Chapter 42 Huntington Conundrum

After a month or two I knew the names of most of the people. I thought I had a feel for the congregations. I decided to focus most of my attention for the next year on Huntington. Based on what the conference president had said, I figured I would get the most results there. I put an advertisement in the local paper for Bible studies. From that ad Karin and I developed a Bible study with four women all in their middle forties. Three of them were wives of airline pilots. We spent months studying basic Bible teachings about prayer and spiritual life and the doctrines of the Adventist church. Only one of them had any trouble accepting the Adventist belief about hell: there is no such thing as eternal torment for the damned. But she finally came around. They agreed with the Adventist interpretation of Bible prophecies about the end of time. They agreed with the Adventist understanding of the Sabbath commandment.
By this time we had been studying together for nine months. It was time to invite them to church, but I hesitated.


The people at Huntington Church were unfailingly respectful to me. In their eyes I was God’s anointed. Several of the folks were positively warm. It was a pleasure to see them, to talk with them. But there was an ill-definable tension in the church. I could feel it when I walked in the door, a palpable alienation or hostility. I didn't understand it. Board meetings were civil. People did their jobs. The church was functioning. Something was wrong, but I didn't know what.

There were some obvious problems. At the weekly potluck meals, there was not enough food for everyone. Within a few months of our arrival, the church ladies decided serve the food instead of allowing people to serve themselves. They struggled to stretch the available food to feed all the hungry mouths. For awhile Karin tried making multiple dishes of food trying to fill gap between supply and demand. Her mother wisely put a stop to that. “It is not your job to feed the church,” she said.

I was appalled by the tension I could feel at meal time, but the church seemed used to it. They just managed.

I was puzzled by some of the ethnic realities. While the majority of the church was West Indian, none of the church offices was held by West Indians.

The Chinese family had their own lives independent of the church. They attended church faithfully. They supported the church generously with their money. But they were not part of the main network of relationships. Karin and I enjoyed a natural affinity with them as outsiders.

Actually, there were two main networks–the West Indians and the Acosta Family. Mr. Robinson seemed to be the most influential person in the West Indian network. He had six kids and most of the other kids in the church were connected to the family through friendships. In church two of the most influential people were Mr. and Mrs. Tobias. They were the oldest Jamaicans. Crusty and confident. They seemed to embody the authoritarian, frowning Adventism I remembered from boarding high school. It didn’t seem to me that people liked them. But the West Indians would not buck them when it came time to make decisions in church board meetings. They were “authorities.”

The senior Acosta had been the second elder in Huntington for a long time. When Mr. Dennis died, it was assumed he would move into the head elder slot. However, he seemed to me to play a very minor role in the church. He was not regarded as a leader or counselor. He was a nice guy who had been honored with the title elder, but he had no clout and hardly any influence that I could tell. So I suggested electing a West Indian as head elder.

There was vigorous opposition from the West Indians. They did not want to attend a Black church. If the head elder was a West Indian, then White people would be less likely to attend the church. So they wanted a White person as head elder to help keep the church from becoming all Black.

The most prominent African American in the church, Charlie Nelson, wanted a Black church. It would be far more effective reaching out to other African Americans he believed. The West Indians did not appreciate his emphasis on Black culture. And the Acosta clan was deeply offended that I would question putting Papa in as the next head elder.

As a young firebrand I was oblivious to the violence I was inflicting on the congregation by my insistence on driving them into the future I believed was their destiny. The primary effect of my driving was to heighten tensions that had been carefully restrained.

The church had delicately balanced their image of themselves as a community church in a suburban society that was overwhelmingly White with the reality of their increasingly West Indian membership. My pushing for formal West Indian leadership in the congregation forced people to think more pointedly about ethnic identity. And as they did so, they did not find a new, sweeter harmony. They were driven apart.

The Acosta family now felt unappreciated. Charlie was more bothered by the failure of the church to effectively minister to “his people after the flesh.” The West Indians became more aware of their own divisions, Jamaicans versus Barbadians versus Trinidadians. The Whites were made more aware of their shrinking, minority status. Huntington Church was not the happy church described by the conference president. After a year of my zealous meddling, it was worse.

I finally invited my Bible study ladies to church. They visited a few times, then did not come back. When I called they were happy to talk, but they were not interested in becoming part of this congregation.