Commentary: We must keep King's dream alive
8/29/2003 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn. NOTE: A head-and-shoulders photograph of the Rev. Chester Jones is available.
By the Rev. Chester Jones This year,
Americans are marking the 40th anniversary of the historic March on
Washington. At the same time, United Methodists are observing the
lesser-known but vitally important 35th anniversary of the church's
Commission on Religion and Race.
We should celebrate these
milestones and the progress they represent. However, both anniversaries
also remind us that achieving the dream of justice and equality that the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. set forth still requires much work.
Recently,
I attended a rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, where
thousands of Americans from all walks of life gathered to celebrate
King's legacy. It was at the Lincoln Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963, that he
gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Soon the Commission on Religion
and Race will meet in Minneapolis to celebrate and reflect on the
dreams and dreamers of the United Methodist Church who, like King,
envisioned a world where racial equality would be achieved through
nonviolent social change.
In 1963, people came to the Lincoln
Memorial for the purpose of "cashing a check at the bank of racial
equality," as King put it. The nation's founders wrote this check to
obtain social, economic and educational opportunities for all people.
Four
decades later, listening to some of the same speakers who were at the
March on Washington, I was reminded that in many ways the check has
bounced due to insufficient funds. Deposits of justice, compassion,
integrity, and love had not been made, while an overabundance of greed,
intolerance, hatred and dishonesty have filled the account, rendering us
incapable of caring for the "least of these" among us.
Certainly,
during the past 40 years, legal, political and social advances have
lifted disenfranchised groups of all kinds. We are seeing an
unprecedented number of racial ethnic persons in national and
international leadership. Women are shattering glass ceilings. But while
things have changed, they remain the same. Racial, economic and gender
disparities abound. Racially motivated brutality toward people of color
continues. Women on average are still paid less than their male
counterparts. The U.S. poverty gap widens yearly.
The Commission
on Religion and Race, established five years after the March on
Washington, was a product, in part, of an outcry for peace and justice.
The agency's goal is to help the church ensure that when the check of
justice and equality is cashed, there are adequate reserves from which
to draw. The commission does this by monitoring church practices and
advocating for the full participation of racial ethnic people in the
life and ministry of the United Methodist Church.
The church's
journey has paralleled in many ways the American struggle for racial and
social justice. Despite advances, we continue to face the same methods
of personal and systemic oppression employed throughout the history of
our denomination.
While we can count people of all races in our
leadership, roadblocks remain for lay and clergy persons of color. Many
annual conferences are nurturing congregations and ministries for all
ethnic groups, but getting the resources and support to develop
ministries for Asian, black, Hispanic, Native American and Pacific
Islander people is difficult. While we celebrate the possibilities of
open itinerancy, we are still feeling the wounds that are inflicted when
congregations are unwilling to accept pastoral leadership from a person
of another race or from a woman.
At the past few General
Conferences, some have questioned whether the Commission on Religion and
Race is still needed. Many United Methodists believe King's dream has
been fulfilled and that racism is no longer a problem facing the church.
Unfortunately, that is not the case. Racism is still an ugly reality
among us - not only in society but in our own faith family and church.
Blatant
and subtle racism persists in unexpected places. Almost daily, the
commission deals with complaints of discrimination from lay people,
pastors, district superintendents and agency staff. Funding for annual
conference chairs on religion and race is minimal or nonexistent. The
prophetic voice of our chairpersons is often misunderstood and not
supported.
As I reflect on the lessons of King's life and death,
coupled with the current realities of the United Methodist Church, I
can't help but wonder, "Why is it that we kill our dreamers with the
hope of killing the dream?" Those who conspired against King and many of
our other leaders believed they could kill the dream along with the
dreamer, but the dream lives. The dream is in all of us and will take
all of us working together to bring it to fulfillment.
The last
words in King's sermon still ring true: "I may not get there with you,
but one day we as a people will get to the promised land." By our
collective effort and prayer, the dreamers of the United Methodist
Church are keeping the dream alive. That same collective effort and
prayer are needed to realize the dream for justice.
# # #
*Jones is top staff executive of the United Methodist Commission on Religion and Race in Washington.
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