COMMENTARY: Violence invades the sanctuary

c. 1999 Religion News Service (Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.) UNDATED _ In 1974, Alberta Williams King, the mother of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., was shot to […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Samuel K. Atchison is an ordained minister and has worked as a policy analyst and social worker to the homeless. He currently is a prison chaplain in Trenton, N.J.)

UNDATED _ In 1974, Alberta Williams King, the mother of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., was shot to death by a deranged man as she played the organ during the Sunday morning worship service at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church.


For those of us who revered the King family and its unique role in the civil rights struggle, the shooting was but the latest tragedy experienced by black America’s answer to the Kennedys. That it happened in a church, God’s sanctuary for worship, made the crime unspeakable.

Twenty-five years later, another shooting rampage by yet another deranged man _ this time in Fort Worth, Texas _ has shocked the nation once again. Yet in the generation that has passed between the two tragedies, an awful truth has emerged: Violence in churches is more common than we think.

My parents, who are now in their 60s, used to talk of how, during their youth, it was common _ indeed, expected _ that one speak in hushed, respectful tones when passing by a church. Loud, raucous behavior came to an abrupt halt when encountering a church member or, heaven forbid, the pastor.

Even the denizens of Skid Row, commonly regarded as the wretched of the Earth, were known to comport themselves with dignity while in the presence of the faithful.

Thankfully, those days have not completely gone away.

For example, the johns and petty drug dealers in my neighborhood still blush if my wife and I happen upon them while they’re transacting business.

Yet the reality is that the church and its teachings do not command the respect they once did. The sense of awe and respect they once engendered has been replaced in many circles with disdain and contempt.

In many of the nation’s inner cities _ and probably more than a few suburbs _ church services have been interrupted and parishioners wounded by marauding youths who worshipped no power greater than themselves. The Rev. Eugene Rivers, co-founder of Boston’s Ten-Point Coalition, which links churches and law-enforcement agencies in a joint effort to curb youth violence, tells the story of a funeral service interrupted by gang members who chased a youth into the church, stabbing him repeatedly.


From whence comes such disrespect for the church?

First, there seems to be a deliberate and systematic process in society to disregard the sacred and demystify the holy. It has become common for the entertainment media to portray the Christian church and its clergy as hypocritical, lascivious or out of touch with the world around them. And any dissent from the culture police on shibboleths such as homosexuality and abortion automatically makes one subject to censure.

The net effect is that many institutions and customs that once inspired awe and reverence now arouse only contempt. Why? Because in the minds of many, piety has become profane. The moral principles governing societies for millenniums are suddenly suspect.

Still, if the purveyors of the new morality are dissatisfied with the traditional concept of holiness, it is in part because the keepers of the biblical flame have left much to be desired.

And that brings me to a second reason. The fact is, many in the Christian church are hypocritical, lascivious and out of touch. No stereotype, no matter how vile, is effective unless it has at least some basis in truth. Thus, media characterizations of unsavory church folk are unfair in terms of degree and proportion, but not altogether in terms of substance.

The effects of such ungodliness among the godly have been palpable.

As Rivers notes, the young people who currently terrorize our congregations are the children of those who were rejected by the church when they failed to meet its moral standards.

In other words, because the church failed to embrace the incorrigibles of the ’70s, they, in turn, have spawned the”gangstas”of the ’90s because the moral standards taught to the parents were never passed on to the children. To paraphrase the noted educational consultant Jawanza Kunjufu, this is the first generation of American children for whom the church and its message have not been at the center of their lives. As a result, the current generation is also the most violent in the nation’s history.


Our society is rejecting the church’s message and the church is undermining its own authority. Perhaps we should reconsider our course before another church tragedy occurs.

DEA END ATCHISON

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