Reconciled men answer other's need
BY KRISTA RAMSEY
The Cincinnati Enquirer Jerry Reiner knew a lot of African Americans. As a kid, he worked at Findlay Market. There were African Americans in his classes at the University of Cincinnati, and on his pick-up basketball team. As an adult, he worked alongside them.
But on Sundays, as he worshipped at Crestview Presbyterian Church in West Chester, everyone around him was white.
Not that he especially noticed.
Born in Africa and trained in England and the United States, Osborne Richards knew a lot of white people. Most of his teachers at a London Bible college were white, as were his roommates. Later, he traveled the world with whites.
But when he became pastor of Newlife Outreach Church in Bond Hill, his entire congregation was black.
Not that it seemed to matter.
Justice, love and brotherhood came up regularly in both men's churches. The topic of segregated worship did not. During the week, blacks and whites share bus seats and office space. But on Sunday morning, in Cincinnati, they walk down separate church aisles.
Not that it's a sin.
It can be racked up to geography or family tradition. It can be blamed on something as simple as different liturgical styles, or hymns sung to different rhythms. Jerry Reiner and Osborne Richards had a hundred acceptable reasons for worshipping God apart.
Challenge presented
But in 1994, Mr. Reiner attended a Colorado meeting of PromiseKeepers, a national Christian men's group. There, speakers challenged the group to keep the sixth of their seven ''promises'' - racial reconciliation. Sitting in the audience, Jerry Reiner realized he did not have a single close African American friend.
About the same time, some of Osborne Richards' congregants approached him about a painting that hung in the sanctuary. ''Why do you have a white Jesus in this sanctuary?'' they asked.
''The color of Jesus is not important,'' he told them.
But he knew it was important to them. And he knew there were invisible walls in his church that had to come down.
For the next two years, unseen forces drew Mr. Reiner and the Rev. Richards together. Mr. Reiner, a businessman in the construction industry, had financial resources and business acumen that he wanted to share with the black community. But he also had a deep spiritual need.
The Rev. Richards had a gift for spiritual counseling. But, for five years, he also had a sign outside his small church that read, ''Newlife Outreach Future Site.'' He needed $1.5 million to build a new church. He needed a miracle.
Monetary aid given
Last summer, Mr. Reiner and his wife Tracy started Project Outreach, which provides financial support to Cincinnati's African American community. Through a project in Winton Terrace, he met Osborne Richards. Soon he was turning up at the Rev. Richards' services. Eventually, he offered advice on the church's building project. Now he is spearheading the fund-raising campaign. He may be the Rev. Richards' miracle. It is his own small act of racial reconciliation.
It has led Jerry Reiner to reconciliation of another sort.
As a single man nine years ago, he had fathered a daughter whom he acknowledged only through financial support. Then an African American minister, the Rev. E.V. Hill, challenged a PromiseKeepers audience to face up to their responsibilities as fathers. ''He talked about all the men who had turned their backs on their children, and I got down on my knees and cried,'' Mr. Reiner said.
Today, through the efforts of two African American ministers - the words of the Rev. Hill and counseling of Rev. Richards - Jerry Reiner has become a full-fledged father to his Christina. And he has become a man morally at peace with himself.
''This is not about a white man helping out a black church,'' he says, tears glimmering in his eyes as he looks at Rev. Richards. ''This man has given me so much - spiritual growth.
''It doesn't take anybody with a lot of prestige to improve racial relations in this city. Me, I'm a nobody. But God has been with us. He has done the healing.''
Krista Ramsey's column appears in The Enquirer on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.
Originally published Feb. 24, 1996