c. 1997 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is an Episcopal priest in Winston-Salem, N.C., an author and former Wall Street Journal reporter. E-mail him at journey(AT)interpath.com.)

UNDATED _ Sunday morning, at a Presbyterian congregation, five blacks sit down front. Must be visitors. Sure enough, they have come to talk about recovery from drug addiction.

No sign out front says”whites only,”just as no sign at any other congregation says”blacks only”or”elderly only”or”prosperous only.”It just works out that way.

In fact, socioeconomic homogeneity is the hallmark of religion in America.

Even at congregations whose members consider themselves liberal on racial matters, Sabbath day is monochromatic. For the most part, whites worship with whites, and blacks with blacks. Special congregations arise to serve Koreans and Vietnamese, just as separate spiritual enclaves once arose for Irish, Italian, Portuguese and Polish immigrants.

Church growth specialists say that homogeneity is crucial for growth. People want to worship with people like themselves. It is a basic instinct to create environments where we feel comfortable. Efforts to promote diversity often prove difficult to sustain.

I recently visited a United Church of Christ convention where decades of work to bridge the racial chasm came down to this: At lunch, tables were segregated; in worship, whites openly resented the day’s”black-style”music and preaching; in debates, blacks accused whites of grabbing key offices.

Sabbath segregation is such a given that some may ask, so what? Isn’t it enough that we have quotas, affirmative action, and equal opportunity everywhere else in our lives?

But the problem goes deeper than race or class. It has to do with control.

Groups enforce norms. Congregations do so with special zeal. I have watched Sunday morning groups greet some strangers and ignore others. The difference seemed to be similarities or dissimilarities in appearance (attire, race, class) suggesting deeper realities: like us, not like us.

Much of it is unconscious behavior: vetting the stranger by asking where she works or where he went to college, or questions like,”Is your husband home today?”or”Do you live far from here?” At a benign level, people are looking for connections. But at another level, the group is replicating itself. It is freezing out unwanted futures. It is controlling what few things can be controlled in a rapidly changing world. It is saying no to unpleasant realities.

In my experience, churches spend much of their energy and goodwill enforcing group norms. Fights over liturgical language, for example, have little to do with words or theology. Rather, they are fights to see whose aesthetic will prevail and, thus, to determine which subgroup will be in control.

In fact, many congregations and denominations are so worn out and fragmented by control battles they do little else but spar. They don’t have the energy or trust it takes to embrace diversity or the change it brings.

I see three consequences. One is survival itself. A congregation that freezes out the young won’t survive beyond the current in-control generation. As many white congregations in changing neighborhoods have discovered, if you don’t welcome your neighbors, you soon become isolated and small.

A second consequence is ceasing to be a player in society’s needs. As America grapples with deep racial divisions, more and more white congregations are turning away from the problem. Church volunteers don’t flock to relief agencies; church money stays home. Congregations that a generation ago spoke boldly for racial harmony are building family life centers to serve their own.

A third consequence is fearfulness. When a congregation withdraws from an admittedly messy world, that world seems increasingly frightening. Self-protective behavior drains energy from other endeavors. Then, the message soon goes out: This place isn’t safe, for if they won’t welcome divergent people on Sunday, how will they treat me when my life falls into disarray? Look how many new widows or newly divorced stay away from church, fearing rejection.

Congregations need to open up. Intentionally, in ways that rankle and feel unnatural, they need to embrace the world’s full diversity. Not because the EEOC is watching, but because people are dying for lack of community. A fractured society doesn’t work for anyone, and God envisions a body of many parts, each one needing the others.

Besides, in the long run, comfort and safety aren’t gods worth serving.

MJP END EHRICH