Chances are, if you attend a white church, you’ve never heard a sermon about racism. The Rev. Alex Gee, pastor of Madison’s Fountain of Life Covenant Church, said that he polled his pastor friends ten years ago and found 98 percent said that they had never preached against racism.
Pastor Gee, the founder of Madison’s Justified Anger Coalition, chaired a panel of four white members from his church Sunday night, addressing an all-white crowd of about 60 people representing eight other Madison churches. Those who gathered at Springs of Hope Fellowship Church first watched the 2014 Academy-Award-nominated movie Selma, depicting the fight for voting rights in Alabama in 1964.
Today marked the 48th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., in Memphis, Tennessee. With the fresh memory of seeing Dr. King depicted in Selma, and the almost-fresh memory of the 2013 Race to Equity Report showing significant racial disparities in Madison and Dane County, the need for more discussions about race among Madison’s white community is clear.
“This is not the work that I wanted to be in,” pastor Gee said, discussing his high profile leadership role in the Madison African American community that has emerged out of the Justified Anger coalition, and the number of events he’s being invited to attend to address racial disparities. “It’s always too much to some and not enough for others.”
He is pleased with how the faith community has responded to Justified Anger. “As we begin to show unity [in dealing with racial problems] we can become relevant in our community,” he said. “We have solutions [through our faith] that the city doesn’t otherwise have access to.”
But pastor Gee also said that there’s much more the Madison Christian community could be doing, that needs to be done. If the Christian community gets behind the effort, it can be done in the name of Jesus Christ. If churches don’t step up, other solutions will need to be tried, through government and the United Way, and what can be said about the transformative power of the Gospel will be muted.
“The church has a chance to have a recognized voice in this community,” he said. “I’m not trying to help black people, I’m trying to help Madison.”
Paul Grant, one of the panel members, noted that at the time of the voting rights campaign in Selma, the evangelical church community was not involved but members of other religious communities were involved. “This was a time when we evangelicals were praying for the persecuted church in eastern Europe, and ignoring our persecuted brothers and sisters in the American south,” he said.
Grant and another member of the panel, Kevin Evanco, helped pastor Gee put together a Tuesday night class on African American history at Fountain of Life church. The class meets for seven weeks and 150 Madison area residents are participating.
Chris Godar, another panelist, said the interest in the class was an encouraging sign. “Our history has been white washed,” he said. “When we don’t know our history, we don’t know where the angst comes from. We get to choose [as white people] whether we want to engage these issues. Our African American brothers and sisters have no choice.”