We've come a long way baby
 

Wow. Seeing some of the pictures in the haney thread prompted me to write this thread. I mean a banjo and accordians in the church? I am scared. :tissue:tissue:tissue
As a musician I have always known "Perfect Pitch" to mean when a banjo is thrown into a dumpster and does not hit any of the sides. :)
I shutter to think it was the andy griffith hour in some pentecostal churches in the early years. But to each their own.

My grandfather was accused of being a "n-word" lover because he had "Negro" music and was not fellowshipped because he had drums, piano, organ, choir, and in his words "the best music in town."

When he was up in years, his words to me were "Son, in those days the pentecostal Negros had the best music around and we WERE proud to be part of that even if we were not as dark". He would laugh as he thought of the looks on people's faces when they would come to on of the fellowships at his church. He said men would get up and preach against the "dangers of Negro music in the church". My grandfather said "God hates racism and it has not business in the church".
This was in the 40's and 50's. One night some men gathered outside to beat him up with ax handles for allows black folks to come to his church. He walked between them with their ax handles raised, went on to the parsonage, changed clothing, walked right back between them saying "Praise the Lord brothers" as he passed them. Their testimony was that when they tried to hit him, they seen an angel with a sword following my grandfather. Afterwards, they repented and made good Apostolics.

Racism is still an issue in the church. There are references to "Black Churches", "White Churches", "Hispanic Churches", "Korean Churches", etc when there should only be one reference to "God's church". I teach my children to describe a man of color the same way you would describe a white man. When we in the church describe some one
"Do you know bro Bill?"
"No I don't think so"
"He is the black man"
"OHHH yeah"

it should be something like this
"Do you know Bro Bill?"
"No I don't think so"
"He was the man wearing the orange tie sitting around the third row. His wife had the big white hat with the red rose in it"
"Ohhh Yeah"

We have come a long way but we still have a long way to go. Don't stop praying, believing, teaching, and preaching about this scourge of our society call racism. If we kill it in the church, we will have victory over it in our communities.

We have come a long way, as a Church and as a nation(s) regarding racism. I think it's wonderful!

I was born a white girl, to Welsh, Irish and Scottish heritage. My mother's a white red-head and I was just "blessed" enough to have her complexion and I tan like a lobster. (notice the "blessed" in quotation marks... I get tired of all the 'you look so pale, are you sick' comments sometimes lol)

I've never been mistreated because of my race, nor were my relatives before me that I know of... I have, however, been mistreated because of my walk with God. And I've known over the years what it was like to be threatened, hit, called dirty names and had things thrown at me as only cruel school kids can do. Nothing that can even be compared, though, to slavery and beatings and the like.
I wouldn't even dream of trying to compare the two.

Around here it's the Native communities who have faced the racism...

All that said, I'm a white gal. And if I am attending a church that is mostly black and someone wants to say... do you know Sis LPW? No? Well she sat in the second row and she's white. That's ok with me. I'm white. It's part of who I am... that's what my skin is like. I can't change it... although some go to tanning salons, I can't even do that!!! But my skin color is white, and I have a close friend who is Korean... and I would use that while describing him to someone else if it would help distiguish who he is in a crowd.

I know some will say.. "you've never been mistreated because of your race, so you have no idea what you're talking about, take your opinion elsewhere"
This may be true.. I can respect that. Because no... I've never been mistreated because of my race... nor were my ancesters.

But saying someone is black, or white, or Korean or Native American, or red headed, or bald headed, or chunky or skinny, or sickly looking, or wearing a huge hat with a red rose on it, isn't being racist.

I'm not picking apart your post LordChocolate... I hope you won't feel like I am. I know sometimes when people comment on something I've posted I feel like they're pulling it apart and I don't want you to feel that way. I'm just expressing my point of view on the describing folks by using thier color of skin or nationality. I don't think that should be considered wrong or racist.

I think this is borne out of years of opression and slavery and racism. It's borne out of years of hurt and beatings and cruelty. The defense mechanisms that are built up in people to protect themselves from this won't come down overnight when slavery is abolished. I said it on a previous thread, I don't have a racist bone in my body... but I would use someone's color or race if I needed to, to describe someone. Why sit and try to describe Sis. Suzy, when she's wearing a black outfit and fifity other woman are? When you can say she's black or white or Chinese or whathaveyou?

Honestly though... this is just my opinion... and I'm a white girl from Eastern Canada. :jolly

Sorry,

Maybe my head is in the sand but I don't see any racism in the church to the extent that it is an issue. There may be some isolated case around...possibly back in the snuff dipping, tobacco chewing backwoods of redneck America, but I suspect that is small.

But to ignore a man's complexion by way of discribing a man is, is, "ignore - ance." That is to say, ignorant. That is like trying to ignore a 900 pound Gorilla sitting on the sofa. Everyone uses the discription of a person to identify him/her.

"The brightest child in our class is the black girl whose name I don't recall."

"She was the only black sister in the choir."

"Among all the preachers at the conference, I liked the fat black brother that preached near the end."

Remarks like that does not in anyway identify racism in the church. It is possible to get so over sensitive to race until that is all that we can SEE. God, deliver us from this kind of silliness.

I really never stop to think about color...people are just people to me but sadly that is not true everywhere.

Hey LC my sister played the accordion....lol
I am so envious though as she and my brother could pick up almost any instrument and play them after a few minutes....
But I can sing better than they can........:)

Oh My Goodness!!!! All this time I thought you had on white stockings or hose in your avatar! :D:jolly:jolly

lol@ Bro. Phil
He is a lord after all huh?
And we all know those european lords wore stocking.......lol

It's very sad I know!

Please disregard post #7 as I misread post #6.

I actually can agree a little with both side of the arguement, but HERE is my beef. I can understand if it means something to the conversation, but soooooooooooooo many times I hear. "blah blah, so and so, a BLACK guy, blah, blah" I HATE that. Why did I need to know if he was black????????? That kills me every time.
Or when preachers reference a black preacher in their sermons, they ALWAYS say, "Bro. so and so, a black preacher" KNOCK THAT OFF!!!!!!!!!!!! It bugs me!!!!!!!!!

thank you for listening.....

*Feel free to bump this great post occasionally*

I think there is a difference between defining someone by their color or race, and describing someone for the purpose of description... And yes, sometimes the race of a person is neither here nor there.

I totally agree with you Sis. Its the neither here nor there that bugs the FIRE out of me!

Bump for senor Monkeyman