Racism within Churches

In my novel, In the Midst of a Storm, I pose a question to the characters, as well as my readers: if an individual chooses to worship with their respective race, is it a preference or a sign of ones prejudices or misconceptions about ones race? As this multicultural romance novel was being created, a childhood thought came to mind:  when I was in the eight grade, I attended a predominately white church (in my hometown) because my closest friend and favorite teacher were members there. The people were nice; they never once made me feel out of place for being the ONLY black person there; except for, this one time, which just happened to be the last time that I ever attended the church. The minister was preaching about unity within the church and in the midst of her sermon, she said and I quote, “we should be more like the black churches because those people know how to stick together.” In that instant, I decided to go back to the “black church” where I’d grown up since “they” understood the Christian relationship better than the predominately white congregations did. As the years passed, I continued to hear the term, “black church,” so much in the media as well as our society that it almost seemed like a denomination within itself. When I was a Freshmen in high school, a friend of mine asked me a question. She said, “You go to an African Methodist Episcopal Church. Does that mean that only Africans or blacks can go there?” My response was this: “I don’t think so. I don’t know. Let’s go to lunch.” Even though I was a Freshmen, I should have been able to say more than, “Let’s go to lunch.” Fifteen years later, I wish I had that moment back, so that I could have said, “Everyone is welcomed in the house of the Lord, regardless of race or any other cultural differences because (as Christians) we’re all serving the same God.”

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