Don’t Close the Door to Racial Bridge-Building

The commitment by Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed to raise at least $1 million to help rebuild the approximately 40 black churches destroyed or damaged by fire in the South in the last 18 months may indeed have its political motivations. After all, less than 2% of the coalition’s members are black and Reed has spoken openly of his ambition to enhance his organization’s political power by reeling in new members. However, the announcement, along with subsequent pledges by two leading Jewish and Catholic groups to help the National Council of Churches raise $4 million more for rebuilding, is an important step toward healing racial polarization.

At a time when it has become acceptable within the far right to openly express the most highhanded kinds of racism (as when a Georgia deacon objected earlier this year to the burial of a mixed-race baby in his all-white cemetery), even hardened observers should recognize the importance in hearing Reed, the head of the most powerful political force on the religious right, call for “repentance” for the “past sins” of white Southern Christianity.

To reject his attempts at bridge-building would be to yield to the fashionable cynicism of our time, a trait represented by the view of Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour that President Clinton’s visit last week to a rebuilt black church was merely an act of “shameless, transparent politics.”

At the same time, one should not be as oblivious to politics as the teary-eyed minister who said after hearing Reed’s announcement, “I’ve got a feeling every- thing’s going to be all right.”

What Americans of conscience need to do now that everyone has gotten worked up about the shameful arson crimes at the churches is watch for the follow-up behind the big pronouncements. That means questioning whether politicians and others have used the tragedies merely for their own ends or whether in their deeds they daily have fought the good fight against the bigotry that breeds the burning of houses of worship.