[continued from part 1 and part 2]

Back in 1961, Gurdon Brewster was a seminary student at Union Theological Seminary, training to be an Episcopal priest. When this Northern liberal raised his hand to volunteer as a summer intern at Ebenezer Baptist Church, he had no idea what lay in store for him. He tells this story in No Turning Back: My Summer with Daddy King.

Why did you decline the Kings' offer to work as an associate minister at Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1966?

The movement had shifted very dramatically in those five years between 1961 and '66. Black power had come into force. In 1961, I was welcomed by the church and the black community. In 1966, I was treated more skeptically. As an example, my wife helped a group of people build sort of a head-start school, which was going to open in the summertime. The day before it was supposed to open in 1966, the school was burned to the ground. It just felt to me that it was a difficult time to be there. Also, it also felt to me that probably that particular position should be taken by a black person and not by a white person. So, I went down there for the summer of '66 and declined the permanent offer.

What memories do you have of the day Martin Luther King Jr. was shot?

BREWSTER: That was a devastating day for me and for the country. I was going to a seminar that I was leading at Cornell when I heard it on the radio. I just parked my car and began to cry. I went in to the seminar but couldn't really do anything. We just reflected and sat around and talked. I had the sense like so many people that this was the end of an era. We wouldn't see the likes of it again in our lives. So, I remember that day very well.

Explain what happened when Daddy King came to preach at Cornell in 1979.

BREWSTER: When I invited him to Cornell, he preached to our little congregation and began to talk about losing Dr. King and then losing his second son, A.D., and then finally losing his wife, who was killed in the church by a black man. He felt that in the middle of losing all of that, he would not lose his gratitude. He could still imagine God taking more away from him. Then he stopped and said, "Brewster is like a son to me." That completely amazed me because I had no idea of how I might have affected him. When I was down at Ebenezer and living with him, I was 24 years old. Basically, I was a young man. Looking back on it, I was extremely young and probably didn't realize this incredible opportunity that was just right in front of me. I realized the impact he was having on me, but I had no idea of the impact I was having on him. That just didn't compute in my mind. Looking back on it, I could see that I was probably the first white person who ever had lived in this house and had gotten that close to him. I never really talked to him about it but perhaps I was the first white person that he could really sit down and talk to and trust that way.

Becky Garrison is one of the many people interviewed in the documentary The Ordinary Radicals.

[continued from part 1]

Back in 1961, Gurdon Brewster was a seminary student at Union Theological Seminary, training to be an Episcopal priest. When this Northern liberal raised his hand to volunteer as a summer intern at Ebenezer Baptist Church, he had no idea what lay in store for him. He tells this story in No Turning Back: My Summer with Daddy King.

What truth was there in your mother's friend's comment that if you went to Ebenezer, you'd never be a bishop?

She felt that working with Dr. King would risk the alienation of many white people that I would later work for, and this was true in part. As I later reflected on it, in a certain sense she was kind of prophetic because once you're involved in such a dynamic way of being the church, it's hard to fit totally into the structure of the church that is often against that kind of dynamic ministry. After having experienced a church like Ebenezer, it would be hard to enter a structure so perfectly and always within the box.

In what ways did this summer influence your plans for ministry when you returned to Union Theological Seminary?

BREWSTER:  I came into the presence of Rev. King Sr. and Dr. King and all of the people there, who are really struggling for justice and looking for a larger way of loving humanity. So, I came back to the seminary with this great powerful sense of justice that we really have to struggle for love and freedom across the board, and maybe go into the streets and march and talk and so on. It opened me up to a much larger sense of justice as well as the cost of bringing this about. This was hard work and putting your life on the line, putting your body in harm's way. This was learning how to love your enemy, when I was trained to not have any enemies. So, this really brought me into many different ways of trying to live out the gospel.

How was your prayer life changed after this summer?

