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Looking Like The Subway, Looking
Like Heaven
by
Captain Charles Roberts
Some amazing
facts to consider when organizing a multiracial church—the
church in America does not believe it can be done:
A recent book, called United by Faith: The Multiracial
Congregation as an Answer to the Problem of Race (2003),
the sequel to Divided by Faith: Evanglicals and the Problem
of Race in America (2000) lists some facts from the US
Census 2000 that may alarm you.
The numbers of people of color, as a percentage of the
population of the US have more than doubled since 1960 (31%)
The accelerated rate of non-European growth is going to
continue. Between 1980 and 2000 the African American
population grew by nearly 30%, Native Americans grew by 75%,
Latinos by 142%, and Asians by 142%.
And race still matters in America. Quoting from De Young, et
al about the significance of race: “It shapes where people
live and whom they live with, where people send their children
to school, with whom they can most easily become friends,
their likelihood of having access to wealth and health, whom
they marry, how they think about themselves, and their
cultural tastes.” “Race also shapes how people value others,
how much they trust others, provides quick stereotypes by
which to classify people, and shapes fears of crime. As Cornel
West succinctly put it, ‘Race matters.’”
Race, in America, has been a determining factor in how one
worships. Race, as well as generational culture, are factors
at the heart of the so-called “worship wars” that the American
church has been since the 1970’s.
Here are some startling facts. De Young, et al suggest that
race segregates congregations. “If we define a racially mixed
congregation as one in which no one racial group is 80 percent
or more of the congregation, just 7.5% of the over 300,000
religious congregations are racially mixed. For Christian
congregations, which form more than 90 of the total religious
congregations in the United States, the percentage drops to
5.5%”
Jesus made many radicalized statements, but this one is at the
top. Jesus, quoting Isaiah 56:7, declared that “Is it not
written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer for all the
nations?’” Mark points to the last four words of that
statement as the impetus for the religious leaders to kill
Jesus (Mark 11:18)
Moving quickly to the second chapter of Acts, we see the 120
emerging from the upper room, filled with the Holy Spirit,
proclaiming the wonders of God in every known language in the
region. “Jews from every nation under heaven living in
Jerusalem,” gathered for the Passover, were drawn and
inquisitive about the unusual occurrence. The language of the
house of prayer for all nations was the reversal of the curse
of Babel, in which diversity of languages divided people; this
multilingual multicultural language united the nations. (Acts
2:5) On the day of Pentecost, the Jerusalem congregation grew
to 3,000 multicultural, multiethnic Jews (2:41). Several
thousand more were added in the days that followed (2:41;
5:14; 6:7)
Moving to the mid-30’s we see another eruption in the
multiethnic church. Antioch, the third largest city in the
Roman Empire, with a population of nearly half a million
people, had a wide cultural mix including Syrians, Romans,
Arabs, Persians, Armenians, Parthians, Cappadocians, and Jews.
All were urban dwellers, but diverse in language and culture,
custom and practice. Ethnic tensions in the late 30’s- early
40’s led to the torching of synagogues. Greek-speaking Jewish
Christians came to this city following the persecution of
Jerusalem in the mid-30’s; these Christians began to preach to
Jews (Acts 11:19) and the Cyreaeans and Cypriots among them
were preaching to Greeks (11:20). Thus the Antioch church was
born.
Features of the Antioch church:
Diverse leadership team: Paul and Barnabas were steeped in
Greek culture, and spoke Aramaic and Greek. Manaen grew up in
the household of Herod Antipas as a step brother. Lucius of
Cyrene came from North Africa, and Niger was a black African.
Inclusive table fellowship: Jews and Gentiles kept their
particularity except when it violated the social practices of
Jesus.
Scholar Rodney Stark has said, “Christianity offered a new
basis for social solidarity.”
Intentional cross-training: Each group surrendered certain
cultural practices that necessitated separation. Virgilio
Elizondo states that Christians, “could not be classified
according …to the categories of either the pagans or the
Jews…They were bound with a new intimacy and mutual concern
that went beyond normal, acceptable behavior within the
empire.”
Antioch is the place where the followers of Jesus were first
called Christians. If we hold on to his teaching, then we are
his disciples. Then we shall know the truth, and the truth
will set us free. (John 8:32)
My people are destroyed because of lack of knowledge. (Hosea
4:6)
Without a vision, the people perish. (Proverbs 29:18)
If we are Christians, and our houses of prayer are for all the
nations, then all the nations should reside there. If the
church does not look like the subway, we have a job of serious
magnitude before us.
A multicultural church is designed by God, empowered by the
Spirit to bless the nations, and draw the nations to the
knowledge of Jesus Christ: “that they may be one as I and the
Father are one. May they be brought to complete unity…”
Stephen A. Rhodes, in The Church in a Multicultural World
reminds us that “multicultural congregations are a foretaste
of this heavenly hospitality. “So then you are no longer
strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and
also members of the household of God.”
GK. Chesterton has said that the church needs a return to
festival. Let the party begin: festival, carnival,
celebration.
We’ve got to get together in order to celebrate. It’s time
…time to make a change, we are the people, and we can do it
...it is time to party like we are way past 1999, and Jesus is
coming and bringing his house party, and real soon. So it is
high time that the church starts looking like heaven!
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