The Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s catalyzed positive change for racial equality in America. Its most celebrated figure, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is remembered to have said: 11:00 on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America.
Decades later, this quotation is often brought up in discussions about ethnic-specific local churches. Here, I will examine the context and intention of the quotation and offer some reflections about its relation to a local church.
While the line did not originate with him,1 Dr. King is the person who is most associated with the “most segregated hour” line. King repeatedly used this expression in his writings, sermons, and speeches. An example occurs in King’s 1958 book, Stride Towards Freedom:
It is not enough for the church to be active in the realm of ideas; it must move out into the arena of social action. First, the church must remove the yoke of segregation from its own body. Only by doing this can it be effective in its attack on outside evils. Unfortunately, most of the major denominations still practice segregation in local churches, hospitals, schools, and other church institutions. It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o’clock on Sunday morning, the same hour when many are standing to sing, “In Christ there is no East nor West.”2
Here, King chastises many churches for remaining passive during the Civil Rights movement, especially in the battle against Jim Crow laws. Such laws restricted where African Americans attended schools, ate at restaurants, sat on trains, and drank at water fountains. Most facilities reserved for African Americans were inferior in quality to that of their “Whites-only” counterparts. King campaigned against the injustice of separated facilities, which put African Americans at social and economic disadvantage3. He called for the abolishment of segregation to bring equal rights and opportunities denied to African Americans.4
As we seek to understand the context of his “most segregated hour” line, we should recognize what segregation meant in Dr. King’s world. Just before he pointed out the plight of churches, he wrote in Stride Towards Freedom:
Segregation scars the soul of both the segregator and the segregated. The segregator looks upon the segregated as a thing to be used, not a person to be respected. Segregation substitutes an “I-it” relationship for the “I-thou” relationship. Thus it is utterly opposed to the noble teachings of our Judeo-Christian tradition.5
Here the context of the “most segregated hour” line includes the notion that segregation involves the objectification and exclusion of people considered inferior. When White-led churches refused to integrate with African Americans during this period in history, Dr. King publicly lamented. To him, this refusal was an indication that these church leaders were not recognizing the equal dignity of African Americans. King concluded that this kind of segregation violated biblical teaching. He called the church at large to denounce the inequality maintained and influenced by systems of Jim Crow. He wanted White-led churches to express unity with African Americans within their local congregations during a crucial time in American history.
Now that we have examined the situation precipitating Dr. King’s words, here are some reflections about how they relate to the ethnic-specific church.
1. Dr. King was not addressing the ethnic-specific church.
The modern ethnic-specific local church does not share the context of White-led churches and their refusal to include African Americans during the Civil Rights movement. The intention of the ethnic church is not to exclude others, but to provide contextualized discipleship to a particular demographic as an expression of the universal church.
Jesus and the apostles contextualized their discipleship for their audiences. The ethnic church does the same. In fact, just like modern readers benefit from the biblical documents that were each formed for a particular group (for example, the letter of Philippians was written for first-century Philippi), others in a secondary audience can and do benefit from the contextualized discipleship in the ethnic church.
We sometimes hear Dr. King’s “most segregated hour” line in the context of a critique of ethnic-specific ministries and local churches. But to use this quotation to denounce the ethnic church is to take it out of context and use it in a way that Dr. King did not intend.
2. The term “segregation” is tied to Jim Crow laws and racist social systems.
The use of the word segregation in America evokes an association with the forced and often legal separation between White people and people of color. Because of its political and societal associations, using the term segregation to describe ethnic churches associates them with the systems opposed by the Civil Rights movement. This association is false. The intent of ethnic local churches is not to view others through an “I-it” relationship or to mandate others to lesser facilities and opportunities.
The era of segregation was a dark time in our nation’s history from which we are still recovering. Because of our history, the politically-loaded term segregation evokes an emotional, even visceral reaction against it. Thus, the use of this term in a different context is a logical fallacy known as the “appeal to emotion.” In other words, it manipulates its hearers by using loaded language instead of logical reason.
Furthermore, many of the ethnic minority constituents of the ethnic-specific church have been discriminated against and generationally underprivileged by the actual social systems of segregation to which Dr. King referred. It is out of place to use the term segregation and associate the ethnic-specific local church with the evils which he battled.
