Why Many Americans Prefer Their Sundays Segregated
Scholar: Only about 5 percent of the nation's churches are racially integrated
Slavery, Jim Crow kept churches segregated during nation's early history
Escape from racism is one reason for segregated Sunday services, pastor says
Advocates: Interracial congregations could help reduce racial friction in U.S.
The Rev. Paul Earl Sheppard had recently become the senior pastor of a suburban church in California when a group of parishioners came to him with a disturbing personal question.
Rev. Rodney Woo leads a successful interracial church but says church members still clash over race.
"One man asked me if I was prepared for a hostile takeover," says Sheppard, pastor of Abundant Life Christian Fellowship in Mountain View, California.
The nervous parishioners were African-American, and the church's newcomers were white. Sheppard says the experience demonstrated why racially integrated churches are difficult to create and even harder to sustain. Some blacks as well as whites prefer segregated Sundays, religious scholars and members of interracial churches say.
Americans may be poised to nominate a black man to run for president, but it's segregation as usual in U.S. churches, according to the scholars. Only about 5 percent of the nation's churches are racially integrated, and half of them are in the process of becoming all-black or all-white, says Curtiss Paul DeYoung, co-author of "United by Faith," a book that examines interracial churches in the United States.
DeYoung's numbers are backed by other scholars who've done similar research. They say integrated churches are rare because attending one is like tiptoeing through a racial minefield. Just like in society, racial tensions in the church can erupt over everything from sharing power to interracial dating.
DeYoung, who is also an ordained minister, once led an interracial congregation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that eventually went all-black. He defines an interracial church as one in which at least 20 percent its membership belongs to a racial group other than that church's largest racial group.
"I left after five years," DeYoung says. "I was worn out from the battles."
The men and women who remain and lead interracial churches often operate like presidential candidates. They say they live with the constant anxiety of knowing that an innocuous comment or gesture can easily mushroom into a crisis that threatens their support. 
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"It's not all 'Kumbaya' and 'We are the World,' " says Sheppard, the pastor of the Northern California church, who was raised by his father, a Baptist preacher, in the black church. "There are plenty of skirmishes."
Can't we just be Christians?
If it's so tough, why bother? That's one of the first questions interracial churches must address.
DeYoung says he encountered many blacks who said they wanted a racial timeout on Sunday.
"They would say, 'I need a place of refuge,'" he says. "They said, 'I need to come to a place on Sunday morning where I don't experience racism.' "
Whites also complained of their own version of racial fatigue, other scholars say.
Theodore Brelsford, co-author of "We Are the Church Together,' another book that looks at interracial churches, says whites often say that church should transcend race.
"They'd say, 'Can't we just get along without talking about race all the time? Can't we just be Christians?'"
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Not really, say advocates for interracial churches. They argue that churches should be interracial whenever possible because their success could ultimately reduce racial friction in America.
American churches haven't traditionally done a good job at being racially inclusive, scholars say. Slavery and Jim Crow kept blacks and whites apart in the pews in the nation's early history. Some large contemporary black denominations, like the African Methodist Episcopal church, were formed because blacks couldn't find acceptance in white churches.
Large denominations like the Methodists, Baptists and Presbyterians split over race in the 19th century when their members clashed over the issue of slavery, Michael Emerson, a scholar on interracial churches, recounted in his book, "Divided by Faith."
But interracial church advocates say the church was never meant to be segregated. They point to the New Testament description of the first Christian church as an ethnic stew -- it deliberately broke social divisions by uniting groups that were traditionally hostile to one another, they say.
DeYoung, the "United by Faith" co-author, says the first-century Christian church grew so rapidly precisely because it was so inclusive. He says the church inspired wonder because its leaders were able to form a community that cut across the rigid class and ethnic divisions that characterized the ancient Roman world.
"People said that if Jews, Greeks, Africans, slaves, men and women - the huge divides of that time period -- could come together successfully, there must be something to this religion," DeYoung says.
Biblical precedents, though, may not be enough to make someone attend church with a person of another race. Something else is needed: a tenacious pastor who goads his or her church to reach across racial lines, interracial church scholars say.
