“Nowhere is the tragic tendency to conform more evident than in the church, an institution that has often served to crystallize, conserve, and even bless the patterns of majority opinion. The erstwhile sanction by the church of slavery, racial segregation, war, and economic exploitation is testimony to the fact that the church has harkened more to the authority of the world than to the authority of God. Called to be the moral guardian of the community, the church at times has preserved that which is immoral and unethical. Called to combat social evils, it has remained silent behind stained-glass windows. Called to lead men on the highway of brotherhood and to summon them to rise above the narrow confines of race and class, it has enunciated and practiced racial exclusiveness.”
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Strength to Love. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2010’/1963, pages 15-16
Related Posts:
Pastor Note #133: To Post the Ten Commandments or the Beatitudes?
Pastor Note #129: How Would Christian Nationalist Government Work?
Pastor Note #119: Jesus’ Way of Power
Pastor Note #113: The Real Danger Facing the Witness of the Church
Pastor Note #104: Partisan Politics, the American Church, and the Kingdom of God
Photo by GAC
Gary Chorpenning's Notebooks 
One thought on “Quote of Note #206: The Cultural Conformity of the Church”