Attacking the Enemy (status)

Somewhere in the middle of Thurman's chapters, my brain always turns to mush.  At the beginning I can think about what he's saying and even think about responses to write, but I have to keep reading before I write a response.  Then when I sit down to write this, I have no idea what he was talking about that made sense to me.  Maybe I just have the attention span of a gnat.

One thing that Thurman was talking about that made me think was the section on "Protestant Negroes".  (I am using Thurman's word there, by the way)  He gave several statistics about the breakdown of African Americans in Protestant churches, whether they are members of only-African American congregations, or segregated members of white churches.  While Thurman's statistics are probably no longer accurate, there is a sad truth there that has not entirely disappeared with the advent of the civil rights movement.  Many of our churches are segregated, and the sad thing is, we barely think about it.  We seem to think that as individuals we have a right to choose our churches based on what we enjoy or feel comfortable with.  I'll admit it, I do the same thing.  But as a whole body, don't we have to rise above that?  Thurman doesn't talk about it in these terms, but I think that's what he's talking about when he refers to "attacking the enemy status". 

While Thurman is talking primarily about racial segregation, the Church as a whole has plenty of segregation based on all kinds of different factors.  We don't go to that church because they're not our denomination; we like the music there better than the music over there; that church is too big, this one is too small; this church baptizes infants, that one baptizes adults; the preaching isn't engaging; there's not enough emphasis on missions, helping the poor, prayer...you name it, we divide over it.  I know the damaging effect division in the Church can have, because my church at home is the product of division.

I don't know exactly what happened.  All I know is this: there are two Evangelical Covenant churches in my hometown.  One of them is obviously the original; why else would it be called "First Covenant Church"?  The church I have attended with my family since we moved there is called Zion Covenant, and at some point over a hundred years ago, it was formed when some people split off from First Covenant to form their own church.  I'm grateful to my church for supporting me as I have grown up, but something about being founded on division has stuck with us.  When I was in high school, a meeting was held so some members of the congregation could air some grievances they had with our church's pastor.  The pastor was not present, but the superintendant of the conference was, so at least the meeting was legitimate.  However, as an observer from the balcony in the back of the church, I could clearly see dividing lines going up as people talked.  Someone would stand and share a problem they had with the pastor; immediately afterwards, someone else would stand and talk about how they thought the pastor was a good pastor.  Everybody was talking, but nobody was listening.  This is the first and only congregational meeting I have attended there, but from the little my parents have said about other meetings, I know this was not the first meeting where my church was divided up by arguments that didn't go anywhere.  If division within a church can cause so much damage, how can we ignore the gaping divisons between denominations?  I don't have an answer to this, nor do I know anyone who does.