WHAT HAPPENED
One of my earliest memories of church dates to Sunday, September 4th, 1966. Three days earlier Lester Mitchell, a 39-year-old African American man, was shot in a drive by shooting as he swept his porch on the West Side of Dayton . After Mitchell was shot, a crowd formed. That crowd morphed into a community uprising with violence and widespread property destruction. Ohio Governor Rhodes sent in the National Guard to quell the uprising.
A member of
the Klu Klux Klan had shot Mitchell. Three days later Mitchell died.
In the mid 60’s, Dayton was the third most segregated city in the nation. The residents living in Mitchell’s community, the West Side, suffered from a lack of policing and what policing did take place often involved violence and the abrogation of citizens’ rights. There was a lack of city services, rampant poverty, no community development by city government, segregated neglected schools, and no enforcement of housing regulations against landlords. One 13-unit apartment building reportedly had only 4 toilets and not a single functioning shower or bathtub. Redlining in Dayton was widespread, preventing families from building wealth that could pay for college or be passed on to children—perpetuating intergenerational poverty and unemployment. (For a more in-depth analysis, go to http://daytonarenahistory.org/project/1966-race-riot/.)
MY MEMORY
I was nine years old at the time,
living in a suburb south of Dayton, and had no understanding of the tragic brew
of deprivation that had boiled over that hot summer weekend. I remember seeing
news films on our 19-inch Zenith black & white television. I was, quite
frankly, scared. I thought the world was coming apart, that life would never be
the same. One newscaster said it was rumored that any white person crossing the
bridge into West Dayton would be shot. I had no idea why they were so angry at
people like me. I could make no sense of any of this.
CHURCH
Church was the place where I learned what was loving and what was unloving. They taught me how be a follower of Jesus. It was a place where one could find guidance. I was sure when I went to our Baptist church on Sunday morning, the last day of the uprising, everyone would be talking about this. We would pray for the safety and wellbeing of the people in Dayton. I remember waiting to get there so a way could be found to fix this. I had, as a nine-year-old, no understanding of the history and complexity of the situation; I thought there was a “fix.”
There was nothing
but silence at church that Sunday. No one mentioned it, and I was listening. It
was as if it were not happening. It was just another Sunday morning at church.
THE LESSON I TOOK HOME THAT SUNDAY
So, what was communicated to me that Sunday?
It seemed church was mostly irrelevant to the lives we live, to what is
happening in the world around us. Church was a place where you go to see your
friends, feel welcome, and pretend the suffering of others did not exist,
at least those around us; suffering on other continents certainly deserved the
attention of our missionaries. This was the message I got that Sunday
morning.
THESE DAYS
These days, I am thinking about the
place of local churches in our lives. I am finishing up 33 years of ministry
invested in local congregations, thirteen of those years walking with churches in
upstate New York as they cope with declining membership and resources and with
being marginalized by the broader culture. Our churches are caught up in the
tide of broad societal shifts over which they have no control. These are churches of faithful people who are doing all they can to sustain the ministries of the congregations
they love.
But I am, nonetheless, haunted by something Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail in April of 1963. Dr. King was in Birmingham to participate in nonviolent demonstrations against segregation. In his letter he challenges the white clergy of the city to support this campaign for justice, and King laments their inaction.
King writes about the power of the early church. He observes: “In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society.” He goes on to say if the church in his day does not become sacrificially engaged in the cause of justice
it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of
millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the
twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the
church has turned into outright disgust.”
That church
in Ohio did not engage the world around them in 1966 in any sacrificial or even
caring way. They took no notice of the people in the broader community. A lot happened
in Dayton that weekend in September. They acted as if nothing important was
happening.
A lot is
happening around us right now. Would we know it if we walked into our church
on a Sunday morning? Are we salt
seasoning our world? Is our light shining in the lives of others as we do good work
in difficult times? Is there an active connection between the lives of our churches
and what is happening in the world around us? Our future may depend on this
sort of thing.
Blessings,
Jim Kelsey
Executive Minister—American Baptist
Churches of New York State
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