" Drastic things must be done now with our attitudes and practices, for the moments are ticking ominously away. For time is running out with appalling swiftness in this area. Robert McCracken of Riverside Church in New York says that "the question of race relations is at the very center of the world crisis. In importance and urgency it should be bracketed with the threat posed to civilization by the manufacture of nuclear missiles."

A British writer, whose country is beset with all of the complicated problems in Kenya, has predicted if Western democracy continues to be based on the supremacy of the white man, that in itself might well be the precipitating cause of a World War III.

In the 19th century, the white race established an ascendancy over the peoples of Asia and Africa. In some degree, they abused their power almost everywhere. Now, the peoples that have been subjugated are striking their shackles. They are filled with fiery zeal for freedom from want, from oppression, from fear; they want political freedom, and they want a better life, and they are zealously determined to find it! This may prove to be the most significant revolution of our age.

This change is going on all over the world. But the alignments of traditional power are undergoing no more drastic changes than in Africa --- and in a very short period of time. White folk in Africa are haunted by the perpetual fear -- well founded -- that black folk may bring their ascendancy to an end. It is certain that this is going to happen. It is not to be supposed that two and one-half million whites, of several nationalities, can hope permanently to mold to their will the 200 million black population of Africa’s tribes and nations. The only way that has ever been possible is by subjugation; and the subjugated peoples are now in open revolt, with communists more than ready to inflame them and exploit them.

Are not Christians bound to sympathize with the hopes and aspirations of African and Asian peoples? Many Christians have done more than sympathize. The missionary teaching and preaching of the gospel has nourished these aspirations. Ministers and elders of the Scottish church have been vigorous in protesting the wrongs done in British dependencies in Africa. How could they do otherwise in Christian conscience when they are informed of the conditions?

Here in our own country, our Christian principles and practice are often at variance. This is one of the alarmingly dangerous tragedies of our time. For creed and conduct clash most, at this point, in Africa and in the United States. Our nation is by no means unburdened of the sin of slavery for so many years. True, slavery was politically abolished a hundred years ago when it was an issue of the war between the States. But that solved only one stage in the essential relations of people of both races. Some of the European continent got rid of political slavery much earlier than we did. And they accomplished what we are calling "integration" effectively enough so that there is said to be much less "color consciousness" there now than in the USA.

Our race difficulties in this country tend to discredit the Christianity which we profess in the eyes of great numbers of Asians and Africans. When Christianity is presented to them, our race record is the objection most repeatedly raised. American travelers in the Far East seem always to encounter people sensitive to the race problem in the US -- people who raise questions concerning the way Negroes, Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Jews, and others are treated in this country. Travelers here from those lands abroad often go back to their own land with unpleasing experiences and adverse impressions of our race consciousness.

Communists minimize our points of strength, and the notable advances of the last decade, while making the most of our shortcomings in the area of race.

Not only our own nation, but the whole world, is acutely aware of the "sit-ins" of the South to secure inter-racial service in eating places, in public transportation facilities, and in places of education. These moves and the counter-moves of white citizens’ councils and some Southern state officials, are played up in prominent headlines.

With race relations the crucial issue of these days, the Christian pulpit must spell out, time and again, the Christian principle. The world has no common conviction about which to unite its life. It has forgotten, and it still has to realize, that beneath the problems of race, class, color and creed, there is a fundamental fact which is universal and which is everywhere the same, i.e. God is the Creator of all mankind. All men have an equality of consideration in His sight. He cares for all men with equal concern. And it is God’s intention that men should live in community with one another; that they should love neighbors as well as themselves. The racist doctrine and practice of assumed superiority of some colors and inferiority of others, is an affront to the dignity of man, and an insult to the Creator.

Think of Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan and of its meaning. Good, conscientious Jews looked down upon Samaritans. Samaritans were a racial mixture; their religious practices were not purified in Jewish eyes and were in fact erroneous. And Samaritans resented Jews with their high and mighty righteousness, argued about religious issues, and refused customary hospitality to Jews from Galilee or Judea.

But in Jesus’ parable of a man robbed, ignored, injured and left dying beside the road, it was a Jewish priest who passed by; a Levite, who did not stop to help; but of all things, a Samaritan (!) who stopped to help, offered healing and assistance and provided for the continuing care of the wounded traveler. [Luke 10: 30-37]. Think of Jesus’ treatment of the Samaritans, the Greeks, the Romans who crossed his path. Before his searching gaze, our racism can not go unchallenged.

A new world order is being built in our generation. In it, we whites are not going to be the majority. We are less than a third of the world’s population. This ought to sober us into renewed recognition that the church of Christ will forfeit any right to moral leadership unless it stands solidly by its God-given gospel, declaring that all men are created in the spiritual image of God and that, consequently, each person is of infinite and eternal value.

