Cultural Hostility
When God calls us into cross-cultural relationships for the sake of advancing his kingdom, there are times when our well-intentioned words and actions will be taken offensively. It often feels like bumping into an invisible electric fence.
This happened early on in our ministry here in Orangeburg.
I was developing a relationship with a black businessman by frequenting his store and talking with him about the needs in the community. He was very positive about my desire to do ministry, and even posted a flyer for our mens’ Bible study. But that same day, he overheard one of my white friends say something about “taking back the streets from the enemy.”
The comment was about the spiritual battle a Bible study would wage against Satan. But my new friend did not take it that way. From his cultural perspective, these were code words for white colonialism and belied a hidden agenda to regain white position and power in the city. I tried to explain what was intended by the comment, but my relationship with this man was wounded.
The early church was rife with such cultural hostility. Jewish Christians did not accept Gentile Christians into their fellowship, unless they promised to assimilate to Jewish cultural practices and beliefs (i.e. circumcision). The Holy Spirit, through the Apostles, had declared cultural dominance to be out of step with the truth of the Gospel (Acts 15), but the church continued to struggle. In his letter to the church at Ephesus, Paul explained how the gospel should bring peace between Jewish and Gentile believers.
For [Jesus] himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility (Eph. 2:14–16).
The cultural hostility we have erected and nurtured over 400 years in North America is not easily done away with. And we should be honest about the church’s role in aiding and abetting the enemy (Satan!). But even as we blunder our way through life and ministry, we should rest in the free grace of Jesus Christ for sinners. In doing so, we will see the walls of division broken down and our local churches begin to reflect the multicultural kingdom that God has redeemed.
g
Thank you JP for gracious response. I pray that what I would say to you would not undermine your efforts of reconciliation. I pray that God would raise up more men and women with the kind of courage you have shown in trying to understand how to please God in our efforts to reconcile the sins of our fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters. I have only ask us to imagine what it might be like to be black in a white church. I began this 15 years ago. Because of this “thought experiment” I now hear and see things that are “deplorable” in the church; things I used to defend. I try to put myself in my brothers and sisters shoes. I can not say I know what they go through or that I have responded appropriately to the church. But I can say I have suffered for standing against a preferential evil at the highest levels of some other wise healthy gospel centered churches. I love the church with all that is in me. I am the church. It is my church. But I hate the evil of favoritism described in James chapter 2 so prevalently practiced in some churches at the expense of my black brothers and sisters. I am just asking It is possible that an attitude (maybe not so much a word or action) is what your black friend is describing? Can we imagine an attitude that might leave an “our church”, “our faith”, “our denomination”, “our family” aroma that smells of partiality? I imagine this kind of attitude could lend itself to separate us and rob us all of the diversity within experienced multiethnic gospel leadership that leads to the empathy we seem to be so desperately in need of in our churches now. Is it possible that this attitude likely sends a message that “they” are welcome as visitors and members, but not as leaders or biological family members? Can we imagine we might be the ones guilty of creating and participating in factions? I ask us to assume some are seen as those who think that God gave “the streets” to the white church. I wonder if more churches were willing to share power by returning what our church fathers have stolen from our black brothers and sisters, would God then be please to give us all back “the street” in the context you and your white friend are referring to. I am just asking us to imagine a church that more reflects the diversity of the “cloud of witnesses”. I just wonder if the diversity of heaven brought down to earth is what pleases God. Perhaps that is the “street” your black friend is longing for. Praying for us now.
JP
Hi “G.” Thanks for reading and responding. I’m honestly having trouble understanding the thought experiment you want us to imagine. Are you saying that in your church there are those who want to “regain white position and power” through the shrouded means of evangelism? If that is the case, it is deplorable. I hope you will have the opportunity to speak against it and shine the light of truth into such darkness.
I sense that you felt I downplayed the legitimacy of my black friend’s concern. That was not my intent. As I pointed out, there is a reason he feels that way, and the church has been historically complicit in such “colonial” enterprises. That said, in the specific case of the white friend I mentioned, it was a blunder.
William Leonhart
Imagine for a moment that, when confronted with such ill-advised statements, we were patient, we were kind and were not jealous; we did not brag and were not arrogant, did not act unbecomingly; we did not seek our own, were not provoked, did not take into account a wrong suffered, did not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoiced with the truth; were willing to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things (1Cor. 13:4-7). Imagine for a moment that we responded with love.
g
Imagine please, sitting with me in my group of white Christians in a well known Reformed SBC church in Texas as the class is regularly talking about “taking back the streets”. Suppose for a moment they do mean what your business man friend implied. Assume for the sake of some others who are not in the room, that this angry attitude is present now and it is no “blunder”. Wonder with me, that if this were true, what the church would be like if these kinds or attitudes were contained in these settings. I imagine that would please the Holy Spirit; I,m just saying, you know, if it were true what your friend and I think is true.
William Leonhart
Thank you for sharing, JP! These conversations will always be accompanied by understandable misinterpretations. The proper response is never to simply give up. Christians (regardless of culture) must forge ahead, strive to understand, seek to clarify, and pray for the Lord to work in the situation. May the Lord bless and guide your ministry.