The Rev. Rodney Woo, senior pastor of Wilcrest Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, may be such a person. He leads a congregation of blacks, whites and Latinos. Like many leaders of interracial churches, he is driven in part by a personal awakening.
Woo's mother is white, and his father is part Chinese. He attended an all-black high school growing up in Port Arthur, Texas, where he still remembers what it was like to be a minority.
"Everyone understands the rules, the lingo, the mind-set -- except you," he says. "It was invaluable, but I didn't know it at the time."
When he became pastor of Wilcrest in 1992, he was determined to shield his church members from such an experience. But an exodus of whites, commonly referred to as "white flight" was already taking place in the neighborhood and the church.
Membership fell to about 200 people. At least one church member suggested that Woo could change the church's fortunes by adding a "d" to his last name.
"The fear there was people would think I was Chinese," he says. "There would be a flood of all these Asians coming in, and what would we do then?"
Woo kept his last name and his vision. He made racial diversity part of the church's mission statement. He preached it from the pulpit and lived it in his life. He says Wilcrest now has about 500 members, and is evenly divided among white, Latino and black members.
Woo doesn't say his church has resolved all of its racial tensions. There are spats over music, length of service, even how to address Woo. Blacks prefer to address him more formally, while whites prefer to call him by his first name, (a sign of disrespect in black church culture), Woo says.
Woo tries to defuse the tension by offering something for everyone: gospel and traditional music, an integrated pastoral staff, "down-home" preaching and a more refined sermon at times.
But he knows it's not enough. And he's all right with that.
"If there's not any tension, we probably haven't done too well," he says. "If one group feels too comfortable, we've probably neglected another group."
Going from "they" to "we"
Sometimes, though, a determined pastor is not enough. Interracial churches can also implode on issues far more explosive than worship styles -- like sex and power.
One such issue is interracial dating. Some scholars and leaders who deal with interracial issues say it's not unusual for parents in racially-mixed churches to leave when their teenage kids begin dating.
Woo saw that exodus at Wilcrest. Some parents talked about the importance of a multiracial church, until their kid became attracted to someone from another race within the church.
"As kids began to date, some things get revealed," he says. "They didn't want their kids involved in interracial dating -- and that's not just whites."
Accepting black leadership is another touchy subject. Most interracial churches are led by white pastors. A congregation typically becomes all-black if a black pastor is hired, says DeYoung, the "United by Faith" co-author.
"As long as the top person, the senior pastor, is white, power sort of resides with whites," DeYoung says. "But when that shifts, it does something psychologically to people. People usually leave."
Black pastors who do gain the acceptance of interracial congregations still have to watch themselves. Some white parishioners, even progressive ones, get uneasy when a black pastor gets too fiery in the pulpit, says Brelsford, co-author of "We are the Church Together."
"A black church sermon that could be understood as impassioned might be interpreted as angry and defensive by a white congregation," Brelsford says. "It could kick into fear of black men."
Sheppard, the black minister of the church in California, says he modified his style to appeal to all sorts of people.
He says he abandoned the pulpit pyrotechnics he learned growing up in the black church when his congregation's racial mix changed. He also carries his authority lightly, dressing casually in the pulpit and consulting with church committees before making decisions. In conversation, he's relaxed and accessible.
"I'm very aware of how rare this is," he says of being the black minister of an interracial congregation. "I'm humbled by it."
The people in the pews must also do their share of adapting, scholars and ministers say. Only when ethnic groups no longer feel compelled to abandon their entire culture on Sunday morning can a church claim to be interracial, Brelsford says.
An interracial church isn't one in which all the black members act, dress and worship like the church's majority white members to make them feel comfortable, he says.
Interracial churches resist "taking one dominant identity and forcing everyone to fit into it," Brelsford says.
That appears to have happened at Sheppard's church in Northern, California. Since its rocky early days, it has now grown to a multiracial congregation of about 6,000 people. Whites, blacks, Asians, Latinos - all now attend.
"We refuse," Sheppard says, "to be a one-flavor-fits-all church."
