By Phil Haslanger
Collaboration Project Story Team

When the African American Council of Churches gathered people from around the Madison area on Monday evening, June 1, for a Prayer Vigil for Peace and Justice, Rev. Dr. Marcus Allen brought it to a close with a powerful plea for unity among the diverse Body of Christ in our area.

Allen is the president of the African American Council of Churches as well as the pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Madison. 

His call for unity foreshadowed an even bigger gathering of people of faith this coming Sunday, June 7. The Black Lives Matter Solidarity March will begin at 6:09 p.m. at University Avenue and Park Street and proceed up to the City-County Building.   

And pastors from some 65 Madison-area churches have signed letter of support to the African-American parishioners at their congregation and to the African-American community as a whole resolving to “preach, teach, and advocate against the sins of racism.” (Here is a story and the text of that letter with the signatories from Madison365.)

All of this is part of the unity Allen was talking about.

At the gathering last Monday, Allen said, “I call for unity amongst the Christian church. This is not just a black church problem. This is a problem that is in America that has caused so much pain, hurt and division…This is what has separated us, the black church and the white church, that we don’t realize the pain we have gone through just because of the color of our skin.”

He recalled that the church has just celebrated the Feast of Pentecost, a story of fire and wind descending on Jesus’ followers. But after the fire, he said, there was a revival. 

“That is what God is calling for us as the church - to cause a revival to happen in the land.”

So he called for unity with these words: “I call for all our churches to speak from the hermeneutic of social justice, speak from the hermeneutic of pain and suffering and speak to your congregations, to your members about what we go through. You may not know, but you can read. Look at the pain. 

“I pray that God will unite the church. The Bible says that they will know that you are mine by the way you love your brother. I pray that churches will stand together, regardless of our race, regardless of who we are.

“We all have different doctrines and different beliefs. In the African-American Council of Churches, we are standing together with everyone. We don’t all believe the same thing, we have different theological differences, but we are able to stand together because we know the importance of us being as one.”

The Cap Times did a story about Monday’s gathering and a video of the evening is here on Facebook.