BREWSTER: I came out of seminary as an Episcopalian worshipping in the Book of Common Prayer. Most of the time, I would read my prayers and sometimes I would write them and craft them out carefully. But the first Sunday I was at Ebenezer, Daddy King asked me to pray right on the spot in front of the whole congregation. It terrified me because I was used to a much more formal way of praying. Fortunately, I fell back on a formula I had learned at seminary: A-C-T-S -- adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. I pinned a lot of my prayers on those four words until I began to pray more actually and easily.

[to be continued...]

Becky Garrison is one of the many people interviewed in the documentary The Ordinary Radicals.

Back in 1961, Gurdon Brewster was a seminary student at Union Theological Seminary, training to be an Episcopal priest. When this Northern liberal raised his hand to volunteer as a summer intern at Ebenezer Baptist Church, he had no idea what lay in store for him. He tells this story in No Turning Back: My Summer with Daddy King.

Why did you volunteer to be a seminary student at Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1961?

BREWSTER: As I was raised as a white student in the North, I really wanted to get a larger perspective and to see the world through the eyes of a black Christian and the eyes of the Kings. There was a program that was sending white students to the historic black churches, and I was fortunate enough to be chosen and got the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

What was it was like to preach from the pulpit at Ebenezer Baptist Church?

BREWSTER: The first experience I had in preaching was the very night I got there. We had dinner and then Rev. King Sr. asked me to come to evening prayer. So, I went to the prayer service and in the middle of the first hymn, he handed me a Bible and said, "You're going to preach after the first hymn." This terrified me because I had never preached before. But I couldn't say no to the preaching invitation. During the first hymn, I was looking for a text, which I finally found at the end of the last amen and that was the text on the beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount. I began to open my mouth and all of a sudden, somebody right in front of me said, "Preach it, Brewster!" Then [the church] was filled with "amens" and "halleluiahs," and I almost jumped out of my skin. I finally began to get used to it and really began to love their encouragement and finally began to appreciate the power of the dialogue between the pulpit and the congregation. So, it became a wonderful give and take when preaching from the pulpit.

What did you learn spending time in the kitchen with Daddy King? 

BREWSTER: It became clear to me that I was going to be the cook during the summer. So, I began to cook breakfast for Daddy King. While we were eating breakfast together, I began to ask him about his life. At first, he didn't really think I was really interested or that the answers weren't very significant. He thought everybody was more interested in the life of his son. It took him a while to realize that I thought his own life was really important. But I persisted and kept asking him about his life. I learned that he had grown up as the son of a sharecrop farmer in rural Georgia. He had struggled incredibly from being a young boy working behind a mule, going to school from time to time. But then his father would bring him onto the field again. He amazed me at how he could evolve to being the pastor of this large church. The path from there to Ebenezer just took an extraordinary amount of struggle. I became filled with admiration for what he had gone through.

Describe the reactions you got from white clergy when you wanted to invite their youth groups to meet with the Ebenezer youth group.

BREWSTER: This was in 1961. It was only five years after Rosa Parks sat in the bus in Montgomery. So it's very new in the movement. When I first tried to get the youth groups from white churches together with Ebenezer, I met with a lot of resistance. Some of the clergy thought they needed police protection to come into the Ebenezer Baptist Church. It took a huge amount of work, and a number of people -- I was surprised -- were just not interested in coming to Ebenezer. Toward the end of the summer, I got a number of churches to agree. We ended up having a wonderful meeting between maybe four to six youth groups and our Ebenezer Baptist Church youth group. Dr. King spoke.

What did your summer teach you about dealing with the hatred you encountered in Montgomery?

BREWSTER: I learned that it is one thing to resist nonviolently and to stay there and not fight back, but it is something very different to try and love your enemy. That takes very deep spiritual insight and discipline. I learned later on in the civil rights movement that for a mass of people, it's much easier to buy a gun than to try and love your enemy.

[To be continued ... ]

Becky Garrison is one of the many people interviewed in the documentary The Ordinary Radicals.

[see all posts in this conversation on New Monastics and race.]