Time and again, we Christians must spell this out. Preaching is important, but it is not enough. The proclamation of principle is important, but it is not enough. Practically all of the Christian denominational bodies have passed resolutions in support of integration, for instance. Resolutions help to create a climate of opinion and conscience; but resolutions do not, in themselves, change race relations. Evidence is overwhelming that they have little direct effect upon local congregations. The rank and file of people in local churches have yet to discover the real outreach of their responsibility to those of other races, to minority groups, and even in some cases to majority groups.

In the resolutions presented by most denominational boards, there is much talk about "building bridges of understanding" around the world. That is a splendid vision, and it is our Christian duty. But brotherhood begins on a person-to-person basis at home. It is idle talk without some personal manifestation, without deeds to back up words!

Christian relations with people whose color and class are not our own have to be cultivated here in the United States, in Wisconsin, in Wisconsin Rapids; in each neighborhood, in church congregations; in housing, school and job opportunities; in shop and office.

One author [Louis Adamic] hurls the charge at us that "on this point, most American Christians are such frauds. The best that the best of them can do is to be tolerant." For something beyond tolerance is needed. Tolerance may not issue in action. Tolerance may not take one step toward improvement of race relations or community among creeds. What is required is positive acceptance, association, cooperation, joint undertakings.

Our task is putting Christian principles to work. A lot of Christians have rejected the myth of racial superiority, and the number is growing. But far too many find some reason why, in their particular situation, it is not possible, or expedient, to worship or work together with minority folk or to associate with minority groups.

The churches would materially assist the state in its attempt to establish integration, if more church members were willing to act like Christians toward their brothers of another race or color or class. We feel will-nigh helpless about remedying some of the vast and complicated social problems, where it first appears that there is very little that the individual can do. But the encouraging feature appears when every Christian, knowing that there is something that he can do, begins where he lives, works and worships. Committing himself to an unsegregated church in an unsegregated society, he can conform his personal, business and religious life to that commitment.

He can cultivate contacts with people of other races, creeds or classes; invite some of them to his home; be willing to go when he is invited to theirs. He can press for the right to entertain these brothers of other groups at his club. Christian race relations begin in the immediate person-to-person contacts.

And, beyond person-to-person contacts, there is the challenge of the community. And our community is no exception! When I came here, I heard it said (I do not know with what justification) that a Negro could not have service in any eating place in town. It can be a matter of satisfaction to all of us in this town that a person of any race can be served in the dining room of our leading hotel and probably at other places. I think that this goes for Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, or folk of any other creed or faith. If it doesn’t we ought to have a community concern over it.

I hope that we can keep our community clear of the hated terms by which races are dubbed by disrespectful nicknames, and religious adherents have hurled at them such tragedy-filled names as "Christ-killer," "idol-worshipper" and even "heretic."

I recall with sorrow and with thankfulness and incident in our community life when we had a baseball league while we were a pasture-location for a Chicago ball club. One of the visiting teams included a Negro player who was verbally abused as a Negro by someone in the grandstand. The citizen who jumped on that incident hardest was one of our own Caucasian and Roman Catholic adherents. His firm reader’s letter in the next day’s newspaper, calling for good sportsmanship without any such adverse racial flavor, helped to put an end to that kind of thing in the baseball games.

When Caucasian church women and youth groups in our community not only invite the members of an American Indian society to their meetings, but accept the invitation to attend the Indian affairs, that is a good sign.

These things help to break down the emotional barriers that all of us have built up and which bring unreasoned, detrimental discrimination.

We can be alert for fair employment practices, for the right to acquire proper housing, for just application of laws. We can strive to make it clear, by demonstration, that our churches are inclusive of people of all classes and conditions who want Christian fellowship in Christian worship and service. We can be good neighbors to those of non-Christian persuasion, and we can accept their expression of neighborliness.

What motive is strong enough to bring all this about, to spur us to live up to what we profess? A writer named H. N. Brailsford, pleading that the African be given the opportunities and rights which are his due, asks: "Why should we do that? Because we believe that sound economics point this way? or because we think that in the long run our own interests will be served? Never. Men who have no hotter fire than that in their bellies will stammer and wilt and yield, as soon as the battle looks doubtful. We shall do it for backward peoples, and do it at some cost to ourselves, only if our motive is brotherly love. Whether we think of them as our fellow workers, or as our fellow men, it must be the warm impulse of fraternity that drives us to defend them and to aid them. If we lack this principle of action, then our plans are a dreary intellectual exercise and nothing more. If we have in us the faith and the love this great adventure demands, we shall succeed."

That from a journalist! It is precisely where the Bible puts the emphasis. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Let us put our faith and our love not into words or talk so much as into deeds.

"Let love be genuine," said the Apostle. Thus Paul is saying: "Let love be itself; let there be in it no pretense --- nothing alien to what it is; let love be love."

Let it be tested and strengthened by our approach to people of every race, class, creed, or condition. For I am more than my brother’s keeper, more than my brother’s neighbor. I am my brother’s brother. And we are sons of one Father!

All your strength is in your unison,

All your danger is in discord,

Therefore be at peace henceforward

And as brothers live together. ["The Song of Hiawatha"], by Longfellow

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Delivered in Wisconsin Rapids, February 19, 1961.