Shadow Racism

Bert: As you sometimes do, you read too much into my comments.

Check several commentaries on Numbers 12, and you will find that “Cushite” can refer to more than just African groups. So a racial component of Numbers 12 is not certain. The issue in Numbers 12 is not about race. The Israelites recognized EVERYONE as different from themselves.

I never said we shouldn’t interact with other cultures, races, etc or not try to reach new people. You won’t find that in anyting I said. Demographics are interesting and can be helpful, but do not determine everything. And if we use demographics to establish some type of “Christian quota” for how our churches MUST look, we’ve gone beyond Scripture.

Of course there was a racial component in Peter’s earlier attitudes, but his concern was more theological than racial. Too many today read race into almost everything. Not necessary. Paul’s correction of Peter was more theological than racial.

“avoid needless offense to other cultures” - Of course.

“learned to enjoy their foods, sing a few of their songs? Maybe wear some clothes in a cut from where they were ministering” - Nice Try, but assumes more than the text will bear. Paul specifically mentions “under the Law” and “not under the Law”. Race wasn’t the issue. The issue was how far to conform to the OT Law with certain groups.

This discussion thread has been interesting. Shows a genuine concern to bring the gospel to many different people. Perhaps we need to be more careful with our Biblical exegesis.

“Now, I read about alleged “shadow racism.” The one true Christian friend I have is white. I suppose this is somehow racist. Whatever.”
If it makes you feel any better, Tyler, I have more Asian and black friends than I have white. True story. (Though to be fair, that’s more a reflection of being a longterm expat rather than my taking any initiative.) Also my wife is Asian. And I’m half-hispanic.

…and I’d still be considered racist in some circles for my opinions and policy positions. ;)

Wally, regarding the word “Ethiopian”, I’m going to have to suggest going back to word definitions, the consistent witness of Bible translation (as “Ethiopian”), and even the very etamology of the word as rendered in Greek (and in the Septuagint). The Greek word (from which we get ours) literally means “burned face”, so if your commentaries are arguing it doesn’t necessarily mean someone’s black, I think you need some better commentaries. There is certainly no Biblical evidence of this. Yes, part of the issue with Moses’ wife was that she was easily recognized as not a Hebrew—e.g. black.

Regarding the notion that it’s not a gimme that the Apostles were eating Gentile food and learning Gentile customs, precisely what do you think “kill and eat” refers to with a cloth covered with unclean animals? Precisely what do you think it means when God says “do not call impure anything that God has made clean” in Acts 10:15? And when Paul rebukes Peter for refusing to eat with Gentiles, in the context of Galatians and showing that the demands of the law are satisfied in Christ, can we seriously believe that part of Peter’s reluctance to eat with Gentiles didn’t have something to do with the fact that the food they were eating was probably not kosher?

Seriously? When the whole point of Galatians is that the believer is FREE from the demands of the law? After Mark 7:19? Sorry, but the clear witness of Scripture is indeed that the Apostles were called to go beyond their own culture, and they significantly reached those Gentile cultures in doing so.

[Bert Perry]

And when Paul rebukes Peter for refusing to eat with Gentiles, in the context of Galatians and showing that the demands of the law are satisfied in Christ, can we seriously believe that part of Peter’s reluctance to eat with Gentiles didn’t have something to do with the fact that the food they were eating was probably not kosher?

Seriously? When the whole point of Galatians is that the believer is FREE from the demands of the law? After Mark 7:19? Sorry, but the clear witness of Scripture is indeed that the Apostles were called to go beyond their own culture, and they significantly reached those Gentile cultures in doing so.

There’s a big difference between being willing to work with other cultures, worship with them, eat their food, get to know and befriend them, etc., and somehow seeing it as a necessity to import elements of another culture into one’s own church. I very much enjoy visiting believers and churches in other cultures, hearing their music, seeing the ways they do things different from us in America, etc. I also enjoy having missionaries visit our church, hearing their language, sometimes their music, etc. Under no circumstances would I refuse any true Christians Christian fellowship, no matter how different they are from me.

None of that means I would necessarily agree with them on every point regarding worship or music, and it certainly doesn’t mean our churches need to change our worship to match what is done in other cultures. In our area, one almost doesn’t need to visit other countries to hear many different languages spoken, meet people who have come from other countries, etc. I regularly enjoy eating *real* ethnic food, made by or recommended by those who know first-hand what it should be like. I love meeting people not from the U.S., visiting them in our homes, and having them visit us. And yet, unless our church all of a sudden had a very large membership contingent from a particular culture, I wouldn’t support the idea of changing any of our worship and music to match what others do in order to reach them at our church.

It’s because it’s the Biblical example. It is really that simple. In the Old Testament, you’ve got “Sing unto the Lord a new song” (Psalm 96:1), and if you look closely at the Psalms and other passages of lyric poetry/song in the Old Testament, you’ll find any number of genre there, from near-couplets like Psalm 117 to acrostics like Psalm 119. You’ve got authors over the span of centuries.

In the New Testament, you’ve got a really neat thing going on not only in Acts, where the Grecian Jews were assigned the original deacons to make sure their widows weren’t being allowed to stave, but also in 1 Corinthians 14:26-39, especially in verse 26. “Each of you has a hymn….” implies that there were some fairly active musicians among the largely Gentile population of the church. In other words, the door was wide open to new musical innovations—bound them with the truths of Scripture, to be sure, but the reason we have separate Greek, Coptic, and many other musical traditions in the church is precisely because they took the admonition “Sing to the Lord a new song” seriously. You also have Ephesians 5:19; again, a Gentile church is given three different genre of song to praise God and commit His Word to memory in lyric form.

