Hurt: Why One Man Hasn't Been in Church for 50 Years

A few weeks ago - the Sunday before Christmas in fact - I was chatting with some people during the 9:30 am fellowship time at Grace Baptist Church, where I serve in Wood Green, London. Among our guests that day was a man entering the older years of his life. I had greeted him as he came in and was now visiting with a few others, when one of this older man’s relatives asked me if I would go over and share the gospel with him. No further prompting was needed.

I started by (re)welcoming the man, who had joined us to observe some baptisms we would be having later in the day and continued by engaging my new friend in conversation about who he was, where he lived, and other things I thought might help me get to know him better. Then I began to lead into more spiritual things.

“Do you go to a church?” I asked.

He looked at me for a moment, and made a small sound. It wasn’t an exasperated breath in-and-out, nor was it a mocking snort. It was a weird mix of sigh and chuckle, combined with the tired smile of a hurt man with a sad story to tell. He leaned forward and told me that while he had been to different events (like the day’s baptisms) he had not gone with any consistency to a church in 50 years. Five Zero. He then sat back. That was it. He wasn’t going to say more about it.

Not one to move on quite so quickly, I enquired further as to why he had not been involved in a church for so long – Did he not believe in God? Did he not see the importance of meeting with God’s people to everyone’s mutual benefit? Those weren’t his reasons, as I found out. You see, I hadn’t really noticed it, but the man I was talking to was...

 Black.

I hate racism.

Maybe it is because of stories about my family heritage. I am told of Irish and Native Americans in my family tree, on both sides of my family. Both peoples have suffered at the hands of supremacist oppressors and are still facing the consequences.

Maybe it is because of my family history. In early 1860’s Louisiana, it wasn’t really a question – you would enlist in the army to defend the newly formed Confederate States of America. It was "about States’ rights". And a big part of those "rights" envisioned by many was the sinful choice to deny other law-abiding men and women their rights, particularly the right to be free. While his relatives (including two brothers, one of whom died in the war) enlisted, William Smith King refused to do so and became an outcast: the story as I have heard it says that he was kicked out of his church. William Smith begat Senaca Jones and Senaca Jones begat Iley Joel and Iley Joel begat Robert Blanton and Robert Blanton begat Robert Barry and Robert Barry begat Ryan Burton, who is writing this blog.

I do not intend to indicate that these factors are at all unimportant or insignificant, even if I've not been able verify them completely. Stories are powerful. But I think there is something - actually Someone - much greater at work in me that fuels my hatred of this hate. It is not first and foremost stories of my family heritage, nor is it primarily my family history, but rather it is my Father in Heaven. I cannot say for sure if in the good providence of God my hatred of racism is in some way sovereignly wired into my DNA. I can say with complete certainty that by grace through faith in Christ, my sinful soul is being renewed day by day. And that makes all the difference. As a new creation, the story I heard that Christmastime Sunday grieved my heart.

       

In 1963 the man across from whom I was seated left his home in Ghana. Like many others from Africa and the West Indies, he entered a land of bitter pale-faced people who hung signs in their windows saying things like

NO IRISH

NO BLACKS

NO DOGS

As he was raised to do, he found a place of religious worship and attended one day.

He hasn’t really made a habit of going back to such places. You know - people deliberately not welcoming you, getting up from around you to sit somewhere else as if you have a contagious disease, acting like you are invisible or, alternatively, glaring daggers at you as though you are a spirit-being from the pit of hell. Oh wait, maybe you don’t know. Why else am I writing this? Far from finding a refuge from the hostility of the world and a house of light in the present darkness, he came to a place where the wicked were congregated. And so he stopped going altogether.

This was not the time for the disgusting nuance of panty-waisted so-called ‘men of the cloth’ who dish out biblically indefensible rot about ‘those were different times’ (as if God cares what the year is when it comes to keeping his laws) and demonstrate the childishly gutless ‘We didn’t do that’ hesitancy of politicians to apologise for wrongdoing in the historical past (something about ‘sins of the father’ must have been forgotten). I first related to him how sorry I was that he had experienced such treatment, condemning those responsible as lacking the fruit of the Spirit and disobeying the commands of Christ to fully love God and man. And then it was my privilege to share the gospel with him. I told him about the Christ who made Himself nothing and taking the form of a servant, entered a world that hated and despised Him. At the end of His life, people didn’t look at Him like He was a human either, He was so disfigured by the lynch mob into which one of his own friends had betrayed him. Jesus did this for victims of racism, for racists themselves, and for those removed from it all so that whoever calls upon His name and believes in Him will be saved from sin and its eternal consequence, the wrath of God, and recreated after the image of Christ. I then called him to repent of the great idol he had cherished these 50 years: Hurt.

