Rev. Jeremiah Wright: It’s a “black” church?

I heard, as I am sure many of you did, the recent comments being published nationwide by a fellow pastor, a man named Jeremiah Wright. Many are wading in with responses to his comments, and so allow me to do the same. The comment I want to address is the one about the “black church.”

Rev. Wright has been in the ministry for many years. I don’t know how carefully he has studied his Bible and in many other areas I cannot stand as judge. But from the Bible perspective he must know very little about “the Church.”

You see, there is no black church. There is no African-American church. There may be traditions that spring from some African Americans regarding church and worship, just like there are European and Hispanic and Asian based traditions. However, traditions are not the Church. The Church supersedes all traditions, having outlived most of them.

The church is a body—one body. (Eph. 2:19-22) In I Cor. 12:18-20, we see that the Church has many members to its body. Some are believers in Christ from Africa, some are from the United States, some are from China, some are from Mexico, and so on. It is only one because it is the Bride of Christ (Rev. 19:7, 21:2-3, 9) for all eternity, and Jesus is faithful, as He taught us to be, to one wife.

Therefore, there is no black church. The “brothers” are not black or white; they are, from Christian perspective, of all colors and ethnic groups and nations. Since God is their father, they have become brothers in the faith. (Matt. 23:8, 25:40, Mark 3:33, I Tim. 5:1) One day, all the brothers and sisters, those who have been faithful disciples and believers and followers of Jesus Christ, from churches denominational and nondenominational, will gather as one in eternity to worship Him. (Rev. 5:9, 15:4) Only one faith, one Lord, one heaven, one body, one Holy Spirit, one hope, and one God and Father over all. (Eph. 4:3-6)

It is true that some blacks and whites and Hispanics and Asians only worship together in churches with those of their own ethnic background and language and color. That doesn’t make it right, but it is happening. In fact, as many have said, Sunday School may be the most segregated school in America. It has happened so long for so many that we now have these many prejudices, fostered for the most part by ignorance and “comfort zones” that won’t even let us get out and worship inter-ethnically like we were made to by God.

I pastored an inter-ethnic church for nine years, and were I to pastor again, it is the only type of church I would be interested in serving. Why? Only in this way, when we are actually working and worshipping and serving and praying together, can we show our world that in Christ these color and ethnic barriers can be broken. Ephesians 2:14-16 shows us that one of the primary purposes of the Holy Spirit in the church is to bust down walls—to remove all enmity and division between Jew and all Gentiles—to make of many believers in Christ, one church.

Maybe when somebody gets this wrong, they begin to get everything else wrong as well.