If the big goal is racial reconciliation, pastors may want to start by breaking bread

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., faced a barrage of questions about race and politics during his landmark 1960 appearance on NBC News' "Meet the Press," but one of the most memorable exchanges concerned a blunt question about church life.

"How many white people are members of your church in Atlanta?", asked a reporter from Nashville.

"I think it is one of the tragedies of our nation, one of the shameful tragedies, that 11 o'clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hour, in Christian America," King replied. Any church that has "a segregated body is standing against the spirit and the teachings of Jesus Christ, and it fails to be a true witness," he added.

Millions of Americans are still wrestling with this Sunday morning divide.

But another practical question emerged during a recent Southern Baptist Convention program entitled "Pursuing Unity: A Discussion of Racial Reconciliation Efforts and the SBC." Can Black and White church folks find gaps in their jammed schedules and start breaking bread together?

"It doesn't matter how many panel discussions you watch. It doesn't matter how many books you read, how many conferences you go to. None of that will do better than dinner table ministry," said the Rev. Jon Kelly of Chicago West Bible Church.

If people want progress, he said, they need to consider their circle of friends and ask "why everyone looks like me, votes like me, thinks like me. … When we talk about racial reconciliation, we want the fruit of reconciliation without the relationships. Until our dinner tables become diversified, … until we eat bread together and fellowship together, we won't make any progress."

Fellowship meals will not make headlines or ignite rhetorical fireworks in social media, and that's a good thing, said the Rev. Ed Litton, who recently said he wouldn't seek a second term as SBC president. He plans to focus on racial-reconciliation projects linked to his own church near Mobile, Ala.

Years ago, he said, Black and White pastors began sharing meals while discussing the "deep wounds" in that racially divided community. The key was focusing on faith and the ties that bind, until basic bonds of trust were in place.

"We hashed out why we were there," said Litton. "We weren't there to bring about some kind of social change.

Confession time: I used to write stories almost as wide-eyed as yesterday's feature on Muslim converts in Alabama.

I wrote up Muslim criticisms of Christianity. I retold their feelings about baleful attitudes from other Americans. I did, however, try to look critically at their claims of up to seven million believers in the U.S.

But see, it's two decades later, and mainstream media should have moved on. And I suggest that the Alabama Media Group, with seven regional editions, carries a heavy responsibility for perceptive reporting, not just writing up notes.

This particular article starts as a sensitive, detail-rich feature of the Alabaman Muslims: how they live, how they view presidential candidates, how they think other Americans view them. Al.com even finds a counter-intuitive lede:

Allie Larbi sounds like a Donald Trump supporter.

The Mobile resident supports building a giant wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and scrapping birthright citizenship. Syrian refugees, in her own words, should either be blocked from entering the United States or let in only to be housed in isolated refugee camps.

"I have what I like to turn around and call American views," said Larbi. "This is a great country and it needs to stay that way."

Larbi naturally takes offense at some of Trump's other statements, like "mandatory registration for Muslims, a ban on Muslim travel to the United States, or shooting Muslims with bullets dipped in pig's blood." We'll get back to her in a moment.