God calls us to seek racial reconciliation, loving our neighbor as ourselves. Racism can prompt sins of omission, that is, the failure to stand for what is just and merciful in the treatment of others. Racism can also be manifested in active and passive forms. Some examples:· Failure to evangelize people of other cultures and races within our communities and within the areas covered by our regional church, the presbytery.· Exclusion or discouragement on the basis of race of any person from membership, privilege or responsibility, including leadership, in any church, or in the presbytery or General Assembly. · Discrimination, based on race, against a Christian participant in worship services or other services or functions of the church. · Disassociation with other branches of Christ’s Church due to differences in racial composition.· Hiring based on matching particular races with particular jobs.· Failure to apply God’s Word to racial issues, allowing the perpetuation of racist attitudes and practices within the church.
God calls us to develop cross-cultural relationships and ministries and to plant churches among the people groups of North America as well as the other regions of the world. Cross-cultural ministry is a foundational commitment of the PCA, most often expressed in the call to missions in other regions outside of North America. God calls us to cooperate with others in His Church as well as to minister directly among all the races and cultures of North America as well. Often the need of the rest of the world is emphasized more than the need in North America because of the perceived relative absence of the Gospel in other regions of the world. In truth, however, geographical location is not the only, or even the primary, consideration in determining where cross-cultural ministry is to occur. In the case of peoples in North America, while there might be disparities of historical Gospel presence among different cultures, there is the ongoing need for cross-cultural Gospel ministry among all peoples, irrespective of ethnicity, language, culture or race.
As a people, we pledge to work hard, in a manner consistent with the Gospel imperatives, for the encouragement of racial reconciliation, the establishment of urban and minority congregations, and the enhancement of existing ministries of mercy in our cities, among the poor, and across all social, racial, and economic boundaries, to the glory of God. Amen.
Unfortunately, it is also true that many minority groups have given up on the white church. They tend to believe that there is no use in constructive criticism because no one will really change anyway. Yet if we are God's children we will be eager for Bible-based criticism from them. God's law does not threaten us. It points us to Christ; shows us God's glory and lights our path for the Christian life. We should not be averse to criticism when we deviate from Gods justice and Christ's (Authors note*I have given up wm)
b. Past neglect in this area
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church is largely white for two reasons:
(1) It came out of the Presbyterian Church in the USA which had lost the allegiance of blacks during the ecclesiastical discrimination against blacks in the post-civil war period. (Andrew E. Murray, Presbyterianism and the Negro—A History, Presbyterian Historical Society)
(2) Our church has passed on the situation as we received it in 1936. We have done little to oppose drifting along with the culture. We have rather concentrated our energies on preservation and growth of our struggling churches. Our ministry to minority groups has been almost non-existent. A significant number of urban congregations have gone out of existence since 1936. There has been little or no interest in healing the separation between black and white Christians that occurred after the Civil War. This has shown itself in various ways.
God has blessed the Reformed churches with gifted teachers of Scripture; yet we have not done all that we could have done to recruit black students into Reformed seminaries. Are we seeking to share our wealth with the minority churches that are starved for trained teachers of the Word?
We have, with some justification, clone our home missions work where there was the greatest interest, not necessarily where there was the greatest need. Consequently, we have emphasized rural and suburban missions. Yet in the New Testament great metropolitan centers formed the focal point of the Apostle Paul's strategy and it proved very effective. The cities are desperately in need of the Reformed faith. "Where there is no revelation (vision) the people perish." What other force on earth except the gospel of Christ in its fullness, both lived and spoken, has the power to prevail in our modern Babylons?
c. Present responsibility
Yet it is not even the great need which constitutes the heart of the church's home mission calling. It is rather the command of Christ and our debt to all men that constitutes our calling. The Apostle Paul understood clearly that he owed the gospel to both Jew and Greek, bond and free, wise and foolish (Romans 1:14). We are actually stealing if we do not do our best to bring the gospel to those cultural-racial groups around us.
Paul says, "So, as much as it is in me, I am ready to preach the gospel to you also in Rome" (Romans 1:15). The commission given the apostle has now been passed to the church. Are we ready with as much as is within us to preach the gospel to all those in our land that are without the gospel of sovereign grace? Can we say with Paul, "I am free from the blood of all men" (Acts 20:26)? We can say it with joy and truth only as our church seeks to evangelize all races and cultures within our nation.
d. Special problems of urban churches in a changing neighborhood.