Jason and Vonetta Storbakken have extended a gracious and hopeful invitation to public dialogue about reconciliation's challenge for New Monasticism. I'd like to say in public what I've already said to them privately: Thank you. I'm grateful not only that they have named an issue that we need to continue to grapple with, but that they have modeled the power of God to move us beyond race to a new identity in Jesus Christ.

It is no secret that many New Monastics come from places of so-called privilege in the white churches that have dominated American Christianity. Disappointed by the ways our whiteness kept us from Jesus, we relocated ourselves to black and Latino neighborhoods to learn from people who knew the power of God at the margins of society. We came to learn community from our neighbors and to know Christ more fully across the dividing walls of hostility that Ephesians says God has already destroyed.

The good news is that we have not been disappointed. Eliacin Rosario-Cruz is exactly right: New Monasticism needs the life and spirit that minorities bring because it is a more complete expression of what the kingdom is. The testimony I have to share with other white Christians is that we can be set free from a history of colonial control and condescending service. We can find new life by submitting ourselves to the traditions and wisdom of minority churches. In my experience, this is possible only because of the radical love of God that is extended by people whom white Christianity has historically ignored and abused.

But this only makes the Storbakkens' central question all the more pressing: "What are the reasons for the membership [of New Monastic communities] to remain so homogenous?" That we come from segregated churches is not surprising. The problem is that these radical communities seem to remain so homogenous.

Where, then, is the church that God is gathering beyond the color line? The last thing a white guy like me needs to offer is an answer to a question like that. But for the sake of this conversation (which I hope others will join), let me offer a few observations:

1) Reconciliation is happening in minority churches. In the historically black neighborhood where I live, our communal houses were started by white folks and continue to be dominated by them. Our local church, however, was started by black folks and continues to invite all of us into a journey of liberation from the power of race and transformation into new life. Our community feels a greater need to be part of the community at our local church than to sell our neighbors on New Monasticism.

2) Listening to neighbors means changing our ideas about community. While we came to our neighborhood with the best of intentions, we've seen that we get things wrong. The Storbakkens are right: We must affirm affirmative action in New Monastic community, welcoming whoever might come. In our experience, though, we've also had to re-evaluate what were inviting people into. Are our meals the sort of meals that neighbors would want to eat with us? Is our Bible study a place where neighbors can share their spiritual gifts? We haven't figured all of these things out, but I know that we've made some changes for every authentic relationship we've built across dividing lines.

3) We are caught between two conversations. Ninety-nine percent of my neighbors and fellow church members have never heard the term New Monasticism. I doubt they need the term. Yet I've written a book about New Monasticism. I talk to churches and denominational leaders about it all the time because I believe that mainstream Christianity needs to imagine a different future.

Any dialogue about reconciliation and New Monasticism needs to take both of these conversations into consideration. One way New Monasticism has failed is that guys like me have tried to communicate the gospel that we've learned from our neighbors without asking for our neighbors' help. An African-American mentor pointed out to me how white people enjoy listening to me talk about the experience of black people, but they don't actually listen to black folks. Indeed, we do need to hand the mic over to indigenous community leaders.

But I also notice that when black friends speak with me or in my place, white audiences often assume my friends are speaking primarily for other black Christians, and not to the church as a whole. So-called black theology and black preaching can be affirmed as good for them without being taken seriously as true for all of us. So maybe it's not enough to just hand the mic over. Maybe we have to stand together, joining our voices in witness to the truth that we confess we can only know together.

Thats why I'm so grateful for the Storbakkens. Not only are they pursuing community across the dividing lines that this world writes on us. They're joining their voices to speak to the whole church about what it means to receive God's gift of reconciliation and become its ministers in the world. Yes, we need dialogue. More than that, though, we need a way of life that is good news for all people and a gospel that we can proclaim together. I hope all our conversation leads us toward that.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is the author of Free to Be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line.

[see all posts in this conversation on New Monastics and race.]

