Southern Presbyterian
Puritan Board Doctor
Amen! Pastor Greco.
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if he is willing, then I will gladly share with the board.
If he's OPC, there's a fairly good chance that he qualifies for membership here. If I recall some of the previous exchanges, it sounded like he was ill prepared for the cross cultural ministry in which he found himself.
We need to remember that racism is a part of the Fall, not geography, or even history. There has always been racism, and there always will be. Racism among larger ethic groups, between groups, etc. The reason I say this is not to excuse racism - it is a heinous sin - but rather to remind us that the solution is not to be more "educated," more "tolerant" or more "kind." The solution is the gospel. The Church is the only place on earth that is self-consciously pan-national and pan-racial (Rev. 1:7; 5:9; Gal. 3:28). That is the whole point - that God is the God of all people (Acts 17:26). If we do not keep this front and center we can be like Jonah - afraid to bring the grace of God to others.
Perhaps I'm confusing him with someone else, or perhaps it was someone else that referenced him on an earlier thread about race and religion. Since I've never been particularly successful with the PB search function, it's unlikely that I can come up with the posts that I'm thinking of.What "previous exchanges" are you referring to? Have I mentioned him before?
He went to pastor a church that was predominantly Caucasion in rural Mississippi.
And I have to admit that I do chafe at Dr. Bradley's statement that "no one ever told him." Why does someone have to tell him? Why didn't he do his own digging and find out for himself? I know for one that he never came downstairs to the PCA Historical Center in the years that he was employed by Covenant Seminary. I would have been glad to help with his questions.
Interestingly, during the last GA the subject of whether the Korean Churches should still be a separate Presbytery came up for discussion on the floor. A TE wondered if the arrangement still made sense where the Korean Presbyteries fall under the broader authority of the PCA.I also question Dr. Bradley's characterization of the relative isolation of Korean Presbyterians. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but based on reports from PCA pastors I'm acquainted with, their isolation is at least as much of a result of their preference as it is some kind of plot by whites to permanently relegate them to second-class status.
I'm 66 years old white male, born and raised in South Mississippi. I am very familiar with racism. There was a time when there was no question that far too many whites were determined to keep this country seperate and unequal. And many of our churches today are still occupied by those who grew up in the segregated South, including myself. But I sense nothing today that could even approach the attitudes I once regarded as the norm.....But the past has left a barrier we have not been able to remove.....You can verify this unfortunate reality, by simply stopping by any PCA, EPC, PCUS, First Baptist, Methodist, or any given church, in any city and see a black majority in black churches and a white majority in white churches....You can go to almost any city in the country and see what amounts to segregated housing. Go to any public school, or college and see groups usually clustered according to race. I can only say that as one currently in a predomately white Presbyterian church, that we have been for years making a major effort to break through this barrier that remains.....We have major tutoring programs in predomatley black schools, we have endevored to reach out to the black communtiy in many ways, but sad to say we still remain essentially Christians in different worlds.... I wish I knew the solution? We could quote Scripture until we were blue in the face, but tomorrow will dawn with things as is...... Frankly, I think we have become too comfortable over many decades isolated in our own churches, with our own race, in our own parts of town. We're safe there, or so we think......We can easily blame each other, but we're all failures, black and white, for NOT living what we preach from our pulpits, and in our Sunday Schools....
'A middle-aged Korean American elder stood up to implore that the relationship remain as it was. There are still many congregations in which the older generation still speaks Korean and the time was not right yet to change the way things were arranged as they were working well. He expressed his great gratitude for the PCA. Thus, while someone bemoans the way he believes the Korean Churches are treated as "outsiders", they feel a warm kinship to us.
On that note, I exhorted today at the Korean Agape Church as I do about once a month. They are a small Korean American Church that meets at the worship location of a sister PCA congregation. I'm on the rotation to exhort at their 7 am service. As noted above, the older Koreans present rely on the interpreter while it is clear that the younger adults and children can understand everything I'm saying without the translator. I love those saints and they love the saints of our local PCA congregations.'
'A nation, the vast majority of which was dispersed over the whole inhabited earth, had ceased to be a special, and become a world-nation. Yet its heart beat in Jerusalem, and thence the life-blood passed to its most distant members.'
' . . .put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.'
most of my friends use (excuse my usage of it if it offends anybody) nigger, negro, and nigga as greeting terms for their white friends along with many jokes about black stereotypes.And why do you call these people "friends"?
Actually thank you for pointing that out to me, and I don't hang out with those people as much as I used to (mainly because of sexual nature of the conversation (none of them are Christians), by the way this a group of people who all hang out with each other). But they've always been my "friends".
What should be DONE if there is racism in Reformed Churches and Seminaries?
Andres, Are you going to condemn someone for having friends that use language that you don't find appropriate? You don't have non Christian friends?
Andre,Andres, Are you going to condemn someone for having friends that use language that you don't find appropriate? You don't have non Christian friends?
Randy, you do make a good point and I apologize to Sean for condemning him. He's an intelligent young man, so he doesn't need me to tell him who to be friends with. With that said, I don't think I'd be friends with someone who used racist language. I can put up with some other coarse words from pagans, but racism would be where I drew the line.
The Brown decision (or to be more accurate, its later enforcement) led whites throughout the south to start various "Christian" academies. Sadly, the folks that started these academies also held strong political control and often lowered the funding for the newly segregated public schools to the point that they were decimated. The PCA is to be blamed for this? What I saw in the PCA around 1980 were some of the earliest families in the home school movement: these families could not send their children to the state schools, nor could they support the white-flight academies. So they started teaching at home.How desegregation led to the launching of Christian schools in Jackson, MS.
I would like to say this. Drudging up the past isn't always beneficial. Moving on and allowing repentance to have its work is sometimes the best. Sometimes stirring up the past only exacerbates the issue. Please don't remind me of my sinful past. Some people have refused to forgive me. And they still want people to remember me for my past. Sometimes I think that is all that is going on. The accuser of the brethren just wants to do his work.