Bishop Gordon V. Smith's Address to Convention, 1964
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“Today the Church is being challenged by the world in which we live. In all too many instances there are great areas of life in which the organized life of the Church is unrelated to the real concerns of the communities in which we live. This is nothing more or less than a failure to bear our witness in the world. By witness I mean bringing society and its institutions in line with what God intends. At the present moment this problem is seen in a very explosive issue-racial equality. Many of our clergy and laity have been involved in this question and all of us should be as we face the matter of Civil Rights legislation. It is to help you make your Christian witness that I would like, therefore, to say a few things on this subject.
On what grounds as Christian do we take a stand on racial discrimination, and what should that stand be? Some of you may dismiss this two fold question by feeling that it has already been answered. Others may be saying, "Certainly racial discrimination is bad and, therefore, I am against it." But is this the Christian answer?
No, because such an answer reflects only a general humanitarian attitude which could be affected by political and secularist arguments.
The Christian must face this issue on an entirely different basis. To oppose racial discrimination on the ground of our common humanity, because we are all men and citizens, or because all men have certain constitutional rights may be adequate for some, but, again, that is not the basis of the Christian approach to the problem.
The basis of the Christian position is the fact of the new man created in Christ. This does not mean simply that all in the Church are one in Christ and must live as such, but that the new man is the whole human race for whom Christ died and claims for Himself. By dying for all without discrimination Christ has given to every man a new and equal worth. This is the ground upon which the Christian takes his stand.
What is that stand? Many talk as if the Christian can take one of many attitudes toward racial discrimination and that our attitude toward race is simply one of the many implications of the Gospel in which some Christians may be more radical than others. The truth of the matter is that the whole Christian Gospel stands or falls by our response at this point, because the fact of the new man is the very Gospel itself. The summary of the Christian position is found in the third chapter of Colossians where Paul says, "In this new man it is impossible for there to be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Sythian, slave and free men; all is simply Christ's."
I don't mean to say, of course, that in Christ we are no longer black and white or equal in endowment or ability. I do mean, however, that any division or discrimination simply on the grounds of race, sex, or class is not merely a bad thing, but is impossible for a Christian without denying the Gospel itself.
Let me be perfectly clear. The political and social and economic issues are incredibly complex. But this complexity cannot be permitted to obscure the fact that for the Christian the moral issue is absolutely simple. On the basic issue and the direction we should take as Christians we cannot have two minds.
The question of racial unity has been called "the acid test of Christianity in our century." We must be true to the Christian Gospel and have the courage to accept the consequences of our convictions. I, therefore, call upon every parish and mission in the diocese to examine its own life and make certain that racial discrimination is eliminated. I call upon every member of the diocese to actively support efforts to end racial discrimination in the local community, the state and nation. May our witness in this area be such as to bring about God's will that we all be one in Christ.
The Church is just beginning to reach the point, and that without agony, at which in Christ there is neither black nor white. May we through our common life and work help to provide the solution to this crucial problem.”
- Bishop Gordon V. Smith, Sixth Bishop of Iowa, Address to Convention, 1964.