American churches are still segregated, and it is the way most of us—regardless of our race—would like to keep it.  At least, so suggests the recent online CNN article titled, “Why Americans Prefer Their Segregated Sundays." Curtiss DeYoung, professor of Reconciliation Studies at Bethel University, is quoted in this article as saying that only about 5 percent of American churches are racially integrated and half of those churches are moving in the direction of becoming all-black or all-white.

In his book United by Faith, DeYoung and his co-authors Michael O. Emerson, George Yancey, and Karen Chai Kim, argue that when churches can be integrated they should.  The reality of residential racial segregation presents a real and sometimes insurmountable hurdle to church integration.  However, as inner-city gentrification becomes more of an established part of city life, there is a question about the church’s role in creating stable environments for integration, instead of merely transitional integrated bodies created by the market economy.

As Christians, we all agree that we should want racial integration in all facets of our lives, and, in particular, in our worshipping communities—right? Although the inexcusable sin of white racism still persists and is a major hindrance to church integration, John Blake insightfully reports what might be the most compelling example of why churches should remain segregated—the black church.  Established as the result of white racism, the black church formed out of necessity.  Historically referred to as the “Invisible Institution,” the black church flourished at the margins and gave its parishioners empowerment through leadership, dignity through shared cultural experiences, and hope through powerful and prophetic preaching.  As Blake mentions, the black church still gives its attendees a “break” or a place of retreat from the wear and tear of present-day racism.  Similar assets can be found in Asian, Latino, and Native American churches.

It is with this appreciation and recognition, however, that I reveal all of my biases.  As a white Christian I have been abundantly and exceedingly blessed to have worshipped in two racially integrated church bodies.  Words fail to express how these churches have shaped and transformed my understanding of God and my humble place in this world.  For the people of color who have worshipped with me I know that it has sometimes come at a significant cost to them and invaluable benefit to me. 

Ultimately, I agree with the authors of United by Faith because I believe that the biblical case for an integrated church is virtually airtight, and the witness it provides to a violent and bigoted world cannot be overstated.  Still, the formula for the success of such churches remains persistently and frustratingly elusive.

It does leave me with one final thought.  At the beginning of Blake’s article he recounts the fears expressed by black congregants whose church was experiencing an influx of white members.  Their fear was that these new white members would take over, rendering its current members disempowered.  I sympathize with this fear as it exposes what might be the greatest challenge to whites who want to lead on church integration – if you want to lead you are probably going to have to learn how to follow and serve.  We progressive types may even have to learn the radical implications of terms we do not often use, like “submission." Yet this is the way of Christ modeled through his earthly incarnation.

Sondra Shepley is the speaking events manager for Sojourners.

Over the last several days, I watched Rev. Jeremiah Wright in discussions of faith, theology, history, and culture on television. The three-plus hours I devoted to PBS and CNN amounted to some of the most sophisticated and thoughtful programming on American culture and racial issues that any news station has offered in recent years. And, for those who really listened to Rev. Wright, he moved from being a political liability in the current presidential campaign to demonstrating why he is one of the nation's most compelling spokespersons of the African-American community and of progressive Christianity.

On Friday, Bill Moyers interviewed Wright in an hour-long conversation. (Watch it here.) On Sunday, Wright preached at an NAACP fundraiser in Detroit that attracted 10,000 people. (Watch parts 1 [intro], 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.) Finally, on Monday morning, Wright addressed a packed National Press Club in Washington, D.C. However different the venues, a surprisingly common thread wound through all three speeches -- that a realistic understanding of history forms the spiritual basis of hope and healing.

In the Moyers interview, Wright admitted that one of the major influences on his ministry was the august historian Martin E. Marty of the University of Chicago (a white Lutheran and a true gentleman scholar), who challenged his students to relate the "faith preached in our churches" to the "world in which our church members leave at the benediction." He then quoted African-American historian Carter G. Woodson, saying that black Americans had been—and one can argue, by inference, Anglo-Americans as well—"miseducated."

