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Race Relations
373
bership shall not be allowed to hide the fact that the realization of this
goal is ultimately a means of grace and spiritual enrichment. Those
who have participated in the life and activities of the World Council
of Churches and the National Council of the Churches of Christ in
the U.S.A., as well as in other genuinely interracial organizations
which are no longer self-conscious about their inclusiveness, are
aware of the freedom and the enrichment which such fellowship
brings. And one of the most striking aspects of the experience of those
individual churches which have become racially inclusive is their
testimony that the rewards in terms of their spiritual growth and
vitality far outweigh the difficulties involved in breaking down the
racial barriers and achieving an inclusive brotherhood.
In the fourth place, the Church has a responsibility to work for
the realization of justice in the entire social order. Not only must she
seek to bring about the transformation of personal relationships by a
larger measure of good will and
agape
, but she must also out of love
seek the transformation and reconstruction of the institutional struc
tures through which the needs of men are either met or denied. More
over, she needs to make clear the dynamic character of the rela
tionship between personal ethics and social justice. Not only do
transformed persons affect the moral quality of the institutional life of
society, but the moral quality of these institutions affects the ethical
and spiritual development of those individuals who participate in
them and are subjected to them. It is impossible to separate personal
from social ethics for the very reason that they are not separated in
life. Man is social by nature; he inevitably exists in community; and
his behavior is largely determined by the character of the community
in which he lives.
Recognition of the obligation to work for the realization of justice
in the social order as well as for the transformation of personal rela
tionships implies the need to attack the many problems which stem
out of racial prejudice and discrimination by a variety of methods
which are adapted to the different types of problems—discrimination
in voting, in employment, in civil rights, in education, in housing, and
in the churches. It implies the need to work for the elimination of
discrimination as well as for the eradication of prejudice. As we have
seen, these two social evils are not unrelated; but strategy that is
aimed directly at the former may have only a long-range, indirect
effect upon the latter; and, conversely, strategy that results in the re
duction of personal prejudice may have little effect upon one’s