The great American experiment with building a

multi-racial democracy is still in the laboratory.

We have got to be willing to see ourselves as part of

an experiment that is actively working

its way through right now. We stumble, we hold on to each other, we hug each

other, we fight with one another in loving ways, but we keep moving and

experimenting and trying to figure it out. Vincent Harding, an architect of the

Civil Rights Movement, sees this as a challenge for America and the Christian

Church. I spoke with him together with Phyllis Tickel, another religious

elder for an honest sometimes politically incorrect reflection on coming to

terms with racial identity in the church and the world. What might words like

repentance or forgiveness mean culturally in this moment? These are questions of

the emerging church, a loosely defined movement that crosses generations,

theologies and social ideologies in the hope of reimagining Christianity.

There's a difference between repentance and forgiveness and there's a difference

between those in grace and if we do this thing that Vince is talking about, if we

refashion this country, which we're going to do, but if we do it without grace, it

will be just as clunky and just as unfortunate and just as many people will get

the short end of the stick as has been true in the past.

I'm Christa Tipet and this is on being. I interviewed these longtime friends and

revered elders at the 2013 Wild Goose Festival, a gathering of the emerging

church. We spoke early in the morning in an outdoor tent and hot springs in

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