I suspect that both Woodson and Marty share the perception that Americans suffer from "miseducation" regarding history. This "miseducation" means looking to the glorious parts of history and not to its despair, of having an incomplete picture—only a "piece of the story"—regarding the past. Bad history leaves out the bits that make us cringe, doubt ourselves, or question our morality. Leaving out the uncomfortable parts may reinforce cherished views, but it lacks the power of internal critique or self-correction.

Realistic history includes the good and the amoral, the profound and the profane. It gives us the ability to understand the fullness of human experience and learn from mistakes and sin. A robust vision of the past, Wright stated, enables Christians "not to leave that world and pretend that we are now in some sort of fantasy land, as Martin Marty called it, but to serve a God who comes into history on the side of the oppressed."

The God of history is also, as Wright reminded his audience on Sunday, "a God of diversity." In his NAACP address, he recited a history of "difference," and how we denigrated those who are different. But God, he insisted, wants us to change—indeed, God is changing us—to live in such a way that "different does not mean deficient." Wright exhorted us to celebrate God-given diversity of race, color, language, music, and culture that makes humanity beautiful.

In his final address, Wright essentially delivered a church history lecture in which he traced the prophetic tradition of African-American history as a tradition of "liberation, transformation, and reconciliation." Several times, he clearly stated that a realistic view of history opens the possibility of healing the social order.

In recent events, some Americans dismissed Wright as deficient because he is not white and did not adhere to the norms of polite discourse. They used fear of difference as a political tool to divide people. This weekend, Wright rejected divisiveness as he explained his African-American heritage while recognizing the good in Anglo-European religion. He invited everyone—with all of our differences—into a shared mission of Jesus' liberating love. With humor and wit, along with courage and authenticity, Wright stood up for good history and the God of history.

At my house, the home of a white family who worships in a decorous Episcopal church, we found ourselves moved by Wright's trinity of talks on Christian history. We might not agree with everything he has said. But we do not have to. We are different. We will not see things in the same way. We do not have the same experience or the same history. We have things in our past that make us proud. Our ancestors have done things of which we are ashamed. We can learn from history. We can be friends with people who are different than us.

Most important, however, we who are different are loved by the same God. History reminds us that we can make a better world together. Change is going to come.

Diana Butler Bass (www.dianabutlerbass.com) holds a Ph.D. in church history from Duke University and the author of six books, including Christianity for the Rest of Us (HarperOne, 2006).

In my ongoing quest for music that can enact positive social change, I came across the Black Gospel Restoration Project, a project spearheaded by Robert Darden, associate professor of journalism at Baylor University. Following is a short interview with Darden that elaborates on this dynamic preservation project.

How do you define gospel music?

"Gospel music" has traditionally come to mean all popular religious music. My particular passion is called black gospel music. There is also Southern gospel, which is primarily white quartet singing and has much more to do with barbershop music and country-and-western music.

How did gospel music become such an inspirational part of your life?

I grew up with it. I was an Air Force brat and the Air Force was integrated long before the country at large. One of the first LPs I can remember my parents buying was a Mahalia Jackson Christmas album. Eventually, it led me to become gospel music editor for Billboard magazine.

What was the genesis for the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project?

I wrote a book a couple of years ago titled People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music. While I was writing, I became increasingly frustrated trying to find the music I was writing about. After the book was released, I wrote an op-ed piece for The New York Times on black gospel's fast-vanishing musical legacy. After talking to some experts, I became convinced that 75 percent of all black gospel vinyl was simply unavailable. A gentleman named Charles Royce in New York read the column and offered to fund any effort to identify, digitize, and catalogue that music. And that's what we've done at Baylor University.

How does this project operate?

So far, we've been able to get the word out primarily through the media. We've been featured on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, All Things Considered, Talk of the Nation, The Texas Observer, The Dallas Morning News (whose story was picked up by the Associated Press), and many other outlets. Whenever this happens, people who have gospel music from 1945-1985 contact me through Baylor. We pay for all shipping and handling both ways. And whether they're giving us the vinyl or loaning it to us, we'll make them a digital copy of their music.

