2013 Multi-ethnic Church Conference

2013 Multi-ethnic Church Conference

On Sunday afternoon I met with a leader from our church over coffee and our conversation turned to an upcoming sermon about worship.  This African American woman and I discussed the many different levels of complexity when it comes to worship in a multi-ethnic church.  She pointed out some of the generalizations that are often made about the worship preferences of different cultures and ethnicities; I wondered about the potential for spiritual formation when we submit to forms of worship that are not initially comfortable.  As we left the coffeeshop I mentioned how grateful I am to belong to a church community that expects these kinds of discussions, questions, and sermons.

In fact, I’ve come to take these conversations for granted though they are probably rare for most pastors and churches.  Despite the many challenges of a young, diverse church, such conversations – and their applications – are surely one of our greatest gifts. Pastors and church leaders who serve in less diverse circumstances must look elsewhere for the theological agitation that is necessary for forming churches that faithfully reflect Gospel reconciliation.

Thankfully, the upcoming Mosaix Multi-ethnic Church Conference will provide one such forum.  With sessions on theology, church planting, sociological trends, best practices, and more and with seasoned and competent leaders like John Perkins, Choco DeJesus, Michael Emerson, and conference organizer Mark DeYmaz, the conference will be full of thoughtful information.  But as I look at the list of speakers and consider who else will be attending I know that it will be the conversations, like the one this past Sunday, that will make those days in Long Beach so fruitful.

The conference is November 5-6 so you’ve got plenty of time to register.

“…the charge which I make against the Anglo American pulpit today…”

Rev. Francis J. Grimke

Another discouraging circumstance is to be found in the fact that the pulpits of the land are silent on these great wrongs. The ministers fear to offend those to whom they minister. We hear a great deal from their pulpits about suppressing the liquor traffic, about gambling, about Sabbath desecration, and about the suffering Armenians, and about polygamy in Utah when that question was up, and the Louisiana lottery. They are eloquent in their appeals to wipe out these great wrongs, but when it comes to Southern brutality, to the killing of Negroes and despoiling them of their civil and political rights, they are, to borrow an expression from Isaiah, “dumb dogs that cannot bark.”  Had the pulpit done its duty, the Southern savages, who have been sinking lower and lower during these years in barbarism, would by this time have become somewhat civilized, and the poor Negro, instead of being hunted down like a wild beast, terrorized by a pack of brutes, would be living amicably by the side of his white fellow citizen, if not in the full enjoyment of all his rights, with a fair prospect, at least of having them all recognized.

This is the charge which I make against the Anglo American pulpit today; its silence has been interpreted as an approval of these horrible outrages. Bad men have been encouraged to continue in their acts of lawlessness and brutality.  As long as the pulpits are silent on these wrongs it is in vain to expect the people to do any better than they are doing.

-Sermon by Rev. Francis J. Grimke, “The Negro Will Never Acquiesce As Long As He Lives”, on November 20, 1898.

Rev. Grimke is a new figure to me.  I came across him by tracking down a footnote in the fantastic biography of Ida B. Wells I’m reading.  On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day I’m thinking about those like Grimke and Wells who, during the years of reconstruction and Jim Crow, laid much of the groundwork for the Civil Rights Movement that came decades after their deaths.  These were leaders who, like Dr. King, drew deeply from their Christian faith to challenge the dehumanizing systems during their lifetimes.

Grieving Every Slain Child

We welcomed a guest preacher at New Community this morning, so I took a few minutes before his sermon to reflect on the violence of this past week before we spent time in silence and prayer.

Stained Glass Window in 16th Street Baptist Church.

Early on a Sunday morning in September 1953, four members of the Alabama Klu Klux Klan placed dynamite under the steps of 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham.  A few hours later, when the church was full, the bomb exploded killing four girls, ranging in age from 11-14.  Three days later Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. stood before their families and community to eulogize the victims.  Towards the end of his sermon he said the following,

Life is hard, at times as hard as crucible steel. It has its bleak and difficult moments. Like the ever-flowing waters of the river, life has its moments of drought and its moments of flood. Like the ever-changing cycle of the seasons, life has the soothing warmth of its summers and the piercing chill of its winters. And if one will hold on, he will discover that God walks with him, and that God is able to lift you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope, and transform dark and desolate valleys into sunlit paths of inner peace.