On the practical side, you’ve also got a lot of reasons to be very careful about what music one excludes. Top on my list is that from CCM all the way to Majesty Music and other conservative outlets, white peoples’ church music generally isn’t very good. It’s a hodge-podge of “adding musicians instead of musicality”, useless arpeggios, flashy but not musical performance, medleys that “change the subject” to another song just as soon as you get one in your mind, “musicians” using their instruments like a metronome, and the like. We desperately need an infusion from outside our own circles, musically speaking.

Next on the list is that many minorities simply understand the lyric/poetic form far better than most whites simply because they come from oral societies. Having not learned to read until relatively recently, they simply have a far better idea of how to communicate concepts orally in such a way as to have it be remembered—and you’ll see this in the genre of song and preaching that one experiences.

It doesn’t mean minorities are perfect, or that every tool in their toolboxes ought to be adopted any more than we ought to use every tool in ours, but we ignore what they’ve learned at our peril, and that includes in the church.

If you form friendships based on color, you’re doing it wrong.

If you do church based on color, you’re doing it wrong.

If you do evangelism based on color, you’re doing it wrong.

If you do anything to distract God’s people from Him, to pivot to the color of His current and prospective children, you’re doing it wrong.

If you don’t trust God to gather His elect from every people group on the planet, you’re doing it wrong.

Basically, if color is ever a factor in anything you do for Christ’s church, you’re doing it wrong.

[TylerR]

If you form friendships based on color, you’re doing it wrong.

If you do church based on color, you’re doing it wrong.

If you do evangelism based on color, you’re doing it wrong.

If you do anything to distract God’s people from Him, to pivot to the color of His current and prospective children, you’re doing it wrong.

If you don’t trust God to gather His elect from every people group on the planet, you’re doing it wrong.

Basically, if color is ever a factor in anything you do for Christ’s church, you’re doing it wrong.

Well, I guess we see it differently. I’d say that if my church is completely white in a city where the white population is less than 60%, we’re probably doing it wrong.

Unless you’re deliberately evangelizing only white people, I don’t see how you could possibly be doing it wrong. We’re doing an evangelism and Q&A event at our local library in three weeks. We’re advertising for it heavily on FaceBook in our community. I don’t care about the color of the people who show up. I also don’t care about the color of anyone who eventually comes to faith. It’s meaningless!

How am I responsible for the color of people who come to a church?

Trick here is that nobody’s proposing “doing evangelism based on color.” Rather, what’s being suggested is that church leaders pay attention to the demographics of their cities and do a “gut check” (per Ken) if church demographics aren’t (loosely speaking) representative of those city demographics.

Part of that is taking a look at the “dominant church culture” (which in most fundagelical churches is quite different even from the dominant caucasian culture) and asking “do we need to make some adjustments to avoid offending our neighbors?” and also “are there some things we can learn from our neighbors which might work really well here?” Just like those composing Psalms did, and just like Paul noted the Corinthians (presumably other churches in the Gentile world as well) were doing.

[TylerR]

Unless you’re deliberately evangelizing only white people, I don’t see how you could possibly be doing it wrong. We’re doing an evangelism and Q&A event at our local library in three weeks. We’re advertising for it heavily on FaceBook in our community. I don’t care about the color of the people who show up. I also don’t care about the color of anyone who eventually comes to faith. It’s meaningless!

How am I responsible for the color of people who come to a church?

Tyler, I’m mainly pushing back a little on this line from your previous post: Basically, if color is ever a factor in anything you do for Christ’s church, you’re doing it wrong.

There are absolutely things that we do in our relationships at our church because of color. The culture of some people in our church is different than the culture that I’m familiar with, and the experience of life in my city has been different for me than it has for some others because of their ethnicity. If we value those people, we are going to have an interest in the things that interest them, and we’re going to want to know how and why their experience in our city is different and what issues are important to them. One example is we that recently did a quinceanera with one of our Peurto Rican families. It’s not what I’m used to, but it was important to them.

We could not do any of this, and we’d just be a white church in a multi-ethnic city. In our case at least, I think God expects more than that.

Your comments are one of the reasons why so many pastors feel despair. Nothing is ever good enough. What on earth do you want pastors to do!? How much time, blood, sweat and energy is there to give? Now we have to make sure the things we do represent the ethnic flavor of our communities!? What does that even mean. Our schedule for the week:

• Sunday: church
• Wed: prayer
• Misc: evening bible study 2x per month; theology class 2x per month; in the process of “adopting” a local school to serve the community and build bridges

In the midst of all that, I am now expected to analyze my community to make sure our congregational activities reflect that. I live 30 minutes away from my church because housing was too expensive in the city. I also work fulltime. I DON’T HAVE TIME to do everything everybody says I need to do in order to be “successful.”

Why can’t we just preach the Gospel, love one another and teach each other? When did that not become good enough? These unrealistic expectations will drive any number of pastors to throw in the towel. It’s just never enough.

I’m truly sorry that my comments added to your burden. They definitely weren’t intended to.

They didn’t. I just think we can be unrealistic, sometimes. Take the school thing; it’s a good way to connect with the community. The color factor just doesn’t matter to me; there are all sorts of kids there. This is an insanely diverse area. I just think we have to be talking past each other. I don’t know why.

Tyler, if you’re noticing that the area is insanely diverse, you’ve really done most of the work you would need to do to make adjustments to encourage those minorities to come. You get a rudimentary “feel” for their culture, how your culture does or does not work well with that, make adjustments, make apologies for when you get it wrong, rinse and repeat.

Given the amount of energy I see on this site and elsewhere spent on defending “standard evangelical culture”, I’d actually suggest that it’s easier to work to reach out other cultures because that effort “defending standard white evangelical culture” can go to zero. I know you’re not a strong advocate of evangelical culture, but you might find it pops up, even in your family or church, in the most unexpected places.