Why is this project necessary?

As I mentioned, two-thirds of this precious resource -- the music that ALL American music comes from -- is currently unavailable for love or money. These are the songs that black churches sing and have sung for generations. Some of the best responses we've received are from African-American churches who realize the value of having the original disks and have encouraged their members to search their attics for old 78s, 45s, and LPs. Every day, irreplaceable 78s get thrown away or destroyed. We may have lost a significant portion of this music forever.

Elaborate on some of the gems you've recovered.

I'm pretty close to an expert on this topic and nearly every day a box arrives with a song I've never heard of. About once a week or so, a disk arrives with an artist I've never heard. And periodically a disk will arrive with a label I've never heard of! I'm particularly pleased with the "custom" disks we've been receiving ... where unknown artists go into a local studio, pay a few bucks to record a 45, and buy 100 copies to distribute to friends. We've found one by The Mighty Wonders of Acquasco, Maryland, titled "Old Ship of Zion" that is simply stunning. It makes people cry it's so beautiful.

How can people contribute to this project?

If you've got black gospel vinyl, you can contact me at Robert_Darden@baylor.edu and I'll send you the instructions on how to send it to us, including our FedEx account. Or you can call 254-710-7414. Or you can write me at One Bear Place #97353, Baylor University, Waco, Texas, 76798-7353. We'll also happily accept donations and 100 percent of the money will go to the Black Gospel Music Restoration Project. It's a tax-deductible donation, by the way.

What do you see as this project's future?

I pray that it'll be going long after I'm gone. We don't know how much music is out there. We may never know. Each new article brings new treasures. I'd love to have agreements with other major library systems so that people in other cities can enjoy this extraordinary music. Some day I'd like to get an 18-wheeler, build a miniature museum and listening booth AND portable recording studio, and take this show on the road to the "mother" neighborhoods of black gospel music -- the south side of Chicago, Paradise Valley in Detroit, Harlem -- and set up in the parking lots of old churches and let people hear the music, see the artists ... and if they've got any old black gospel vinyl lying around, let us digitize it for them.

Publishers Weekly cited Becky Garrison as one of "four evangelicals with fresh views" alongside Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, and Ron Sider.

During the closing days of January, more than 15,000 Baptists from 30 different Baptist denominations gathered together at the Convention Center in Atlanta. Although all Baptist groups were invited to join in what was called The New Baptist Covenant, official representatives from the largest Baptist group in the U.S., the Southern Baptist Convention, were conspicuously absent. Although they were invited, the SBC officials chose not to attend. There were good reasons for that.

First, the plenary speakers at this gathering were not speakers who would have been welcomed at the annual meetings of the SBC. They included Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and John Grisham - all of whom would likely be treated as persona non grata by Southern Baptist leaders.

Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the unspoken agenda of the New Baptist Covenant was to provide a Baptist alternative to the politics and practices of the Southern Baptist Convention. Those Baptists who did attend, representing denominations with a combined membership of more than 20 million other Baptists, were viewed by the leaders of the SBC as a kind of "in your face" demonstration that they were tired of being painted by the general public with the same broad brush that has wrongly allied them with many positions taken by the SBC.

Most of those in this New Baptist Covenant, unlike their SBC brothers and sisters, have no problem with women in the pastoral ministry, and are not necessarily fans of the Bush administration. Strong anti-war sentiment was easily discernable among those in attendance. Representing what they considered a moderate stance on such issues - in contrast with the overtly Religious Right commitment of the SBC - they went on to reaffirm historic Baptist principles. These included a belief that the local church should decide on what should be its practices (in contrast to the SBC practice that Baptist state conventions can lay down beliefs and practices that determine whether or not a given church is acceptable for membership in their respective fellowships); and the principle of "sole conscience," which abhors doctrinal conformity (in contrast to the SBC requiring the signing on to creedal statements by any who would be its missionaries or serve in its denominational seminaries or offices).

