I’ve managed to alienate a group of brothers and sisters over on another blog by challenging the identity of a church or a Christian that is rooted in any kind of a hyphenated description, Italian-Scottish-English-French-American for example as I would identify my own heritage. While this Balkanization of the American experience is prevalent in the larger culture, my contention was that it had no place in the context of Christ’s church. Gal 3:26-27 says,
You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
While this issue is little discussed outside of a place like the United States where, by definition, every church would be a __________-Church, in a culture where by design the culture is intended to blend by assimilation there should be no hyphenated churches.
Attempts were made to dismiss my position first by challenging the validity of my walk in the _____________-American church. After providing my bona fides there was simply silence. The silence didn’t stir me to respond but one final comment by another poster remains troubling. He says in his final words regarding those of us involved in interracial marriages:
As to the challenging question of interethnic marriage (particularly between White and “other”) it seems important to recognize that any minority person has a bi-cultural identity at some level, or is at least able to function biculturally as interaction with the dominant culture in dominant culture ways is really non-optional. For those in the dominant culture, especially males, even if they are married to a member of a minority group, participation in a minority context is always optional.
I hope I’m reading this wrong, especially in the context of the church. Just like the American experiment was intended to work: a new culture created by the assimilation of immigrant cultures into the larger whole creating a new identity and a release of the old identity, the Church that Christ left was also intended to be made of people who had left their previous identities behind and saw themselves as new people. No hyphens, no dominant culture, no racial division voluntary or otherwise. Those who continue to live in either the American or Christian culture but still retain their primary identity with a hyphen are dividing Christ’s people, not uniting them under a new banner as intended.
What is most troubling is the resentment that this writer holds toward the ‘dominant’ culture and we males that inhabit it. By picturing us as oppressors who can voluntarily flit in and out of ‘minority’ culture while our poor ‘other’ spouses must bow to it without choice he exposes his own racism. My wife was born and raised in a foreign country giving her full right to identify with a hyphen, my child who was born and raised here does not. He is a part of the ‘dominant’ culture, contributing to it the best of both his mother and father’s cultures. What other options does he have or need?
LOVE | ACCEPT | FORGIVE 
Thanks for the post, Pastor Warren.
If you don’t mind me saying so, I think this type of thinking oversimplifies a large number of issues within and outside of the church. While I do admire the ideal of assimilation, you clearly speak from the perspective of a white male, historically privileged from a society that proclaimed righteousness on one hand and expanded its hegemony with the other. While it is true that the Gospel sees no color or race, we have a great deal of healing and obstacles to overcome because of the inability of “the American experiment” to live up to that Gospel. I would even go as far as to say that any ethnicity outside of White was not considered in part of that experiment.
I can attest to my friend’s comment that those of the dominant culture rarely have to live in honor of the culture of the minority. You may not feel that way, but you would be the exception, not the rule. Those of us who live in marginalization understand that reality. I have no hesitation in saying that I do not feel as “American” as my citizenship would state. Is that my fault? I would say not completely. Am I angry about that? Not at all. I am just trying to live out the best of both cultures, not just assume that the dominant white American culture is the default.
The fact is many immigrants today are ridiculed for “not speaking English” or told to “go back where they came from”, and people who have been marginalized must bow to that sentiment because ultimately no one speaks for them — it is an issue of power.
Just because someone states that you have been a beneficiary of this power whereas they have not, doesn’t make them a racist, it makes them a realist. The reality is while our identity is in Christ, there are people whom I identify with who are oppressed, seen as strangers and very broken.
I distinguish myself from you as an Asian American, not to exclude you as a brother in Christ, but to exercise healing and inclusion to those whom I can relate to, but you cannot. I trust your heart and I believe we are one in Christ, but there is entrenched in our histories and in our peoples a twisted history of sin that in dismissing, is offensive and insensitive to many of us who are working to overcome the very divisiveness you accuse us of.
Pastor Warren, your post is certainly provocative and I am appreciative of the “push-back” you gave in terms of emphasizing the importance of anchoring our identity in Christ primarily rather than in any social, cultural, or ethnic matrix.
The challenge for those of us who are ethnic minorities in the US (to varying degrees) is that Christianity is often conflated with a certain kind of White American culture; it is the established default and as such is never critiqued as being particularly ethnic or cultural at all. And while the call to follow Christ does call for all of us to leave our sins, repent of our idolataries, and turn to the living God for salvation, there is never a call in scripture to leave our ethnic or cultural reality. The Jewish and Gentile belivers did not cease to live and act culturally as Jews and Gentiles except when those things conflicted with their commitment to Jesus’ lordship.
As to whether you read my comment correctly, you did, though I think you have perhaps inferred meaning that I did not intend. I did not paint you or others as “oppressors who can voluntarily flit in and out of ‘minority’ culture.” Rather I was pointing out the very real fact that Whites in this society can always opt out of interacting in settings wherein they are minority in number or in cultural expression. That is simply not the case for anyone else. The same is true for Koreans in Korea, or Akan people in Central Ghana.
In any event I don’t think I’ve ever been called a racist, though I have been called many other things. I don’t have any particular resentment towards the dominant culture nor the males that inhabit it, though of all people groups in the US, mine has the greatest “right” to hold such resentment. Nevertheless to harbor that is as ungodly as the racist oppression that was (and is) perpetrated on my family for the past 4 centuries. Forgiveness love and acceptance is the gospel mandate.
warren: hope i can just call you that. if not, my apologies. regardless, nice blog.
hope you don’t mind me chiming in.
please don’t take this as a direct comment to you. when we talk about issues of race, racism, and racialization in our church or in general conversation, we have to talk about ‘white privilege’ – particularly in the US and western context. it’s not an attempt to demonize white people since the root of racism and prejudice is human depravity. yet, with about 60% of the church that i pastor being part of the ‘white’ demographics, there are ‘anglo’ brothers and sisters within my church who get really upset. i have to remind them that the message that i’m trying to convey is not that they as individuals are racist but rather, we live in society with ‘systemic racism.’ and in this systemic racism, we have to acknowledge that there’s such a thing as PRIVILEGE as males or as Anglos…
I hope there are other options.
