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Episodes

Episode 03 //

A Church Divided

i: By Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson [Public Domain]

Episode 03 //

A Church Divided

The story of the evangelical church’s response to the Civil Rights Movement isn’t pretty. The Church was starkly divided on the issue of segregation. Biblical arguments in favor of segregation may not have been as potent as the pro-Slavery arguments that were so ubiquitous in the lead up to the Civil War, but much of the evangelical church remained a bystander.

“Evangelicals weren’t exactly using the Bible to justify the status quo, but they were convinced that Scripture didn’t call for its disruption.”

As Christians, we are called to hold fast to biblical convictions, even when cultural currents are pulling us in another direction. We are called to bear one another’s burdens. But while some white evangelicals marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for racial equality, many others were complacent about—and even complicit in—a status quo that treated their black brothers and sisters as less than human.

So what was God up to, and what did His Word have to say to those on the front lines of the Civil Rights Movement?

Listen to Living & Effective episode 3 with Richard Clark, joined by Jamar Tisby and Mika Edmonson. Featuring Michael Hammond in CT’s podcast Quick to Listen.

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