[emergent evolution]
gink (gingk) n. Slang: An odd or peculiar person.
[Cf. dial. E. gink trick]
is the emerging church racist?
thats a question i have been pondering for awhile and for that matter is christianity in north america racist? it seems every event/gathering i attend is overwhelmingly populated by white males, most affluent. rarely does a women speak in a roll of authority, rarely, no never have i heard a person of color speak, well i did attend a workshop at the 2001 soularize lead by karen ward. anyway why is it that the emerging church is so white and so male. is there an undercurrent of domination that needs to be dealt with? why aren't there more people of color involved in this new "church" is it a matter of style? or is it truly deeper than that. if we are racist do we have the courage to confront it? i was trained to be racist as i grew up, no one sat me down and layed it out but it was clear, i was better than others. it wasnt until i became a follower of the triune God and meet a man from south africa, read james cone, and finished our first adoption, who was biracial that God destroyed my ideas of being better, it was painful and gut wrenching and at times i ran and hid but God prevailed and i can now say i am a recovering racist. the seeds will always be there sown years ago but i have a greater power now to overcome it. my prayer is that instead of all this rhetoric about what/how church is we would start a dialogue that is open and honest about the sins of our past and the hope of creating a new world together because thats what it needs to be a new world not a remodeled version of our old world, but a new dwelling built together with all God's people planning and building. then we may begin to heal and embrace each other again.can we truly have community without diversity, (racial and economic), please lets begin this discussion before we build another system that seperates and destroys.
posted by John at 4:27 PM
6 Comments:
Jesus was not a racist. Yes, the church is screwed up. Yes, there is not a statute of limitations on total depravity. Repentance is not taught in church. We are trained by our own legalism to believe we are better than everyone else. Jesus was perfect. Not only did he die for me but he fulfilled the law perfectly satisfying God's demands for Adam and Israel and then took their punishment for disobedience. Praise God.
Your post didn't come across as particularly protestant. I don't know your denom affiliation. If I had to guess I would say nondenom.
What about the denominational sectarianism. Could this be worse than racism.
If you want to worship with other races go to a church that has what you are lookin for. I would go to such a church is they faithfully preached the Gospel and not a social gospel.
8:03 PM
danny,
thanks for the comments, i would put sectarianism under the umbrella of racism. and i believe the gospel is a social gospel. Jesus subverted the social strucutre of his time and i believe we are to do the same with our lives. and i think it has to be more than finding a church that fits my needs, what i am trying to get at is what are the underlying issues that let think its ok to have denominations or any other structure that allows us to seperate ourselves on prefernce or style.
6:08 AM
i think the emerging church is so white, mostly because it has heavy roots in a postmodern mindset common to more educated folks, i.e. the white community. to be truly emergent, i'd argue, it must be multi-racial and multi-ethnic, because that represents the vast array of what God is doing. there's an interesting book i'll reccommend at this point: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki (sp?). Anyway, he makes the case that a particularly diverse group comes up with right answers and moves in a way that uniform experts cannot, and the same is true with the church, i venture.
9:16 PM
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12:21 PM
The church may be very white, but to say that it is racist is quite a jump. Racism is a vile sin against all of humanity. It would certainly be terrible if the church is racist!! The church may not be very effective in reaching people of certain ethnic groups and there may be many reasons for that. Maybe the church doesn't see the need (that would be terrible), maybe the church doesn't know how (that would not be good either), or maybe the church is simply not effective. Maybe there is a cultural barrier which is very difficult to break down. All of those things are possible reasons for the church being too white (if you want to accept that premise) and none of them are racist. Perhaps we should be a little more careful about crying racism.
12:27 PM
I would say that the charge of racism is a bit harsh, but I wonder if the emergent church is really as inclusive as it says it is if other races are not interested in attending its gatherings. I wonder if we only accept people who speak our language of revolutionary postmodern lingo...
Another issue to ponder is that perhaps by engaging "the prevaling culture" we are only engaging the white middle class culture. The emergent church seems to shy away from cross-cultural engagement and is only concerned with engaging its own. And its own is too hip to worry about backwards modernist or even premodernist cultures.
6:19 AM
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