I still see racism today. In churches. Among professing Christians. Churches that look as though they are still segregated. As if the eschatologically constituted visible local church of the new heavens and new earth will be defined by skin colour! This may not offend you, but believe me, it offends God. It so mocks Christ’s Bride as to butcher her.

I think of the way white people in Britain use the term ‘a black church’, referring to a local body that just so happens to consist of darker-skinned people. Generally the term is said with a particular tone of voice, possibly one of fear or caution, maybe ridicule, and is often based on preconceived notions and ignorant stereotypes. It could be that the afore-mentioned term is not used, but the concept is still present. I have heard people speak of encouragements in churches – new people attending and such - and then drop the bomb: ‘but they tend to be mainly black.’ I have heard some say they want to see more [white] British people in church - apparently earthly citizenship is important in the kingdom of heaven. I remember seeing an ad for an evangelist’s conference in central London with a ‘gospel for everyone’ type of theme. The ad displayed a series of several portraits – mostly of light-skinned, middle-class, twenty/thirty something year-olds. Bless. They did manage to fit one black man in there. So much for everyone. And then there’s the time I heard a member of a church I was visiting patronisingly turn to a lady who had been attending and ask how long she was visiting the UK before heading back to her (African) country. The lady politely replied that she had lived here for a couple of decades. And of course, this year, when people were bizarrely defending the Puritans from a song that (against current trends) humanized them by pointing out their support of slavery. I have seen and heard more racist (some subtle, some not so) material but I shall not share these at present, and many other varieties of racism could be explored, but I shall not delve into these now. I can say while heading toward conclusion, despite whatever others may see, say, or think, I do not assist in pastoring a church of people who are first and foremost black, but a church of people who are first and foremost believers. I do not preach the gospel to skin colours; I preach the gospel to sinners. And I don’t want to see more British people in church; I want to see more born again people in church. 

The belief that humanity is divided into different superior and inferior races primarily distinguished externally by the pigmentation of one’s skin is one of the most blasphemous ideas to enter into the heart of man, for in it the very pinnacle of God’s creation - the reflection of His own image and likeness – is torn to pieces and scattered across an idolatrous pyramid chart of colour-based classification. The resulting hate-filled behavioural standards of subjugation, segregation, and discrimination without a shadow of a doubt rank among the most vile and despicable atrocities committed on the face of the earth. In its most prevalent form, historically and in the present day, it has been revealed in the way in which white people have treated and continue to treat black people. It has no place in the body of Christ, as it does not demonstrate unity with His sinless mind and sanctified members nor does it display his selfless walk and sacrificial love. Those in whom any trace of it is found are like people who with their tongue ‘bless our Lord and Father, and with it…curse people who are made in the likeness of God’ (James 3:9). Even as I urged my friend to repent of his sin and trust in Jesus, these too must repent and many will have to examine themselves to see if they are even in the faith.

My friend didn’t repent that day. He heard the good news of Christ and the appeal to trust Him alone for salvation three times that morning (through my conversation with him, in the Gospel Project Men’s Growth Group, and in the main message). He also saw it pictured three more times, as a man and two ladies shared their testimonies of saving faith with the congregation and were immersed in the waters of baptism. But still, he did not repent and believe. He was once hurt, by people who didn’t really know Christ though they professed his name. So now he must ‘be convinced’, to use the man’s own words, of the powerful love of Christ by people who do know him. I embraced him as he left and prayed in my heart that God would be merciful and save him. His idol was named Hurt. For others it is Hate. Some idols stand tall and look strong, like pillars of gold in the human heart. But they turn out to only be leaf-coated wood with a hollow centre. Christ can and will topple these puny gods. In my heart I know and I do believe Christ shall overcome, and in Christ we too shall overcome, someday.