In seeking unity among the many Baptist participants, those who planned this get-together selected Concern for the Poor as their theme for the conference. Recognizing that there are more than 2000 verses in Scripture that call upon the people of God to care for the poor, the organizers of the New Baptist Covenant decided that there would be no argument among those attending this gathering, given this focus of attention.

It seemed to work! There was a sense of joyful oneness pervading each and every session. In this respect, the New Baptist Covenant was in harmony with the defining mission of Sojourners. This movement lent support to the work of Jim Wallis, who has zeroed in on eliminating poverty as the primary concern of Sojourners.

The negatives of this meeting of Baptists included the absence of significant representatives from African-American denominations, even though the gathering was planned to follow the meetings of two of America's largest African-American denominations, and was held in the very same convention hall. It was reported that many of the members of these two large groups of Baptists were unable to finance staying in Atlanta for an extra three days, which attending the meeting of the New Baptist Covenant required.

Another shortcoming of this gathering was that there was no clear-cut vision of what the next steps should be. There were important questions that were not answered. Is the New Baptist Covenant supposed to function as some kind of new informally-organized denomination? Is the call to care for the poor, so eloquently prescribed in the speeches, going to be translated into some specific programs? Will there be a team of leaders to give direction and some kind of organization to this New Baptist Covenant? It should be noted that the executives of the represented Baptist groups have an upcoming meeting planned, at which time these and other questions probably will be answered.

Whatever might have been the shortcomings and critiques of what transpired in Atlanta, however, there emerged clear evidence that this New Baptist Covenant could be the beginning of something very significant for Baptists. It could represent a movement that could transcend the partisan politics, too often evident among Southern Baptists, and could be a major step in moving Baptists into being a visible and viable partner with other mainstream denominations.

Tony Campolo is founder of the Evangelical Association for the Promotion of Education (EAPE) and professor emeritus of sociology at Eastern University.

The recent controversy over Rev. Jeremiah Wright has initiated a new conversation about race in America. It has done so by making clear to white America what almost every black American knows—that 40 years after the civil rights movement, there are still two Americas. More pointedly for Christians, it is manifestly evident that we have two churches. After the integration of schools, the military, and the workplace, the church remains the single most segregated institution in America.

Across this divide, black Christians necessarily maintain a double consciousness, knowing how to talk to their white brothers and sisters while also keeping alive the distinctive language of the black church. White Christians, however, are taken aback when they hear the "angry" tone and anti-American sentiments of prophetic black preaching. It is hard for us to believe that such rhetoric could be called Christian.

Like any pastor, Rev. Wright has been wrong. (I do not, for example, think it is prophetic to say that whites created the HIV virus.) But we would do well to remember that the same pastor who Barack Obama has distanced himself from also gave him the phrase "the audacity of hope." While it has made for a good book title, its origin in the prophetic tradition of black preaching points us to the peculiar nature of Christian hope.

Apocalyptic hope is one of the distinctive marks of black preaching. We pay lip service to this tradition in our annual Martin Luther King Day services, but we are tempted to water it down. We overlook the fact that Martin Luther King, Jr. spent the last year of his life criticizing America's role in the Vietnam War. It is almost never mentioned that on April 4, 1968, just hours before he was assassinated, King phoned Ebeneezer Baptist Church to say that his sermon title for the next Sunday would be "Why America May Go to Hell."

Black anger is not now nor has it ever been absent from prophetic black preaching. Like Jeremiah Wright after him, Martin King preached to a church that knew firsthand the extent of injustice in this nation. Many things have changed in forty years, not the least of which is the fact that a black man is seriously contending for the presidency of the United States. But the black church knows that the wealth disparity between blacks and whites has not changed since 1965. Black Christians in America know that nearly one half of their sons will not finish high school and a third of them will go to prison. Divorced from our black brothers and sisters, most white Christians do not know this reality.

