The Myth of Colorblind Christians: Evangelicals and White Supremacy in the Civil Rights Era

by Jesse Curtis

Arn warned against a church mismatching a pastor and its congregation. “People want their pastor to be ‘like’ them,” he explained. Those desiring a “successful ministry” ought to make sure the “pastor and church fit the same basic homogeneous unit.”94 Though church growth theorists insisted they opposed segregation and racism, these instructions were all but explicit warnings against the danger of integration and cultural pluralism in a local church. When Wagner taught a church growth seminar at Wheaton Graduate School in the summer of 1972, his final exam included this question: “How could an integrated church in a segregated society retard evangelism?”95 For students steeped in the idea that effective evangelism was priority number one, the message was clear.