The Council of Reforming Churches exist to bring reform to the black church. That statement has at least two assumptions. The first is that reform is needed in what we commonly know as the black church. The second is that we will continue to have a black church that needs reform.
The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line. Thus wrote the insightful and prophetic scholar and sociologist Dr. W.E.B. Dubois in the Atlantic Monthly, 1901. His words proved true as America continued to struggle with the contradictory notions of proclaiming and fighting for worldwide democracy while at the same time denying the benefits of said democracy to millions of its citizens solely on the basis of skin color.
Sunday mornings used to mean something special to me. But I now face them with dread, with a bittersweet sorrow that tugs at my heart and a headache-inducing tension that makes me reach for the Advil. I am torn between my desire to play hooky from church and my Pentecostal indoctrination that Sunday is the Lord's day, a day of worship when real men are supposed to lead their families into the house of God.