Expert: Less Than 10 Percent of U.S. Churches Multiethnic

Soong-Chan Rah states:

“We are not doing this multicultural ministry simply because it is a politically correct thing to do, or because it is something other people are doing, or [because of] pressure from society…We really need to do this out of a deep, biblical, theological motivation. We do this because we want to see God at work in our churches,” he said. “That is why it is so important for us to see culture not from a secular, humanistic perspective, but from a biblical theological perspective.”

I doubt many ministries would say they are NOT doing it from what they believe is a “deep, biblical, theological motivation”. But in the end Soong-Chan Rah’s fundamental premise errs. God never prescribes a required demographic for any assembly, regardless of its cultural demographics. What it does forbid is denying the gospel to others because of any human classification as well as valid ecclesiastical functions.

While there is earnestness with Rah there are also many misaligned or completely misapplied principles in Scripture. But his primary thesis, that what is described in heaven (according to Rah) is somehow prescriptive here in earth is qualitatively and quantitatively wrong. One, it seems, cannot begin to account for the assumptions he forces into his ecclesiastical formula and the resulting concocted condemnation of those not meeting his proprietary standard while he so severely neglects the obvious.

I have posted this once if not two or three times and its timeliness is always present. The http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=837] LCMS on culture and the church:

The church must develop and maintain its own cultural language that reflects the values and structures of the Scriptures and not of the current culture. This church language can only be shaped by a biblical theology which affirms the real presence of Jesus Christ in worship and our belief that this presence binds the culture together as a community. The context that shapes our distinct Lutheran ethos is Scripture, theology, and history. Local circumstance is secondary.