For many families in Newton, Connecticut, the past few days have been as hard as crucible steel.  The sheer magnitude of this crime threatens to overshadow the unique grief of each parent, each grandparent, and each friend.  What happened in that school on Friday was demonic, an expression of a present evil we would prefer to ignore but cannot avoid.  This week we are reminded that our enemy knows no distinction between race or class or geography.   Like a lion, he prowls around looking for someone – anyone – to devour.

So while our country mourns the lives devoured in Connecticut, we, the reconciled people of God, cannot overlook the lives devoured in our own city.  488 lives taken so far in Chicago in 2012, many of them young men and young women.  Our nation is shocked that such evil would be visited upon Newton: an affluent town, 95% white, that has known only one murder in the past decade.  But we, the reconciled people of God, must know and speak aloud that murder and violence anywhere – including the neighborhoods within our city where outsiders crassly expect such things to happen – that any such violence is an act of profound injustice, a stench to a holy God in whose image these children are made.

Reverend King was right about the bleak and difficult moments of life and he was also right about the God who walks with us, “who lifts you from the fatigue of despair to the buoyancy of hope.”  This is what we remember during Advent: that the Son of God, for our salvation, stepped into the grief of our world.  So we do not need to rush past this pain.  We don’t need to medicate our lament with distraction or entertainment.  The man of sorrows who bore our sin allows us to stop and grieve.  The same one who ensures our hope and our future, the one on whom all evil was brought to bear, the one whose body could not be held by our ancient enemy, death, He grants the courage this morning lament this present evil age.  He is our example of righteous living for the advancement of God’s kingdom.  And He too gives us the hope that one day, such grief will be a fading memory and nothing more.

Stunted Faith

As a pastor I regularly have conversations with folks who feel themselves teetering on the edge of faith.  I don’t remember anyone telling me that this would be a normal part of my vocation but it has become common enough to be notable.  Earlier this year I wrote about this and wondered about the negative impact of insular subcultures within Christianity.  I continue to think these sorts of cliquish churches can hinder faith development as a young person’s orbit begins to take in larger swaths of culture and, ironically, Christianity.

Since then I’ve had more conversations with women and men who have either left the faith, are taking a break from church, or who see little reason to believe their faith will be sustained in the coming months.  In addition to noting the long-lasting impact of childhoods spent within sectarian churches I’ve also been thinking about how faith develops over time and whether churches allow for and expect this development.

James Folwer, a professor of theology and human development, published Stages of Faith in 1981 in which he described seven stages (0-6) of faith development.  The stages he theorizes are interesting though, for my purposes, I won’t say much about the unique stages or whether there is actually a sequential pattern followed by most people of faith.  I’m interested instead in the fact that Fowler saw these stages of faith development as normal but not inevitable.  It is, according to Fowler, very possible to get stuck along the way, mistaking one’s current experience of faith for the final destination.

For example, Fowler says people experience “mythic/literal faith” in stage two.  In Nurture that is Christian, Perry Downs writes about this stage that, “faith tends to understand God in terms of moral reciprocity, keeping score of who must be forgiven and who must be punished.”  This is an understandable perspective for a child to hold but one, we would hope, that would mature over time.  This, however, requires a community of faith that expects a person to grow beyond this stage.  Such communities according to Downs – and my own recent experience with those recounting their childhood churches – can be rare.  He writes,

Unfortunately, some congregations tend to “lock in” at this stage.  Probably reflecting a desire to take Scripture literally, these groups are so rigidly literal in their thinking that the deeper teachings of Scriptures elude them.  Such faith is not appropriate for adults.  Literalism should be a stop along the way, not a destination.

