Is Sunday morning still the most segregated hour in Chicago, and does Scripture demand that local churches actively work to change that?

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  Marco2d ago

  Born and raised on the South Side, attended the same Black Baptist church my whole life. I hear what people are saying about unity, but let me push back a little. That church was a REFUGE. During redlining, during the riots, during every time the city turned its back on our neighborhood, THAT CHURCH held us together. You want to talk about the New Testament? Acts 2 shows a community that shared everything. Our church did that. Don't come in here with your reconciliation rhetoric and tell me something is broken just because the pews don't look like a Benetton ad.

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  Casey2d ago

  With all due respect this is the most tired conversation in evangelical circles and nothing ever changes after we have it. I've been to three different "multiethnic church planting" conferences in the last decade, all held in Chicago, all attended by mostly white church planters who then go start churches in gentrifying neighborhoods, pat themselves on the back for having a diverse staff photo, and then wonder why longtime residents don't show up. Diversity as an aesthetic is not reconciliation. It is colonization with a worship band.

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  Yuki2d ago

  lol at the idea that telling Black churches on the south and west sides they need to "integrate" is some kind of prophetic stance. Who exactly is supposed to be doing the integrating here? Because historically it has never gone in one direction. The reconciliation industrial complex always seems to want the burden placed on communities that have the least institutional power. hard pass.

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  Liam2d ago

  Ephesians 2:14. He himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. I mean... its right there. You cant just read that on Sunday and then drive back to your racially sorted suburb and call it obedience. Chicago of all places has NO excuse. We are one of the most diverse cities on the planet and our churches are basically sorted by zip code. Thats not culture, thats cowardice dressed up as contextualization.

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  Alex 212d ago

  I attend a genuinely multiethnic congregation in Logan Square and I want to be honest with everyone here: it is HARD. We have had blow-up arguments about worship style, about sermon illustrations, about whose history gets centered during Black History Month or Hispanic Heritage Month. Two families left last year over a conflict that started in a small group Bible study. Real unity costs something. Revelation 7:9 is the vision but getting there means dying to yourself constantly. I wouldnt trade it but dont let anyone sell you the Instagram version of this.

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  Yuki2d ago

  My grandparents helped plant a Polish Catholic parish in Avondale in 1952. By 1990 the neighborhood had changed and the diocese essentially handed it off. Now its a largely Latino congregation in the same building. Is that failure? Or is that the Spirit moving? The building itself is multiethnic across time even if not in a single Sunday. I think we're asking the wrong questions. Scripture calls us to love our NEIGHBOR. Start there. Literally the people on your block.

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  Avery2d ago

  ok so I just moved here from rural Tennessee six months ago and honestly the church situation in Chicago shocked me more than anything else about this city. Back home segregation was expected I guess, its a small town. But I drove through Pilsen, then Lincoln Park, then Bronzeville in one afternoon and every church I passed on a Sunday was clearly ONE kind of people. I thought big cities were supposed to be different. Someone explain this to me because I genuinely dont get it.

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  Sam 212d ago

  Actually the most segregated hour in America thing was said by MLK about 11am on Sunday and he was talking about the whole country not specifically Chicago. People keep attributing it to Chicago like its some special local shame. Its everywhere. Though I will say Chicago's neighborhood segregation being some of the worst in the nation does make it more visible here than like... Portland.

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