Category: Blog

A Little Less Vanilla, Please!

 

Pathfinder R.S.

 

God has given me a burden for Christ-centered ethnic diversity in the church and Christian institutions and organizations. The other day, I had the opportunity to discuss this topic with a leader in a Christian organization, and remarked how I have noticed that there is hardly any diversity in the leadership structure of her group and organization at any level.

“I noticed that for the past two years, the set of officers in your organization have been white Caucasian. There has been no ethnic diversity. Even with your incoming administration, every one is a white Caucasian. How do you suppose that affects the majority of the non-white people you represent?” She was candid, and honestly admitted how difficult it was to encourage other ethnicities, or those belonging to visible minorities, to run for office. I suggested that such encouragement must be deliberate, intentional and identity-driven.

 

Thus, we had an engaging conversation on how to really live out of the bubble that our churches, Christian institutions, and organizations often foster. We agreed that it was difficult for her to get into the world of the non-white Caucasians in her midst given that (1) they constitute less than 5% of the representative population (and therefore, I would add, are not beneficial to relate with as they are very few in number), (2) the staff in the organization has less than five non-white members (most of this staff’s exposure to multi-ethnicity would probably have been a feel-good two-week missionary visit to Africa,  Asia, South America, or anywhere not urban America). 

 

Multi-ethnic involvement, not in a token condescension by the predominant white Caucasian race, but in a loving way of breaking down barriers between the modern-day Jew and Gentile divide of the Christian church, serves many purposes. First, it tells the world that the Jesus of the Gospel is not the white, blond blue-eyed, middle-aged, upper-middle class purveyor of Christianity. It further makes the statement that today’s Christocentric Church and Gospel are neither an adherent nor a promoter of the homogeneous unit principle of church growth. It tells us that today’s evangelicals have waged- and have won – the battle against the Balrogs of their existence.

 

When other ethnicities involved themselves in theo-political activities, such as taking on leadership positions, they demonstrate an integration of races and an acceptance, beyond token tolerance, of other cultures and ideas toward expressing the profound love of the Triune God. Such an integration of ethnicities forges a single, united church of God. Paul said that the undivided church, which includes the church being multiethnic, demonstrates and makes known to principalities, rulers and authorities “the manifold wisdom of God” (Eph. 3:10). 

 

When other races, outside the predominant white (and now, black) race, are allowed to voice out their ideas, experiences and cultural differences within the purview of God’s love in the crucified and risen Christ, then this Jesus Gospel ceases to become a vanilla-flavored neo-colonization of the “barbarian” natives in Asian boondocks at the turn of the 20^th century. It painfully addresses the evils of the Manifest Destiny annihilation of the true First Nations and natives of this land of the free, of this home of the brave.   

 

Vanilla is said to be a bland flavor. It is supposedly tasteless and colorless, and provides for a racially and culturally neutral “background” color of our society. Or so, wrote one contributor to the Consuming Jesus blog. If it is so, then, we all must plead for a little less vanilla. A little less tastelessness, a little less colorlessness, because a little less neutrality in our society will take us quite far in the struggle for a more Christocentric engagement of theology in the culture of our day.

 

May we, with little less vanilla and more Dylan Thomas, not go silently into that good night. May we rather, in view of the compelling love of Jesus, rage, rage against the dying of the light!

 

MORITURI TE SALUTAMUS! (We, who are dying for Jesus, salute you!)

 

 

The past few months I have found myself confronted by the call of Jesus to take up my cross and follow Him. I’ve found the call muted in my life, as too often our thoughts concerning the church’s interaction with the wider culture have looked only at Christ’s life, as if Christ’s life is somehow separable from His death on the cross, as if Christ’s death is not the direct result of the life He lived. But each of the gospel accounts of Jesus’ death shows that it was Jesus’ radical love and witness against injustice during His life that ultimately and inevitably led to His death on a cross.

Perhaps our hesitancy to take Jesus’ call to take up a literal cross, and not merely some generic “burden” as we often read the call, and follow Jesus results from how we view the significance of the cross. If Jesus’ death on the cross is solely a once-for-all substitutionary sacrifice, then it makes little sense that He would call us to take up a cross alongside Him. But what if the cross has a wider significance? What if the same cross that the powers of this world placed Christ on unraveled their own pretensions to power? On the cross, Christ takes the worst the powers have to offer, and rises again victoriously as Lord of all, showing that God will not let the evil in this world to have the last word.

What might the cross then tell us about ourselves in the grip of these powers that be? It says that a man who unflinchingly stands up for love and justice can expect violent resistance for his trouble. It reveals the depth of our rebellion and hostility against God. The cross puts to death any hope of our finding peace and justice on our own, even as it gives us the hope that God will stop at nothing to find a way. The depravity of humanity guarantees that Jesus will die alone in His godforsaken but God-obedient death; at the same time, Jesus’ death in our place allows the Spirit to enter our hearts, opening up the possibility of participating in the sufferings of Christ so we may participate in His resurrection life.

As Terry Eagleton asserts, albeit hyperbolically, “If you follow Jesus and don’t end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do.” So we must ask ourselves, is the comfort we all presumably experience in the American church a comfort from an improved and cleansed world, or the comfort of a weakened witness?

My previous post, in this same vein, was an attempt to explore what would have happened at Gethsemane if Christ was a little more like me (and I’m guessing all of us), and what consequences one could expect in turn.

(A parable of sorts… I had a similar idea before reading any of Peter Rollins’ The Orthodox Heretic, but consider it a tribute anyway)

They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took Peter, James, and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. “Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. So take this cup from me. Unless you say otherwise, I’ll assume that is your will.”

Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? Watch, for if danger comes we may need to leave quickly. We all know that the spirit is willing, but if you keep watch, we won’t have to prove it.”

Once more he went away and prayed the same thing. When he came back he found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. They did not know what to say to him.

Returning the third time, he said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man will be delivered from harm. Rise! Let us go to Rome! We will be safer there.”

Just after they left Gethsemane, Judas, one of the Twelve, appeared. With him was a crowd armed with swords and clubs, sent from the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders. Unable to find Jesus, the men seized the seated disciples who had not fled to Rome, and they took them, without any struggle, to Pilate to be crucified.