MPR’s Bob Potter talks with Reverends David Johnson and Ronald Smith. The pastors say they've been trying to lead a joint church - and the broader community - in a difficult process called racial reconciliation.
Six years ago, Reverends David Johnson and Ronald Smith suggested their two St. Paul congregations - one which was mostly black and the other mostly white - begin worshiping together. Their suggestion led to the founding of Unity Baptist Church earlier this year. Co-pastors Johnson and Smith jointly lead each Sunday's service and rotate preaching from week to week. The two churches have combined traditions and music, but each has also had to sacrifice part of its old way of worshipping.
Transcripts
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SPEAKER 1: First, it started with David and Ron creating a relationship. We went to Lawndale Community Church in Chicago and met with a black, white co-pastoral team. On that Sunday morning, they said to us, you guys think this is going to be fun, and you think this is going to be easy. Let us inform you that it is not fun, and it has not been easy.
SPEAKER 2: And it is not easy. It is more difficult than anyone could ever imagine.
SPEAKER 3: Well, tell me about some of the difficulties. What were they?
SPEAKER 1: There are lots of them. I'll begin with in the Black church and the White church, you have different perceptions of the role of the pastor, how much power the pastor should have in the church, music, music style, type, preaching style and type, and length of service. And then you add on top of that the whole issue of race or racism, and it's as though every inch of the journey has a minefield in it.
And so you have to proceed with great caution. I think our first step was to try to get a working definition of racism that we could share. I mean, we talked about racism, and the hairs on white people just stood up. We talked about integration, and the hairs on Black people stood up. So, how do we find a common language that we can share and yet move an agenda forward?
I was just astounded to learn that among African-American people, the word integration is not a positive word. I was astounded at that. And what I learned was that integration had been used as an invitation for assimilation. And so we had to move away from the language of integration, and we chose a language of reconciliation realizing that the relationships have been broken and we need God to heal the wounds, need God to bring together, repair the situation.
SPEAKER 3: What kind of reaction did this get from both the congregations?
SPEAKER 1: oh, I think, at first, they thought it was a nice gesture. And then the work started, and we had to come up with a working definition for the group of racism. Racism equals racial prejudice plus power plus privilege. And in looking at that, that initiated some discomfort among some.
People had trouble with people of color not being racially prejudiced. I think people had problems with what do you mean privilege. And I think people had problems in wrestling with, what do you mean power? And how are people of color disempowered? And why do white people have all the power?
It is really tough to share power. We think that it's something easy, but it is really tough. People would come to me and say, pastor, is there something you can do to get the worship service shorter? And I would say, well, talk to Reverend Ron or the two of us need to talk together. But they could not have immediate access to me to have me be able to do something.
Sharing power is difficult, but what you get out of it is something amazing. You don't lose anything. You gain. You get a new moral voice. You get new possibilities. You have new relationships, new excitement, and at the end of the pain, it's really fun.
SPEAKER 3: Do you have any idea how many members from each congregation you absolutely lost for good when you did this?
SPEAKER 1: The loss was, as I process it, some key critical leadership from the African-American congregation because racism is systemic and we've all grown up in a racist society, all of a sudden to tell people that we are in a shared worship experience, you're asking people to put aside their past, their history, and create a shared history. And so we lost probably four from each. So a total of eight in the beginning stages of the process. The next step of the process, though, was defining terms, was admit, submit, and commit. Again, admit, submit, and commit, which I think helped us generate some energy that brought some new people and new energy into the congregation.
SPEAKER 2: I suspect when I do count through my hands, there may be 40 people who have moved on to other places, and about more than that number of people have come into being part of the fellowship.
SPEAKER 3: How do you measure the results of this?
SPEAKER 1: On Sunday morning in a unity worship service, it's the direct eye contact. It's the handshakes. It's the hugs and embraces that we exchange. That's one way to measure it.
Second way for me would be the music. We've had a quartet from the Minnesota Chamber Orchestra. It exposes young African-Americans who have not been exposed to classical music, it exposes them to two that.
We've had a cellist play "I Want Jesus to Walk with Me." Nothing is richer than the sound of a cello. What equals that is the sound of an African-American baritone. And it is rich. Then you add gospel music to that. And so how people respond to the music is a part of measuring what progress we're making.
Also, even among the older white parishioners, when I pray with them, they will do a call and response together with me one on one, because they have learned to enjoy some of the participatory things that happen in worship. We see cross-cultural friendships forming, deep friendships. So we've got a long way to go, but those are happening. People have gone through a lot together.
SPEAKER 3: If bringing Blacks and whites together in a church setting is as difficult as it has been, what are your thoughts about that process for other parts of our society?
SPEAKER 1: I think you've got to push it. I think one of the problems with race relations in America is we want to confine it to a Black and white discussion. And so what we are now seeing is we've got to enlarge the table and continually try to bring people of other cultural and other ethnic backgrounds into this discussion, or it'll always be black and white.
I mean, racism had an effect on all of us. It affected the Native Americans. There's some tension between Blacks and Asians. We need to create tables where there can be that dialogue and discussion so that the whole human family can come around the table and find the commonness that we share.
The answer is that if it's so difficult for the church, it is really difficult for every other aspect of society, but it is really exciting what possibly can happen when our society becomes racially just.
SPEAKER 3: Reverend David Johnson and Ronald Smith at Unity Baptist Church in Saint Paul, thanks very much.