I’ve been asking myself this question for a while now. Steve argue posted his impressions of Randall Jelks talk at Calvin College’s January series prompted these thoughts.
He quotes Jelks
I am not free if my sister is not free.
I am not free if my brother is not free.
I am not free if my neighbor is not free
I’ll borrow a page from that Jelks’ book African Americans in the Furniture City: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Grand Rapids and say this;
- the emerging church cannot emerge if it doesn’t see confronting the issue of racism and racial reconciliation as an central to its mission.
- the emerging church cannot emerge until it engages God’s mandate to "practice Pentecost" (see Anthony Smith)
- the emerging church cannot emerge until it is actively pursuing the spiritual practice racial reconciliation.
racial reconciliation as missional value
One of the values of the emerging church ( as posited by emergent) is to practice the way of Jesus. Jesus started his ministry with a declaration of his mission to bring justice and relief from oppression.(Luke 4:18-19Luke 4:18-19
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
18 .
WP-Bible plugin). He called on God’s on people to recognize this missional value and act on it. The first act of God’s spirit in and through the early church was to bring reconciliation to God and among the races at Pentecost where people from different people groups were able to hear the good news. One of the first acts of evangelism flowed through and act of reconciliation. So many of the missional values of the emerging church conversation, speaking through to power, seeing to the needs of the poor, and embracing inclusion can be significantly addressed through the spiritual practice of (racial) reconciliation.
racial reconciliation as biblical imperative
At the National Prayer breakfast Bono quoted Isaiah 58 among other passes in the Bible as a rallying point for Jesus followers to act to address the racial and social injustices present in our world. Here’s a bit from what he quoted.
Tell my people what’s wrong with their lives, face my family Jacob with their sins!
2 They’re busy, busy, busy at worship, and love studying all about me….Do you call that fasting, a fast day that I, God, would like? 6 "This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. 7 What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. 8 Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Message
There is a biblical imperative to act on what we know even if we don’t know it all or know it all absolutely. So what do we know? Every study and statistics should that the greatest single determining factor for poverty, and powerlessness in the U.S. is race. Yet I still hear Anglo people in and around the emerging church conversation saying things like "There are some black people (like Colin Powell and Condeleeza Rice) who have more power and privilege than I do." This kind of statement exhibits an incredible lack of awareness of what Brian Mclaren calls the the post colonial story. It does not recognize the fact that any power or privilege these "blacks with privilege" have is given to them. It misses the reality that power and privilege implicit right of all but the poorest of the poor Anglos, those who are stuck in poverty like their black counterparts.
This makes me think that the emerging church will really begin to emerge when we act on the patterns of Jesus and we "do life together" in a ways that gives social justice, inclusion and praxis as much play as theology & epistemology.
racial reconciliation as spiritual practice
I’m not judging the emerging church, emergent or anyone connected with it. But I do yearn for something more from the emerging church. I think as a community we need to pursue racial reconciliation as spiritual practice. To quote Thurman
Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers. The Search for Common Ground
We can start by broadening the theological framework to include non European theological contributions. We can pursue intentional trans racial relationships in the conversation. We can organize emerging church events which focus and providing opportunities for these kinds of relationship to develop. We can listen not defensively but humbly to each other stories paying close attention to the post-colonial story. We need to act not talk just about inclusion.Then we might emerge into the image painted in this poem.
If I knew you and you knew me,
And of each of us could clearly see
By the inner light divine,
The meaning of your life and mine,
I am sure that we would differ less,
And clasp our hands in friendliness
If I knew you and you knew me
At Church Next Sunday (author unknown)
Its like this "no praxis no peace." If we don’t have a generous orthopraxis then we can really have peace in the church, emerging or not.
What do you think? take the poll 
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I am wondering what is the emergent church do in an era of strong ethnic competition and warfare? Reconciliation to what end? For example, one could make the argument that reconciling with our white neighbors might weaken African American social institutions to the advantage "white power." Reconcialiation in a social context as oppose to the individual must strengthen. Should Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda reconcile after genocide. Well, on one level yes. However, if my family were the victims of this mass upheaval would I want to be reconcile, when in fact some Churches were the scene of the worst events of the Rwandan genocide of 1995. Personal reconciliation is one thing, social reconciliation is another thing. What is the emergent church in the face of war, genocide, and systematic racism?
Randall: These are great questions and the lack of willingness to respond to them in why I belive that I must move beyond the emergent conversation to get at these core questions. I do think at this point it started with personal reconciliation practicing reconcialiation as a spiritual practice on a personal level but I think it mus eventually move beyond that to social reconciliation. I don’t know what that looks like in light of the social circumstances you describe. Thanks for the comment.