Many of the folks I talk with about crises of faith learned and experienced Christianity in these sorts of locked-in churches.  There was no expectation to mature beyond this, or any other, stage of faith.  As time passed and they engaged with an increasingly complex world, the faith of their childhood began to seem increasingly simplistic and ill-equipped to interact with their pressing questions.  From my observations, it is most common at this point to move in one of two seemingly different directions.  They either double-down on their childhood faith, pushing away doubts and incongruities, or they leave the faith altogether.  I wonder if these are only seemingly different directions as neither requires moving beyond old categories of understanding and being in the world.  It’s possible to exchange the fundamentalist tendencies of a certain Christian community for similar tendencies found among other groups, including those that deny God’s existence.

They either double-down on their childhood faith, pushing away doubts and incongruities, or they leave the faith altogether.

What’s behind this?  Why is there a tendency among many churches to form stunted Christians?  Downs wonders about the connection between a literal interpretation of the Bible and a literalist worldview.  Others have acknowledged the desire among many churches to protect its members, especially its younger members, from the polluting influence of the wider world.  Hanna Pylväinen’s novel, We Sinners, captures these fears poignantly.

I think there is something else though, something more elemental.  Much of Christianity has understood conversion in primarily transactional terms.  Accepting Jesus Christ as Savior affects a profound and eternal change.  Salvation, in these terms, is the end.  There are good, Biblical, reasons for thinking about salvation in this way.  But when this is the only way salvation is understood than there isn’t much reason to expect developments in one’s faith over time.  In fact, one of the unspoken goals of this sort of faith is to simply protect it.

Rounding out this view of conversion, though generally downplayed or categorized as secondary importance, is salvation as the beginning.  We might call this discipleship, following Jesus.  In this view our initial submission to Christ is seen as the first steps- incredibly important steps fraught with deep theological implications about identity in Christ, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and so on, but first steps nonetheless.  And as one learning to walk, we expect changes and growth.

What sort of church community might foster the expectation for a faith that changes and matures over time?  Two phrases come to mind.  We can think of this kind of church as a centered-set model of belonging.  Here the community affirms a strong center while allowing for a diversity of experience, thought, and expression around that center.  This community is held together by Who its members are moving toward.  (The question about what forms a community’s center is important and different churches will answer it in different ways.)  The alternative is a bounded-set model in which clear boundaries are drawn making clear who does and doesn’t belong.  This, I think, has been the experience of many who now question the faith of their childhood.

 Members of this community have a clear sense of its purpose and find it a safe place to undertake the risky task of faith development.

The second phrase that hints at a community expecting faith development – including all of the attending messiness – is a non-anxious presence.  This is the language Edwin Friedman uses to describe the role of a leader in A Failure of Nerve but I think the concept applies to a community.  Like a non-anxious leader, this type of community does not find its identity threatened by questions or conflict.  Members of this community have a clear sense of its purpose and find it a safe place to undertake the risky task of faith development.

There’s another piece that appears to be missing in the faith experience of the folks I talk with.  I mention it here briefly as a placeholder; I need to give more thought to this.  Moving through stages of faith involves pain.  Loss, doubt, unanswered questions, and emotional turmoil are natural parts of maturing.  The Church has long known this and seen the dark night of the soul as a normal experience for those following the narrow way of Jesus.  In contrast, much of contemporary Christianity downplays these darker experiences, choosing instead to paint a picture of faith that is mostly victory and happiness.  Younger people growing up in these happy-clappy environments have been given little precedent for the dark and sometimes desperate valleys that are intrinsic to faith development.

I’ve surely oversimplified the concept of faith development as well as the reasons people leave the faith. What am I missing?  What would you add?  This remains a pressing topic for me and I’d love to hear additional reflection on these ideas and questions.

(Header photo credit: Continent Stereoscopic Company (cc).)

Does Christianity = Colorblindness?

One of the CCDA plenary sessions last week featured a couple of professors and practitioners speaking about a theology of reconciliation.  The focus throughout the conference was on reconciliation between peoples.  There was much about their talk I appreciated but there was also a theme that ran throughout that seemed contrary to their purposes.  I thought I may have misinterpreted them until a follow-up conversation with a couple of folks who also took issue with this theme.  I’ve thought about it a fair bit since the conference and think I know what was troublesome.

