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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
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Michael Emerson
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: September 7
Actor
Film Actor
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Cedar Rapids
Iowa
mike
Two
Asian
Really
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Thirds
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Easier
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Congregations
White
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Hispanic
Black
Mixed
More quotes by Michael Emerson
In your actor's heart, you know when you're playing well. Others may not always agree with you, but I'm always aware of when the scene is cooking or not. You have an instinct about that from years of doing scenes and plays, and I think it stands you in good stead even in the TV world.
Michael Emerson
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
And then they would have the shoe removers on one side, and the non-shoe removers on the other side until they could work through coming to understand why we might both be trying to worship authentically, and because of our cultural background we have these different ideas. But it took a while.
Michael Emerson
So there was great clashes when, you know, if you believe you shouldn't remove your shoes and someone's taking their shoes off, how can they do this? That actually was such a big clash in this case that they had to put a curtain down the middle of where they would worship.
Michael Emerson
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
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
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
They could never go back to being a uniracial congregation again. It brings excitement. It brings life. It allows them to be able to know people they would never know, to meet people that are outside the congregation they would have never connected with, you know, through the networks that they developed in the congregation.
Michael Emerson
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
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
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
And again, this connection that you get: I meet Joe at church. Joe's connected to a whole network of people I don't know. Joe likes me. He invites me over to his son's birthday party, and I meet his whole family. I meet his friends. I get to know his neighborhood. That happens all the time.
Michael Emerson
It's the sad fact of how race still works in our country. We find that over and over again.
Michael Emerson
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
One of the things I like about performing on the stage is that it is a kind of meditative experience. Time does stand still. You have no concept or feeling of the passing of two or three hours' time. It's all kind of one present moment, which is a kind of a description of meditation.
Michael Emerson
So you find a lot of these sixth Americans congregate in these interracial congregations. They hang out together at work, at school, wherever.
Michael Emerson
I may have to shop with them. But on Sunday I don't want to have to worship with them. I want to be able to just be myself and let my hair down. It's also, of course, as we know, the seat of political organization and the affirming of your blackness and so on.
Michael Emerson
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
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
That's a big fear, right, and when I talk with black pastors, the same thing: If we try to have this move towards interracial congregations, whites will just dominate then. There are so many more of them, and they're used to being in the position of power. So they'll just take over, and we'll lose the one thing we do have.
Michael Emerson
