Multiethnicity

Review: In Church as It Is in Heaven

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In Church as It Is in Heaven, Jamaal E. Williams and Timothy Paul Jones. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press|Praxis, 2023.

Summary: Two pastors, one black, one white, describe the thick formative practices that have helped them foster a multiethnic church, following the form of liturgy used in their and others’ congregations.

I recall a certain bright-eyed optimism among evangelicals in the American church around forming multiethnic congregations in the early part of the millenium. Much of this died a painful death in the political divisions of the last decade that have divided the country along racial lines, and have been mirrored in our churches when politics have taken the pre-eminent place over the gospel of Jesus.

The authors of this work, the Black lead pastor and a White teaching pastor of Sojourn Church Midtown in Louisville, Kentucky, believe multiethnic congregations are possible. They have witnessed it with their own eyes as they lead an ethnically diverse congregation. It has not been easy and they speak of members who have left because this was not for them. In this work, they describe six groups of formative practices, or liturgies, organized around the flow of the liturgy at Sojourn Church. Each responds to a problem that creates barriers to becoming a multiethnic church, involves practices, and anticipates growth to authentic multiethnic community. They include:

Call to Worship: The problem here is a failure to love what is best. Practices include seeing where one is, praying for what one could be, and asking God for the love to care for those who are missing and to remove any barriers that would prevent them from finding a spiritual home The vision is a church that begins to look a bit like the new heaven and earth.

Lament: The challenge is that we don’t realize how beliefs about racial superiority and inferiority have created deep divisions within the church. The practice of lament honestly faces these wounds, and grieves all forms of the heresy of racial superiority, and turns to Christ for healing.

Offering: The problem is that we often want to hold on to what we have, our preferences, the way things have been done, and our material resources. Practices of gratitude, generosity, and receiving the gift of another culture’s worship all are liturgies of offering that form us into servants for the sakew of a multiethnic kingdom culture.

Passing the Peace: Partiality or indifference to those who are different from us breaks down as we practice welcoming those who are different into our lives in worship and through intentionally sharing life together.

Communion: We often do not truly understand the place others are in and the pain associated with it. Tearing down walls means recognizing the trauma others have faced, the fears one has and not forcing a superficial oneness. In our love feasts, we come prepared to listen to each other’s stories, to share in their pain rather than “fix” them. Our recognition that Jesus has torn down walls of hostility means we can rest secure as we listen to hard things, looking for how Jesus wants to manifest himself without forcing solutions.

Benediction: We are reminded that reconciliation is a gift already accomplished that we are to receive and live into, not a goal to achieve, that Christ has gone, and is going before us in this work.

The authors share honestly about both breakthroughs and disappointments. Timothy shares the sadness of learning that two Blacks visiting his former church were invited not to come back but to attend a Black church some distance away, an event that started his intentional journey into multiethnic kingdom community. Jamaal shares the pain when people refuse to recognize him as the lead pastor of his church, preferring White team members. Yet the authors both offer hope amid the hard challenges. They recognize that multiethnic congregations may not always be possible because of the demographics in some communities, but a growing multiethnic mindset is. They carefully navigate the landscape between “colorblindness” and a form of anti-racism centered only in grievance–celebrating cultural difference, recognizing trauma, and fostering gospel engendered trust and mutual care.

This strikes me as a great book for church leaders, worship teams and pastoral teams to read. The “liturgies” suggest directions congregations can take to pray and practice their believes about kingdom multiethicity. The modest length (although supplemented by significant content in the endnotes) make this accessible. And the model of partnership between Williams and Jones models what the authors seek to encourage.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

Review: Mixed Blessing

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Mixed Blessing, Chandra Crane, Foreward by Jemar Tisby. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2020.

Summary: The author describes her own challenges and blessings of being a person of mixed ethnic and cultural identity, and how the Christian can affirm and include the growing number of mixed identity persons.

“So what are you?” can be one of the most difficult questions for a person born of parents of different ethnicities or raised in a home with those of different ethnicities. The author has experienced this dilemma as a child of a Thai father and European-American mother raised in a home with an adoptive Black father.

Answering the question can be hard for oneself and much depends on how one has grown up. It may also depend on one’s physical appearance and the degree to which a person might pass for a particular ethnicity or represent a blend of ethnicities.

Equally difficult is how one identifies oneself to others. Some contexts do not even have a category for mixed persons. She describes a time when the ministry she works for (the same one in which I work) offered breakouts by ethnicity. She did not know where to go because there was no group for her. Eventually, an organizer who was also a mixed ethnicity person recognized her dilemma and invite her to the Asian American staff group she was a part of. And she reports how ten years later in a similar setting, there was a group for her and others like her.

One of the strengths of this work is that Crane doesn’t make her experience normative for all, nor suggest that one must stick to a particular way of framing one’s identity. She recognizes the opportunities to identify with monoethnic groups that are part of one’s ethno-cultural heritage while avoiding cultural appropriation. She suggests four different postures, any of which may be appropriate:

  1. Solidarity identity. Particularly if we may look like a person of that identity, although this carries with it responsibilities to deal with privilege if one is identifying with the dominant culture.
  2. Shifting identity. This especially makes sense if one has been raised bi-lingually or bi-culturally (or multiple cultures or languages). The big question is whether each identity is genuinely who one is. Such people may be real bridgebuilders.
  3. Substitute identity. Sometimes the healthy choice may be in finding identity in something other than ethnicity, for example as a musician.
  4. Singular identity. Some live with a both/and identity in which these blend fully. This might only be fully realized in eternity.

Crane proposes a discipleship process incorporating these postures in a three step process of prayer about ethnic formation, of exploring our ethnic identity, and of applying truths learned to one’s the Christian life.

The work centers on Christ, and observes that our incarnate Lord was of mixed descent. His family line includes Rahab the Canaanite, Bathsheba the Hittite, and Ruth the Moabite. To be in Christ as one of mixed heritage is to recognize that this indeed a blessing, that one is uniquely made and gifted by God. She deals with the critique that we should just find our identity in Christ by contending that Jesus does not submerge mixed identities but brings out their full beauty.

The book strikes a good balance of description, instruction, advocacy, and pastoral care. It reflects to me a wise person who has been on this journey for some time offering counsel and grace, especially for all who like her, are “mixed blessings” or are the parents of “mixed blessing” children. It’s an important book for me as a European American on a journey to understand and affirm and celebrate the multi-ethnic tapestry that is God’s intent for the church. Crane helps me better understand what it is like when multiple threads of that tapestry run though the life of one person. And she offers me a better question than “so what are you?” From now on I can ask “tell me about your family and how you grew up.”

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.