I'm going to comment on this post, where Leon Brown a PCA pastor:
The ethnic and socio-economic make-up of our congregation is 95+ white and 99% middle-upper middle class.
I don't know why Leon fixates on the ethnic composition of predominantly white churches. He seems to think that reflects unconscious institutional racism.
(To be sure, this isn't Leon's statement. This is the answer given by his respondent. But the answers reflect Leon's questions. His agenda.)
What about the ethnic composition of predominantly black churches like the A.M.E, Church, Missionary Baptist convention, and the Church of God in Christ? What about the ethnic composition of Korean-American churches or Spanish-speaking churches in the US? Is that racist?
BTW, I think multiethnic churches are great.
During and following my college years the Lord began to convict me of my racism. I began to reflect more on my experience in church growing up and of racism and race issues in the church. I was writing a paper for ordination on the Image of God and was required to use some Presbyterian and Southern Presbyterian theologians. I was shocked to see some of the things that Dabney and others had written with respect to their views on slavery and the status of blacks compared to whites in the church. This seemed very inconsistent with their teaching on the Image of God in other places. I also was reading Anthony Bradley's blog which from time to time talked about his experience as a black man in the PCA and began to read more about Dabney, Thornwell, and others. I knew he wasn't making up his experiences because I knew quite personally that racism existed in Reformed Presbyterian circles.
i) To begin with, why would that be "shocking"? "Shocking" suggests this was a surprising discovery. Why did Leon's respondent find it surprising to learn that someone with Thornwell or Dabney's social conditioning would be racist? Isn't that fairly predictable? Wouldn't it be exceptional if they didn't suffer from that outlook?
ii) More to the point, notice the historical guilt-by-association. Some 19C Presbyterian theologians were racist. Therefore, that taints 21C Presbyterians. That's logically and causally bogus. There's not the slightest reason to assume that Presbyterian who was born c. 2000 shares the views of someone (Thornwell) born in South Carolina in 1812 or some (Dabney) born Virginia in 1820. The sociological dynamics are drastically different.
iii) Let's take a comparison. I've lived in both the coastal southeast and coastal southwest. The coastal southeast where I reside was predominately black and white, while the coastal southwest where I resided was predominantly white and hispanic.
I often went to the beach. I noticed that for some reason, most beachgoers were white. I don't know why that is. Nothing prevents blacks and Latinos from frequenting the same beaches in higher numbers. It's a self-selected result.
I don't know how to account for the disparity in racial preferences in that regard. But it's not as if white beachgoers should feel guilty because they like go to the beach more often than blacks and hispanics in the same area. These are public beaches. Open to anyone regardless of race. Are white beachgoers somehow responsible for whether or not more blacks and Latinos want to frequent the beach?
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