The church located in an urban area has two major responsibilities in fulfilling the Great Commission. First, rather than assume that the church must remain as it is, the people must make every effort to bring the gospel to the new surrounding community. Certainly no church can move to the suburbs without fulfilling the opportunities it has providentially been given in the changing community. A church which wants a hearing of the gospel among the people of the surrounding neighborhood will not stop at trying a few token projects and giving up. Rather, earnest prayer will be offered over a period of time, men experienced in urban work will be called in to give counsel and help and the whole congregation will commit itself to the task. The real question is whether we are willing to sacrifice and make changes in order to reach the unreached with the gospel. It is too easy to blame the unresponsiveness of the community completely on the unbelief of the neighborhood, when often there is also substantial guilt on the side of the church.
Second, the church must examine itself to see if it is really open to receiving other racial-cultural groups for the sake of Christ. Has it bent every effort to practice the terms and nature of Christian communion as outlined above? Not until the church in question has done all in its power to obey the gospel can it "shake the dust from its feet" and move to the suburbs.
4. Practice of the Interdependence of Christ's Body
Christians from different cultural and racial backgrounds have unique contributions to make to the church's knowledge of and sensitivity to the fullness of God's glory. Christians from different backgrounds are not threats to each other, but rather are teachers providentially provided to enrich, broaden, admonish, deepen and purify each other. An illustration will clarify the point.
In the contact between Jew and Gentile in the early church, the Jew guarded the law and had a very hard time understanding Christian freedom. He often fell into legalism and self-righteousness. The Gentile, on the other hand, found Christian liberty no problem. Salvation by faith alone was more easily grasped. His problem was a lack of respect for the moral law of the Old Testament and consequently he was often led away into sin (I Corinthians 5). The Jew needed the Gentile's sense of Christian freedom and the Gentile needed the Jew's reverence for the moral law. God providentially prepared both Jew and Gentile to teach each other in areas of strength. What a victory Satan could have achieved if he had isolated Jew and Gentile, sending each off in opposite directions, each over-reaching and anathematizing the other.
If any Christian group gets to the place where it has no desire to share in the spiritual riches of others because they are of "another culture," then it is saying, "I have no need of thee" (I Corinthians 12:23-25). God has tempered the body together through that which every joint supplies (Ephesians 4:11-16). This is certainly part of what is involved in counting one's brother better than himself (Philippians 2:1-4).
5. Practice of Earnest Prayer and Trust in God for the Church's Racial Divisions
This is the most basic step to biblical race relations. The problems of alienation between racial-cultural groups go so deep that God alone is able to bring about the heart changes necessary. Our attempts to obey God in the matters outlined so far will be futile apart from our seeking God for his strength and grace. "Are ye so foolish, having begun in the Spirit are ye now perfected in the flesh?" (Galatians 3:3). We should all be convicted of our lack of prayer regarding the racial inequities and conflict in our society (I Timothy 2:1-3). We should beseech our Sovereign Lord not to answer in judgment (Revelation 2:5), but in mercy to all. Prayer is the measure of our faith. Who is equal to the task at hand but the living Lord of grace who rules heaven and earth in behalf of his kingdom?
V. Recommendations
The committee recommends:
that the 41st General Assembly remind the churches that the mandate given the Committee on Race by the 38th General Assembly to seek "proper Christian action for the church of Jesus Christ in meeting the problems of race based upon plain and consistent Biblical principles" is an abiding mandate for the whole constituency of the O.P.C.;
that the several presbyteries and sessions implement the principles of Biblical race relations as outlined in part IV of the report;
that the Orthodox Presbyterian Church actively seek through the work of its Committee on Home Missions and Church Extension and the home missions committees of the several presbyteries to establish and maintain a Reformed witness within the major urban areas of our nation;
that the 41st G. A. recommend to the presbyteries and sessions that they have seasons of prayer and regional conferences dealing with the problems raised in this report;
that in the light of the abiding mandate adopted by this Assembly that Chapter X, Section 2, of the Form of Government be called to the attention of the Committee on Revisions to the Form of Government;
that this report, and the attending actions of this assembly, be sent to the General Secretary of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod for his information;
that this committee be dissolved.
from:Report of the Committee on Problems of Race
[Note: General Assembly reports (whether from a committee or its minority) are thoughtful treatises but they do not have the force of constitutional documents—the Westminster Standards or the Book of Church Order. They should not be construed as the official position of the OPC.]
http://www.opc.org/GA/race.html
