Homespun Symposium V

Every week, Homespun Bloggers posts a new question, and solicits responses from its members. I've been late on this one because of finals, and it's a hard question for me to really tackle.

What do you believe is necessarry for true racial reconciliation to take place in American society?
Does your solution involve coercive governmental remedies?
Do you believe that Churches have an important role to play in this process?

I really can't respond to this. I grew up in rural Idaho, and there wasn't a person much darker than a good tan for miles in any direction. The African-American people I know are smart, capable individuals. They should be - they're going to law school. I spent two years in some pretty rural areas of the Philippines, where the people I met were loving, kind, generous, and smart. Some of them were poor as dirt, but they had a real zest for life - something I don't mind admitting I'm a little envious of. I don't know, maybe there's a race war going on that I don't know of.

But as for Churches having an important role to play in the process of racial reconciliation? I'd say that the service of individuals, rendered lovingly and without expectation of reward, regardless of the organization behind it, is uplifting and edifying to both the server and the served. Churches can do things that bring people together in a community - get people side by side. Maybe they'll paint a widow's house. Maybe they're weeding and gardening the lawns of their respective churches. Maybe they're helping with the local Special Olympics. Service of those in need, regardless of their skin color, will help bring our communities and our country together, build tolerance and love, heal differences, and create the kind of national unity that has made us strong in the past, and will serve us well into the future.

And it doesn't have to be a Church involved. Community service groups of course can be non-denominational. But the involvement of a Church implies that there are other things going on. Most churches teach that God loves everyone. That we are all equal in the eyes of our Deity. They teach that we should "Do unto others" as we would have done to ourselves. The involvement of a church leads an individual to a rich spiritual life - a source of strength that the individual can rely upon as they're reaching out in service to others.

Homespun Bloggers have consistently given good responses to these questions, and I'm sure that this will be no exception.

Dagney's Rant
Mud and Phud
A Physicist's Perspective
Bunker Mulligan
Weapons of Mass Distraction
Ogre's Politics and Views
Slarrow
The Commons at Paulie's World - Paulie
Major Dad 1984
Little Red Blog
Redhunter

[Listening to: Brothers - Michiru Oshima, BEPA - Fullmetal Alchemist OST 1 (4:05)]