Social Justice

It is interesting to me that lots of people from my former denomination are arguing over social justice.  I don't understand that.  Why would a follower of Jesus not be for social justice?  I am a white male who has been given much.  I was raised not to be prejudiced but I know it is is in me.  When I pastored a church in Charlotte, NC we did a demographic study around the church.  We found that there were 50% African Americans within 5 miles of the church and we had ZERO in our church. That bothered me.  I lived in a nice subdivision and our two next door neighbors were African American.  My children's best friends were African American.  Yet, I would say they were not welcomed at our church.  My student minister and I were convicted and started inviting the community to the church.  You know what happened?  They started coming.  In fact, it started that Sunday.  We had at least 20 students that came to the student ministry.  We had an African American couple visit our Sunday School class.  I led them to Christ and they wanted to join the church.  I'll never forget the anxiousness I felt as they came to the front of the church to let the church know the decision they made.  It should have been a time of rejoicing.  But, I was nervous because I wasn't sure how our church would react.  Isn't that horrible? 

To the church's credit, they voted this couple in.  However, the backroom gossip and complaints began.  Our deacons, personnel committee, and church council called for a special meeting to discuss the "State of the Church."  The concern was over the African Americans that were coming to our church.  I told them that our church had 3 options:  One was to reach our community,  which was my desire.  The second was to relocate and let a church that would reach the community to do so, which I was willing to do.  The third was that the church would die.   For the next two or three hours, the people in that room went at each other.  These were long-time friends.  Some of them wanted to reach the community.  Others did but didn't want the baggage that it came with.  And some just let it be known that they didn't want that in the church.  I looked over at my student minister and he was fuming. 

I left that meeting depressed.  I told my wife that I couldn't lead a racist church.  So we prayed and decided that I would resign after our mission trip.  There was one more New Orleans Missions Trip that I was leading in 2 months and our son was going.  Our student minister was also going.  The next morning I met my student minister at Starbucks like we often did.  I told him that he should be looking for another ministry position.  He had this look in his eyes I will never forget.  He said I've already been offered another position.  We both decided to finish the mission trip and both resign.  The problem for me was I had no job to go to.  The mission trip was awesome.  The next Monday was right before Thanksgiving and 2 deacons came to talk to me.  My plan was to resign after Thanksgiving.  They brought up the problems in the church.  Mainly the changes I had brought.  I'm sure some of the problems were my fault.  I did bring in drastic changes.  The other problem was the new people that were coming in.  In other words, African Americans.  I was appalled!  Somehow the talk went to having someone else taking over the church.  So, I resigned on the spot.

I'm not hero and I won't be talked about in any social justice discussions.  But this was my experience and I can't believe in 2019 Christians are arguing over social justice.  Of course, we should be concerned with the plight of others.  Look what Jesus said in Luke 11:42

“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.

How can any follower of Jesus neglect justice?  I can't believe what I'm hearing from Christians.   If we love God, then we should care.