The speakers were very direct about the importance of Jesus Christ for the work of reconciliation.  They made this point repeatedly and, in my opinion, rightly.  Those of us who are Christians engaged in the life of reconciliation ought to be clear about the source of our thought and practice.  For the Christian there is no genuine reconciliation outside the person of Jesus.

Things get interesting when we consider just what Jesus has accomplished that leads to reconciliation.  For the speakers it seemed that this could be summarized with the language of Galatians 3:26-29.

²⁶ So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. ²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according  to the promise.

This is a crucial passage for any theology of reconciliation though its interpretations vary.  For the conference speakers this passage seems to indicate that Christ’s atoning death and victorious resurrection lead to a oneness that minimizes the distinctions (and divisiveness) of difference, including ethnic and racial differences.  As one friend said after the session, “They weren’t advocating for color blindness, but it’s easy to see how someone could get there.”

So while the presenters were far more nuanced than are many who talk about the divisions that exist within the Church, their theology could to lead to a sort of color blindness that obscures real and important cultural and historic particularities.

There are plenty of reasons why this colorblind theology is damaging.  Here are two: First, for churches working towards reconciliation within their congregations there will always be a tendency to lean towards the dominant culture.  Korie Edwards’ very important book, The Elusive Dream, documents in detail how this plays out in every aspect of an intentionally multi-ethnic congregation.  When the particularities of culture are subsumed by some so-called common Christian culture we will inevitably move towards whichever culture is dominant.  Hence Edwards’ disheartening conclusions that multi-ethnic churches, despite their diversity, are actually white.

Second, when we lose the ability to talk about the real difference that exist within different cultures, ethnicities, and races we also lose the ability to identify the disparities and injustices that plague some and bypass others.  I was recently talking with a friend who has taught sociology courses at a local college.  She has noticed that most of her students of color are able to talk about injustices they’ve faced.  But notably, rather than making connections to their race or ethnicity they individualize these ugly experiences.  In other words, while race continues to be a significant marker of societal achievement these students have internalized a colorblind view of the world that hinders their ability to see the racialized systems that hinder their success.

As I said, the conference speakers were absolutely right to point us to the centrality of Christ for reconciliation.  But rather than obscuring the real differences that exist within our humanity, the person of Christ actually makes these differences real and important.  The vision found in Galatians is not one where difference no longer exists but where, in Christ, they lose the ultimate power to divide and destroy.

Mark Noll, in his book Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, describes a Christology that legitimizes the differences inherent in our world.

The implication can be stated succinctly: because God revealed himself most clearly in a particular set of circumstances and at a particular time and place, every other particular set of circumstances takes on a fresh potential importance.

Rather than whitewashing race and ethnicity, Jesus Christ calls out these differences as the location for God’s salvation.  Thus in Acts the nations hear the Gospel proclaimed in their own languages at Pentecost and the Jerusalem council eventually agrees that Gentiles need not first become Jewish to join the people of God.

In Race: A Theological Account J. Kameron Carter points to Christ’s “Jewish flesh” as the particularity that makes impossible assimilation, “the violent processes of extending the accomplishments of whiteness to nonwhite flesh and to immigrant groups.”  That is, within a society (and a Church) that requires conformity to the dominant cultural norm, Christians have access to another way of being.

To be in Christ…is to be drawn out of tyrannical narratives of identity (and the social orders they uphold), such as modernity’s narrative of racial identity generally and the pseudotheological narrative of whiteness particularly, and into the identity of Israel as preformed in Christ’s Jewish flesh.

In his sermon at the CCDA conference Rev. Ray Rivera called himself “a reconciler with contradictions.”  By this he seemed be recalling the many times that reconciliation has meant conforming to the dominant culture.  ”Reconciliation to what?” was a question he asked repeatedly.  I’m not sure the theology provided by the conference speakers provided the framework to answer this question well.  And while I suspect theirs is the typical perspective it’s important to know that it’s not the only one.  Christ is our universal savior whose salvation is worked out within the particularities of culture and history.  Our work of reconciliation must reflect our Savior.