But if we learn to tell the truth about race, what can Christian hope look like? It cannot be the hope of false prophets who say, "'peace, peace' when there is no peace," pretending that blacks and whites do not continue to suffer from a racial wound. But neither can our hope be entirely satisfied with progressive politics that calls us to move forward by getting along. Apocalyptic hope is audacious enough to admit that the problem is deep in all of us and the only solution is a love that comes from beyond us.

In the civil rights movement, no one was angrier about the plight of black people in this country than James Baldwin. His gift with words only served to sharpen his criticism and make his attack on white power more pointed. Yet, it was James Baldwin who wrote in a letter to his nephew, "the really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept [white people] … for these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand."

One great gift of the black church that has been largely overlooked in the case of Rev. Wright is the tradition's ability to hold together apocalyptic criticism with radical love. This is the double miracle of the black church: that after hearing the gospel from their oppressors, black people found liberation in Christ and then loved the so-called Christians who had been their enemies. If the Enlightenment reduced our confidence in a God who performs miracles, the story of the black church alone should be enough to restore it.

What we need to heal the racial wound in America is nothing less than a miracle. Barack Obama cannot fix us, and thank God, he is honest enough to admit it. We Christians would do well to take a cue from his frankness and remember that judgment begins with the house of God. We should have the audacity to hope that racial divisions could be transgressed within the church so that the world might know another way is possible.

Such hope may seem apocalyptic from where we stand, but the resurrection of Jesus is a reminder that the end of all things has already interrupted history. On this side of Easter, we're invited to live a way that wouldn't make sense if miracles don't happen.

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is the author of Free to Be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line (NavPress, 2008).

It was an amazing day, and, we may look back to conclude it was a historic day. Before Barack Obama's speech yesterday, after the now infamous statements from his former pastor; the issue seemed to be a test of him. But after what may go down as one of the most significant addresses ever given about the history and future of race in America, the issue may now be a test of us. The examination of a candidate was transformed yesterday into an examination of a nation.

A young African American leader, more than four decades ago, told us about his dream for our nation. Yesterday, another young leader, who is also a black man, outlined what it would take to make that dream into a "more perfect union." No political leader has ever delivered such a comprehensive and, I would say, prophetic treatment of race in America.

Every American needs to watch and listen to Barack Obama's speech about the future that the U.S. could have. And I would suggest we watch the speech with our children. After watching, we should ask ourselves, and ask our children, if this is the vision for the U.S. that we and they really want. If it is, we will have moved from an issue over controversial comments to much higher ground. After the constant replaying of the same video tapes (which seems like a metaphor of our recent racial history in America), we listened to an invitation to turn the page and move forward.

We heard the vision of a new generation today, one that understands how injustice does indeed breed frustration and anger, but that to remain stuck in past anger and present frustration can be counter-productive and even self-destructive. We heard a vision characterized not by incendiary recrimination but by the possibility of changing the realities that have kept us stuck in a racial "stalemate" and a mired in a "cynical" and "static" view of America's painful divides. This was a speech that actually posited new hope for opportunity and equality, and even the beginning of the kind of racial reconciliation and unity which few have dared to speak of since the end of the civil rights movement.

We heard a political leader who, as a black man, can also sympathize with white resentment and frustration over racial politics, and who can see both the anger of a black mentor and the racial stereotypes of a white grandmother as both part of him and part of America. The most honest and compelling speech about race in decades could open the promise of a deeper national conversation about our racial past and future than we have had for some time. Obama's speech leaves the choice to us. The issue now is whether we will choose not to allow the angry and frustrating past prevent a more fair and hopeful future; or whether we will be forever bound by that past. To the question of whether race will continue to divide and conquer our hopes for a better America, Barack Obama had his answer, "Not this time." Now we each have to answer the question for ourselves.

This is not just about a candidate now, or a campaign; it is about the country and the choices we have to make about whether we will decide to bind our progress to one another - including those beyond our own tribe. Ask your children what they would have us do.