Interracial congregations often include people who probably wouldn't have become friends in any other circumstances. They are people like Dwight Pryor, a black man who grew up in segregated Mississippi seeing blacks brutalized by whites. He says he grew up disliking white people.
Today, Pryor says he is best friends with a white member of Wilcrest, a man who grew up in Alabama during segregation in a family that hated blacks.
When Pryor sees his friend on Sunday, he says he no longer sees a "they" or a "them" trying to invade his world.
"We come to love each other," he says. "When I look into his eyes, I can see the love of Jesus Christ. He and I have become friends."
Source: CNN Online
Posted by: Ms_Hodge_Podge on 8/07/2008 at 10:00 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Proof! Just Six Degrees Of Separation Between Us
After checking 30 billion electronic messages, Microsoft researchers say the theory stands up.
In a world of 6.6 billion people, it does seem hard to believe. The theory of six degrees of separation contends that, because we are all linked by chains of acquaintance, you are just six introductions away from any other person on the planet.
But yesterday researchers announced the theory was right - nearly. By studying billions of electronic messages, they worked out that any two strangers are, on average, distanced by precisely 6.6 degrees of separation. In other words, putting fractions to one side, you are linked by a string of seven or fewer acquaintances to Madonna, the Dalai Lama and the Queen. The news will come as no surprise to film buffs who for years have been playing the parlour game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which they link other actors to Bacon in six films or fewer.
Researchers at Microsoft studied records of 30 billion electronic conversations among 180 million people in various countries, according to the Washington Post. This was 'the first time a planetary-scale social network has been available,' they observed. The database covered all the Microsoft Messenger instant-messaging network in June 2006, equivalent to roughly half the world's instant-messaging traffic at that time.
Eric Horvitz and fellow researcher Jure Leskovec considered two people to be acquaintances if they had sent one another a message. They looked at the minimum chain lengths it would take to connect 180 billion different pairs of users in the database. They found that the average length was 6.6 hops, and that 78 per cent of the pairs could be connected in seven steps or fewer. But some were separated by as many as 29 steps.
The researchers wrote: 'Via the lens provided on the world by Messenger, we find that there are about "seven degrees of separation" among people.'
Horvitz told the Post: 'To me, it was pretty shocking. What we're seeing suggests there may be a social connectivity constant for humanity. People have had this suspicion that we are really close. But we are showing on a very large scale that this idea goes beyond folklore.'
A 'degree of separation' is a measure of social distance between people. You are one degree away from everyone you know, two degrees away from everyone they know, and so on. The concept was popularised by John Guare's 1990 play, Six Degrees of Separation, which was turned into a film starring Will Smith, Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland and Ian McKellen. One of the characters says: 'I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it extremely comforting that we're so close. I also find it like Chinese water torture, that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection ... I am bound, you are bound, to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people.'
Then in 1994 students at Pennsylvania's Albright College invented the game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which the challenge was to connect every film actor to Bacon in six cast lists or fewer. Bacon thought the joke would die out, but when it didn't he launched a website, sixdegrees.org, bringing together people interested in helping good causes. He said: 'I thought it was definitely going to go the way of eight-track cassettes and pet rocks. But it's a concept that has sort of hung around in the zeitgeist.'
Attempts to prove the theory stretch back further and keep coming up with six or thereabouts. In a 1969 study, researchers Stanley Milgram and Jeffrey Travers asked 296 people in Nebraska and Boston to send a letter through acquaintances to a Boston stockbroker. Only 64 of the letters reached the stockbroker. Of those letter chains that were complete, the average number of degrees of separation was 6.2.
In 2003 researchers at Columbia University in New York experimented using the internet as the ultimate laboratory of the connected world. More than 24,000 volunteers tried to send an email via acquaintances to one of 18 target people in 13 countries, including a police officer in Australia, a vet in the Norwegian army and a professor at an Ivy League university in America. Only 384 of the chains were completed, using an average of four steps. But the researchers estimated the average length in all the chains was between five and seven steps. Facebook, the online social network, has a 'six degrees' application to test the theory through the connections of Facebook users. That may reduce a degree or two: Barack Obama already has well over a million Facebook friends.
