Quote

Now they had to sit in separate places and sometimes they'd even have to sit outside and look through the windows. But they did worship together.

Michael Emerson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Michael Emerson
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 7
Actor
Film Actor
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Cedar Rapids
Iowa
mike
Together
Look
Looks
Windows
Sometimes
Separate
Even
Window
Worship
Places
Outside

More quotes by Michael Emerson

Image
So different groups have different definitions, and then they clash on those. So it takes adept leadership to say we're going to work through these.
Michael Emerson
Image
I think whites are used to being in power, so when whites think we ought to have integrated churches they think, People ought to come to our church. What can we do to get them to come?
Michael Emerson
Image
I think it's easier, I really do, because of not having that similar history, so that's why I think two-thirds of these mixed congregations are either white with Asian and Hispanic, or black with Asian and Hispanic.
Michael Emerson
Image
If we go into white congregations, non-whites will sometimes say it felt like worship never started. It was sort of dead and didn't feel that warmly received. But so - and there are different realities either way, and it makes it difficult for all groups to try and cross boundaries.
Michael Emerson
Image
It's the sad fact of how race still works in our country. We find that over and over again.
Michael Emerson
Image
I've been blessed by doing classic plays on Broadway, which was one of my great dreams forever.
Michael Emerson
Image
We're going to see more, and we are seeing more, and I'll tell you exactly why. Not because white and black are more likely to get together. Only a third of the seven percent of congregations that are interracial are black and white.
Michael Emerson
Image
What sort of difficulties would happen when people of different cultures try to come together to worship? Tiny little things such as let's tell jokes with each other.
Michael Emerson
Image
I have to conclude, oh, the best people are all somebody other than my own race. So that's difficult. How do we interpret the Bible? Should we stress things like justice and that God is somebody who cares about equality of all people? Or is he a God of love and a God who's there to give me an afterlife?
Michael Emerson
Image
To a large extent, people's interest in the character is the mystery of the character.
Michael Emerson
Image
Absolutely, although every congregation will say, you know, every worship leader will say it's vital. It's very important, but again these are, you know, these are different cultural styles.
Michael Emerson
Image
We've had people say, Now when I go to work, I don't feel uncomfortable talking to people of different races, and I go up and introduce myself, and I start making a new friend I wouldn't have done otherwise.
Michael Emerson
Image
My mother always told me growing up I had a punchable face. Little did I know she was predicting my television career.
Michael Emerson
Image
So the tradition from Europe is that you're supposed to emphasize the mind over the body, so you sing from a very kind of staid perspective. Again, there are charismatic white congregations all over, and they don't sing that way. But, you know, on the average.
Michael Emerson
Image
Maybe there's even anger. But if they make it through that they come to a new agreement, and they start creating a new culture, and it becomes something that people just - a lot of times they'll say, I couldn't live without it. I just have to be there.
Michael Emerson
Image
I think of myself as a problem-solver. I want to go in and help the director and the writer to get the best they can out of the text they're working with.
Michael Emerson
Image
Preaching styles and people being slain in the spirit and things like that. Now it doesn't happen in all black churches, and it happens sometimes in white churches, right? But on average they're quite a bit different.
Michael Emerson
Image
In part because they had no choice, right? If you were a slave, you did what the master said. And they said to worship: You're going to worship with us.
Michael Emerson
Image
What happens is sometimes these congregations will still have the white style of worship, even though they're mixed, because folks are willing to give up whatever they may have come with. So it's still quite a stretch for African Americans, yeah.
Michael Emerson
Image
It may be changing, but still it's the one place, that total control of an institution, that African Americans have. So sometimes, you know, you'll hear the statement of African Americans saying, I have to work with whites.
Michael Emerson