On Saturday, October 4, 1997 between noon and 6:00pm, hundreds of thousands of men gathered on the nation's front lawn in Washington, DC, for the Promise Keepers event called Stand in the Gap. Ten Jumbotrons set up between the Capitol steps and the Washington Monument delivered images of the Promise Keepers' leaders and guest speakers.

At approximately 4:00 pm, the throngs attending the event witnessed, on the screens, what many believe was a spiritual turning point in American history. At center stage, PK leaders gathered to publicly repent of racism in the Church and ask God for forgiveness and mercy. As humble prayers ascended, the leaders extended their hands toward one another. A white hand, a black hand, a Native American hand, a Jewish hand, an Asian hand - all joined together with hearts of humility and repentance for the racism of our nation's past. And as they prayed, the multitudes joined in, some standing together holding hands, some kneeling alone, others lying prostrate on the ground.

Twice before in this century the Church was offered the opportunity to heal its racial divide. The first opportunity occurred in the early 1900's at the Azusa Street revivals. On that occasion, blacks and whites met together for several years following a visitation of the Holy Spirit and subsequent revival. These events birthed the modern Pentecostal movement. But after a time, the black believers formed one denomination and the white believers formed another. Today, scant evidence remains of God's reconciliatory work from those years.

A second opportunity arose in the South during the 1950's. After generations of racial oppression and degradation, after years of "Jim Crow" laws and "back of the bus" treatment, Southern blacks, then called Negroes, grew tired of being oppressed. Sparked by Rosa Parks' refusal to yield her bus seat to a white man and led by a Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King, Jr., a series of protests unfolded which catapulted the oppressed and their cause to center stage America. At that critical juncture in our nation's history, God presented the white, American, evangelical church with a marvelous opportunity. Come stand with your black Christian brothers and sisters and fight with them to recover their lost dignity.

As early protests ensued, God's sovereign hand could be seen at work. On more than one occasion, marchers' prayers supernaturally turned back water hoses and armed police. God had intervened. But the white, evangelical church remained silent, just as they had done for so many years before. Today, a generation later, the chasm between the two groups - black Christians and white Christians - is painfully obvious, especially on the political front.

The word reconciliation is built from the prefix re and the word conciliation. Conciliation means to try to regain, or gain again, friendship or goodwill. Reconciliation implies multiple efforts at restoring a broken relationship. In living out its motto of "Heal the Church, Heal the Nation," HEAL encourages Christians to become humble reconcilers and to possess the endurance to pro-actively build affirming relationships across racial lines. In so doing, we labor in love through Christ to heal the long standing wounds which have divided us.

Before the Church can be effective in helping the nation to heal, the Church itself must be healed. The first step toward healing is reexamination. The second step is reconciliation.

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?"
(Isa 58:6 NIV)