The motto "Separate But Equal" sounds very racist in view of the controversy over forced integration of public schools and all that went on with that. However, someone was raising the question of whether forced integration of churches and religions and can also be accomplished perhaps by busing black people to white churches to make the congregation look more ethnically diverse among other solutions, including an intentional overlooking of doctrinal differences. This forced integration of church seems to some of us to be taking the idea of "Separate" out of its proper context. There are those who demand ethnic diversity at church but the church is not owned by the government and people have choices so I don't know. Some people, especially white people, are more inclined to leave if they feel uncomfortable about something, especially if the new people are trying to run the show, and they feel pushed aside and then the congregation starts to look browner and blacker until finally most of the white people are gone and nobody knows where they went. Still, the Bible tells us not to forsake the assembling of the saints, and so we continue to go there even though the church ceases to offer the former sense of fellowship or community and becomes just another type of office space where we have to perform social duties that are no longer enjoyable or meaningful. We have to force ourselves to go there and try to meet and greet these strangely hostile persons who only want to one-up us and try to be part of the congregation at least for our personal spiritual edification at least long enough to count as church attendance even though nobody really likes us or wants us to be there or cares whether we ever come back. At least I go to church. I do not see how television could really substitute for church but still the pressure of forced integration makes it seem like forced labor to get there and back. I don't see any solution. I just don't care anymore.
I don't understand why the Catholics and Anglicans think that it is OK for them to go around killing the Anabaptists and/or separatists as if there were something wrong us for not wanting to be forcibly integrated into the boozers club. They do not seem to understand that it is OK to be separate in some sense. We are not talking about race. It is a s. To be separate has to do with holiness. God tells us to be separate, to be holy, to be perfect. The first Americans were often separatists. It is OK to be separate.
