Bishop T.D. Jakes talks about ‘Healing the Racial

It’s been more than a half­-century since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. urged white religious leaders to join the civil rights movement in his famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” an essay that helped spark an interracial wave of nonviolent protest. Perhaps inspired by King’s strategy, nationally renowned pastor Bishop T.D. Jakes last week assembled a multiracial group of pastors from across the country to address social justice issues during a tense time in America.

“Healing the Racial Divide,” a one-day forum held on what would have been King’s 86th birthday, drew about 150 pastors from various religious denominations. The meeting was not open to the public, but several pastors said there was a frank discussion of how religious leaders could promote “peaceful reconciliation” as protests continue across the country over the deaths of black men at the hands of white police officers.

Jakes organized the forum with Bishop Harry Jackson, chairman of the High Impact Leadership Coalition and senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md. The two men said they wanted the forum to highlight areas of agreement among pastors of various races on issues involving the economy, schools and the poor.

“In Ferguson, I really saw how extensive the racial problem was,” Jackson said, referring to protests that erupted in Ferguson, Mo., a St. Louis suburb, after 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed by a police officer. “The churches are doing a lot of good work in the region, but it’s not multicultural and it is not multiracial.”

The event was held at Jakes’s Dallas sanctuary, the Potter’s House, and the assembled leaders represented more than 40 million people.

Among the other pastors who attended were Andrew Young, the former civil rights leader, ambassador and Atlanta mayor; the Rev. Bernice King, one of King’s daughters; Bishop Vashti Murphy McKenzie of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; and conservative TV preachers John Hagee and James Robinson. Also in attendance were Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, and Leigh Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Jakes said that at the conclusion of the event, the pastors signed a covenant of reconciliation and committed themselves to healing racial rifts within the church. They also developed a seven-point plan that encourages the organization of regional prayer summits, forums and outreach campaigns led by diverse clergy members.

Jakes sat down with The Post to discuss what he hoped to achieve by convening the group.

What was the vision behind the event and how important was it to reach across the racial lines?

First of all, it was the most racially diverse conference that I have ever seen hosted at a black church in my life. Because of Ferguson, New York and all of the atrocities that have happened in the headlines . . . there is a tremendous urgency to alert pastors across all spectrums that this we needed to weigh in on.

We started dealing first with the racial divide that exists in terms of how we worship in this country. Dr. King alluded to this [in his “Letter From Birmingham Jail”]. We talked about that, then we went on to the more significant issues in regards to how our combined strengths could be leveraged to better serve people in black and brown communities across this country who are living under the poverty lines.

What do you expect that this interracial group can do in the long term? Is this the formation of a new organization that wants to have more political influence?

As I shared in the meeting, we cannot have the kind of change that we need in this country without the inclusion of white people and black people and brown people working together, and that begins, in large part, with clergy. There is a lot that can be done because many of the people who sat in that room at our church are people who pastor some of the candidates who are running for office or pastor some of the elected officials.

We agreed that we would focus on education and the criminal justice system and the politicians who we would give the most access to would be the ones who were on our agenda rather than the other way around on their agenda.

Traditionally, you have not wanted to get involved in politics. What has changed?

I don’t know that I am getting involved with politics, but what I am getting involved with is doing something to make this country better. I am getting involved with giving a voice to underserved people. I still have no agenda to get involved in politics.

The conference was criticized by some leaders in the civil rights community as too exclusive. Why didn’t you invite the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Al Sharpton and others to the table?

I would argue that Andrew Young embodies the civil rights movement as well as any of the names that you mentioned, and then we couldn’t bring in every person that we would have liked to bring in. There are 600,000 pastors in this country, and we only had 150. We did get representation from all camps and schools of thought.

In the next couple of months, where do we go from here?

We are inviting all pastors to go to thereconciledchurch.org and see how we can start, in every city in America, to build bridges between pastors and churches that normally don’t talk to each other and help churches right in the hood that don’t have the resources.

Source http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/bishop-td-jakes-talks-about-healing-the-racial-divide-forum/2015/01/23/4bc6a3bc-a25f-11e4-b146-577832eafcb4_story.html