Source: The Guardian
Posted by: Ms_Hodge_Podge on 8/06/2008 at 8:00 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink
Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies at 89
Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who exposed Stalin's prison system in his novels and spent 20 years in exile, has died near Moscow at the age of 89.
The author of The Gulag Archipelago and One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich, who returned to Russia in 1994, died of either a stroke or heart failure.
The Nobel laureate had suffered from high blood pressure in recent years.
After returning to Russia, Solzhenitsyn wrote several polemics on Russian history and identity.
His son Stepan was quoted by one Russian news agency as saying his father died of heart failure, while another agency quoted literary sources as saying he had suffered a stroke.
He died in his home in the Moscow area, where he had lived with his wife Natalya, at 2345 local time (1945 GMT), Stepan told Itar-Tass.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sent his condolences to the writer's family, a Kremlin spokesperson said.
Prisoner, patient, writer
Solzhenitsyn served as a Soviet artillery officer in World War II and was decorated for his courage but in 1945 was denounced for criticising Stalin in a letter.
 | ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN Born: 11 December 1918 1945: sentenced to eight years for anti-Soviet activities 1962: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich published in Russia 1970: Awarded Nobel Prize for Literature 1974: First volume of The Gulag Archipelago published 13 February 1974: Exiled from his native Russia 1994: Returns to Russia 3 August 2008: dies in Moscow  |
He spent the next eight years in the Soviet prison system, or Gulag, before being internally exiled to Kazakhstan, where he was successfully treated for stomach cancer.
Publication in 1962 of the novella Denisovich, an account of a day in a Gulag prisoner's life, made him a celebrity during the post-Stalin political thaw.
However, within a decade, the writer awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize for Literature was out of favour again for his work, and was being harassed by the KGB secret police.
In 1973, the first of the three volumes of Archipelago, a detailed account of the systematic Soviet abuses from 1918 to 1956 in the vast network of its prison and labour camps, was published in the West.
Its publication sparked a furious backlash in the Soviet press, which denounced him as a traitor.
Early in 1974, the Soviet authorities stripped him of his citizenship and expelled him from the country.
Moral voice
He settled in Vermont, in the USA, where he completed the other two volumes of Archipelago.
|  It is time, in the West, to defend not so much human rights as human obligations  Alexander Solzhenitsyn |
While living there as a recluse, he railed against what he saw as the moral corruption of the West.
Scathing of Boris Yeltsin's brand of democracy, he did not return to Russia immediately upon the collapse of the USSR in 1992, unlike other exiles.
His homecoming in 1994 was a dramatic affair as he travelled in slowly by land from the Russian Far East.
Solzhenitsyn's latter works, which included essays on Russia's future, courted controversy.
In 2000, his last major work Two Hundred Years Together examined the position of Jews in Russian society and their role in the Revolution.
Source: BBC Online
Nobel prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn dies aged 89
The Soviet dissident writer and Nobel literature prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died aged 89, according to the Interfax news agency.
The agency said he died of a stroke, although his son Stepan Solzhenitsyn said his father died of heart failure. The author had suffered from ill heath, including high blood pressure, in recent years.
Solzhenitsyn served with the Red Army in the Second World War but became one of the most prominent dissidents of the Soviet era, enduring labour camps, cancer and persecution under the Soviet regime.
His experience of the network of labour camps was vividly described in his work One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
His key works, including "The First Circle" and "Cancer Ward" brought him world admiration and the 1970 Nobel Literature prize.
He was stripped of his citizenship and sent into exile in 1974 after the publication of "The Gulag Archipelago", his monumental history of the Soviet police state. Solzhenitsyn then moved to the United States, returning to post-Soviet Russia as a hero in 1994.
He was born on December 11 1918, studied physics and mathematics at Rostov University and became a Soviet army officer after Hitler's invasion in 1941.
Source: The Guardian
Posted by: Ms_Hodge_Podge on 8/05/2008 at 9:00 AM | Comments (0) | Permalink