Peace.
Eugene – I wholly agree with your assessment of the existence of systemic racism; perhaps we differ on our analysis of its degree. We need to remember that historically, with the exception of our Black brothers and sisters, this systemic racism was visited on every immigrant group as they arrived on these shores, including every Caucasian group that arrived through the years. I recall this not as a defense but as a hope. We need to ask ourselves what differences exist between these waves of immigration and later waves of newcomers.
Peace brother
Elderj
Brother, I’ve immersed myself in your thoughts for a couple of days and allowed them to bounce off of my own. What I find is that my thinking is oriented toward transformation and solutions more so than root causes. For example, you offered this thought:
“The challenge for those of us who are ethnic minorities in the US (to varying degrees) is that Christianity is often conflated with a certain kind of White American culture; it is the established default and as such is never critiqued as being particularly ethnic or cultural at all.”
The development of the Church in this country mirrors the effects that each contributing immigrant group brought to it, most of it melding into the Protestantism that became the civic religion of America. Since the majority of the early immigrant peoples were of European origin (with the exception of our African brothers who came in bondage), why wouldn’t the Church take that form? It reflects the uniquely American culture from which it derives.
While I support contextualization of the Church and the infinite adaptability of the Gospel message for all people, we must confront the question of where this stops. Context can quickly become exclusion when the Church begins to utilize the hyphenated divisions of the larger culture. Once we precede the church name with an exclusionary descriptor, we’ve told others who don’t fall into our particular ethnic group that they must seek the truth elsewhere. The division of society that is encouraged by the hyphenated-American draws us further apart. If we don’t begin in the Church family, who will do it?
By the way, I call you brother before anything else.
Peace and love
David
I don’t even know where to begin in addressing your comments. The rage that your seemingly innocent words exude troubles me and causes me to lose hope for the future. Whose society is it that you rail against? As far as I can tell, you too are a part of this society by birth and have had every opportunity that the ‘privileged’ have had. While I’m certain we can both trade vignettes of prejudice visited upon us during our lives, we’ve both shared the same benefits of this society. Neither you nor I can change the history of the settlement of this country and the resultant culture that developed by the largely European migration that founded her. As I expressed to Eugene, all immigrant groups went through a period in which prejudice against them was the norm including my own grandparents who immigrated from Italy. Should I protest Puzzo and the Soprannos for portraying them badly?
You say that “any ethnicity outside of white was not considered a part of that experiment” which is essentially a conversation stopper for me. I don’t know if this statement is a result of the region where you’ve spent your life or some other occurrence but with beliefs like that there is little hope that you will ever see the possibility for change. I, of course, disagree with you. With the exception of our Black brothers who brought to these shores against their will, nearly every other group of people have had ample opportunity to assimilate into the larger culture. Was it predominantly formed by European people and traditions? Yep, can’t change that, so what’s the answer?
And yes, pointing out that my beliefs and attitudes derive from the color of my skin is racism. We all have to realize that this scourge can come from all corners of our culture, not just the ‘privileged’.
God bless you. Let’s think about change rather than dwelling in the past.
Warren,
Forgive me if I gave you the impression I had “rage” packaged in “innocent” words. Perhaps, it is simply that we do not know one another well enough to hear the other’s voice well. I can assure you, I’m well-adjusted and have good relationships with people of many races. And please don’t assume that I dwell in the past more than thinking about change. I’m actually pretty excited to be a part of the future.
Thanks for your comments Warren. Glad to be challenged by them and hope that we get to know one another better. Looking forward to hear more about your story, church, and life.
Warren, I love your question about when the contextualization must stop. TO me the answer is simple: at the point where it ceases to be biblical Christianity. That is to say when contextualization become syncretistic, or when the demands of Jesus for repentance and holiness are ignored in favor of maintaining ungodly systems, attitudes, etc. or are even subverted towards those ends. An example would be the theological and scriptural justifications for White supremicist policies vis a vis natives, Blacks, and other non-White people that were employed in US history. Another example would be afrocentric theologies that play fast and loose with Biblical facts in order to promote an evil Black ethnocentricism every bit as idolatrous as the White ethnocentricism it is emplyed against.
Beyond this, I don’t believe there is a limit to the ways in which the gospel can be translated or contextualized. I do not view it as particularly problematic that a particular kind of “White” Christianity has developed within the American context. If anything, such development reinforces my point – Christian is infinitely translateable and adaptable.
What has been, and is problematic is when that particular way of being Christian, or expressing Christian faith is assumed to be the norm against which all other expressions are evaluated. The church then runs the very risk you describe of “telling others who don’t fall into our particular ethnic group that they must seek the truth elsewhere.”
While doesn’t happen as overtly as it once did, there are very real ways in which it is communicated that doing church, worship, preaching, fellowship, etc. in any other way than what is normative to White Americans is somehow inferior.
warren: so much to say but so little time to say it. i’ll just leave with a good general book to read if you haven’t already. have you read “divided by faith” by michael emerson? if not, it’ll be good to put that on your ‘add to read list.’
peace.