The American Missionary. Volume 43, No. 09, September, 1889. Various
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had been without any colored members in it, would the Georgia Conference ever have been formed?
2.—If the Georgia Association had been without any colored members, would the Georgia Conference have declined to unite with it, on some one of the terms submitted by the Georgia Association?
3.—If the Georgia Association had been without any colored members, would this curious and ingenious scheme of "co-ordinate and equal bodies," "to elect delegates" to visit each other now and then ever have been concocted?
4.—Is it worth while to "darken counsel with words" as to methods, when it is evident that the purpose is, not to form any union which would be other than humiliating to a colored man, and contrary to the heretofore held principles of the Congregational Churches?
5.—Why these arguments to show "how not to do it," when to do it would be so simple and so evidently Christian?
A MID-SUMMER LEAF OF THE A.M.A. CATECHISM
Q. When are Home Missions properly so called?
A. When they are ordained to save the unevangelized people of the land in which they dwell.
Q. When are missions properly called Foreign Missions?
A. When they are missions to foreigners in a foreign country.
Q. Are missions among the Indians in this country, Foreign Missions?
A. They are not, though the Indians have been treated as foreigners, which has been the source of great wrongs and many sorrows.
Q. Are missions to the Chinese in this country, Foreign Missions?
A. They are not, though the Chinese are refused the privileges accorded other foreigners. The missions of the A.M.A. on the Pacific Coast are most fruitful and hopeful, and, since these foreigners return to China, there is an interblending of Home and Foreign Missions here, that is full of promise.
Q. Are the missions of the A.M.A. in the South, Foreign Missions?
A. They are not, though they have been successful in exciting interest for Africa among the students of their schools. Some of these are now foreign missionaries; others are preparing to go; but the missions of the A.M.A. in the broadest sense are Home Missions, for they minister to white and black as to citizens of a common country, who alike need the Gospel. The A.M.A. is planting white churches (so called) every year, and has added several this year, though none of them would refuse membership to a man because he is black, and is planting colored churches (so called), none of which should be excluded from State Associations merely because of color.
Q. Should the missions of the A.M.A. be called Foreign Missions because its schools and churches cannot win the co-operation of the Christians among whom they live?
A. They did not at once win the co-operation of Christians among whom they went, but confidence has been growing with the years until the cases are exceptional where they do not have the co-operation of enlightened and broad-minded Christians. In most cases, the schools and churches of the A.M.A. have won both confidence and gratitude throughout the South. Southern men are among the trustees of its institutions, and everywhere its Field Superintendents and Secretaries are greeted with cordiality. A prominent editor of a Southern political paper—white and democratic—testifies this month: "Yours is the most practical missionary work ever undertaken by a Christian body, and should have the hearty and unstinted support of all Christians." The cases are few where good will does not exist between its teachers and ministers and the white people among whom they live.
Q. Does not social ostracism show that the white teacher is engaged in a Foreign Mission?
A. Social ostracism is gradually giving way among the more intelligent Christian people. Nothing, however, dies so hard as prejudice, and nothing is so cruel; but missions do not cease to be Home Missions, because they may be where there is sinful prejudice and dense ignorance.
Q. What would be Foreign Missions in the South?
A. Missions in the South which would treat an entire race as foreigners and aliens because in God's wisdom he has seen fit to make them black, would be foreign to the spirit of the Gospel: "For He is our peace who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. Through Him, we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father. Now, therefore, ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the general household of God, and built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord." Missions in the South which exclude pastors and delegates from Associations and Conferences, would be foreign to the Gospel. Missions in the South founded upon an aristocracy of skin, would be foreign to the spirit of the Gospel. Missions which would preach against caste in India, and perpetuate it in America, would be foreign to the methods of Christ, and to Christian methods in foreign lands.
Q. Does the A.M.A. believe in mixed churches of white and black people?
A. The A.M.A. does not regard it as at all probable that such churches will exist to any great extent. Race tastes and race affiliations will make for churches essentially white and essentially black. "But to close the door on any Christian is in so far to make it an unchristian church. To go into the South and establish white churches from which, whether by a formal law or by an unwritten but self-forcing edict, men are excluded because God made them black, is to deny one of the fundamental tenets of Christ. There is no need to attempt to corral all men of all races in one enclosure, but for any church, especially a church of the Puritans, to enter upon a missionary work in the South and initiate it by refusing to fellowship a black man because he is black, is to apostatize from the faith in order to get a chance to preach the faith." The doors of every Christian church ought to stand wide open to men of every race and color, and in all representative bodies these churches should be one.
Q. Is this the position of the Roman Catholic Church in its Southern work?
A. It is: The Roman Catholic Church would not for a moment recognize any color-line in its assemblies or priesthood.
Q. Does the A.M.A. believe in the social equality of the races?
A. The A.M.A. has never seen any social equality anywhere, and believes and teaches nothing about it. It believes in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.
Q. Is the A.M.A. agitating the color-line question?
A. It is not. It always has proclaimed its principles for the interests of the oppressed, and always has championed the cause of God's poor, pleading for the right because it is right.
Q. Why is the A.M.A. in the South doing its work in schools and churches among white and black?
A. Because the Lord has said; "Behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it."
THE CARS, THE CHURCH, THE COURTS
Our esteemed brother, Rev. G.C. Rowe, pastor of the Plymouth Congregational Church, Charleston, S.C., and his associates, on their return from the meeting of the Joint Committee on the union of the Georgia Association and the Georgia Conference, were forcibly transferred to an inferior car on the Georgia Railroad. They were not driven from the train, they were allowed to ride, and the car in which they rode was connected with the cars containing the white passengers. They were simply separated from the others and that only because they were colored persons.
The reception these honored ministers of Christ met in the Joint Committee was very much of the same sort. The white brethren did not deny them their place in the church—nay, the two bodies, white and colored, were to be connected together, but these colored brethren were to be kept separate and that only because they were colored persons.
An appeal will be made to the courts, but the interesting question is: which will be first to recognize the equal manhood of the colored man— the cars, the courts or the church? Would it not be a shame to the church and a dishonor to the Christian name if the church should be the last?
Speaking of the race