3. Admittedly, the optics of the ethnic-specific church are bad.
For many of us who serve in ethnic-specific churches, we are keenly aware that this ministry model in America looks bad. In part because of the Civil Rights movement, Americans are conditioned to see certain homogenous groups in a negative light. Outsiders to the ethnic church context can jump to the conclusion that such a context is evidence of division. Others may use the “most segregated hour” line against the ethnic church because of the perception that the ethnic church is racist.
However, perception is not always the truth. Contrary to its optics, the purpose of the ethnic-specific church is not to exclude other people based on the belief that they are racially inferior. Just like ministries contextualized for life stage (like a youth group), gender (women’s Bible study), or vocation (a church reaching the artist community), a ministry contextualized for a particular ethnic group can still recognize the equal dignity of others. While American history has made the optics of the ethnic church negative, the task of contextualized discipleship remains.
4. Dr. King promoted contextualization.
The context of Dr. King’s “most segregated hour” line did not include the ethnic-specific local church. In fact, I propose that he would disapprove of his words being misused to denounce the ethnic church because he saw that contextualization was both biblical and wise.
First, Dr. King affirmed that contextualization is biblical. In writing about the early church, he recognized that its leaders used terms and phrases that would resonate with a specific people group. He quoted Dr. Shirley Jackson Case:
“Following the lead of the apostle Paul, the Christian missionaries on gentile soil finally made of Christianity a more appealing religion than any of the other mystery cults. This was accomplished… by phrasing religious assurances more convincingly in similar terminology.”6
Notably, during the early church, the Gentiles were a minority. Like in the modern ethnic church, Paul’s contextualization facilitated the discipleship effort in a time when Gentiles would not otherwise receive a message shaped for them.
Dr. King also recognized the shaping of modern messages for a particular audience. In a 1958 paper, he wrote that a good missionary “seeks to understand the situation of those he seeks to help.”7 Here, he promoted the notion that ministers should be familiar with the experiences and values of the people whom they serve. This familiarity is an essential element of the ministry of ethnic-specific churches.
5. Ethnic-specific local churches would do well to be wise and examine themselves.
Dr. King called churches to take an active role during a particular time in American history and demonstrate desegregation to a watching nation. While we are now living in a different context, there is still validity in his promoted principle.
First, those ministering in ethnic-specific churches would do well to communicate both unity with the universal church and the intent of contextualization. While contextualization is not at odds with unity, outsiders often see the ethnic church as evidence of division. Thus, it would be wise for any church to publicly express unity, for which Jesus prayed (John 17:20-23), with the church at large. This can be done through attending conferences with other churches, cooperation in local efforts with other local bodies, and belonging to denominations with congregations of differing ministry approaches. It would also be wise to communicate that, within the contextualized ministry, all are welcome to participate. I have had the opportunity to know many people who might not fit the primary demographic of a particular ethnic church, but are welcomed to serve and benefit from its ministry.
Second, an ethnic-specific church, like any church, should examine its actions or messages to see if they reflect attitudes that wrongly elevate the primary demographic while lowering everyone else. As Dr. King rightly reasoned, these values are contrary to the truth of Scripture. If a local church communicates these values, it would be wise for its leaders to repent from them and shepherd its people to the truth.
I am forever grateful for the legacy of Dr. King. While there is still work to be done for racial equality in America, his courageous efforts have paved the way for minorities to gain opportunities and privileges in America. Many of these same minority Americans, including me, have also been profoundly impacted by the contextualized discipleship in an ethnic-specific local church. May we continue to celebrate both Dr. King’s work and the ministry of ethnic-specific churches.
- He credits it to a 1952 speech by Helen Kenyon. She called eleven o’clock on Sunday morning “the most segregated time” in America. Kenyon stated that American Protestantism tended to maintain the “status quo” and to shy away from “new neighbors and new ways of living.” See Martin Luther King Jr., The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume VI: Advocate of the Social Gospel, September 1948-–March 1963, ed. Susan Carson et al. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 149 n10. Also see “Worship Hour Found Time of Segregation,” The New York Times, November 4, 1952.
- Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (Boston: Beacon Press, 1958), 202.
- King, 7.
- “MLK at Western: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1963 WMU Speech Found” (Western Michigan University Archives and Regional History Collections and University Libraries, n.d.), 11, 14, https://wmich.edu/sites/default/files/attachments/MLK.pdf.
- King, Stride Toward Freedom, 200.
- Martin Luther King, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume I: Called to Serve, January 1929–June 1951, ed. Clayborne Carson et al. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 96.
- King, The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume VI, 250.