Is the multicultural church unintentionally promoting assimilation?
Cultural assimilation: the process whereby a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the predominant culture and customs.
I think we can all agree that assimilation is not a good thing in that some of the wonderful things about a culture, which can be God honoring, is lost.
But I think even a well intentioned church desiring the call to be multicultural can unintentionally ask assimilate into their way of doing things. This can especially true in churches where there isn’t a lot of diversity in the church or the people in the congregation don’t really understand why it’s important to be multicultural.
However, a good pastor friend of mine said that when there isn’t a dominant ethnic culture, it’s much easier, in some ways, to not have it be about the dominant culture’s preferences. I think that can certainly help, but there may be two more important factors to recognize.
Love and Honor
Romans 12:10 says:
Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.
I think in practical terms if people in the church are willing to learn from one another and fight for one another’s “preferences” we are at least in a better position to live out this passage of Scripture.
I’m not saying that we need to eradicate church leadership and submitting to leaders of our church if they sense a different direction than we do. But I am saying that we need to make an intentional effort to build a bridge to one another.
I think the most fun I’ve had so far at my time at Aldrich Presbyterian is the process in which the song “Come by Here” came to our church. The short version of the story is that an African American woman on our team and I spend a lot of time talking through the tragic history of the song. We wanted to invite the congregation to let this new version that we’ve been doing as a song of reconciliation, confession, and forgiveness.
I believe we were able to do that in a church that isn’t necessarily ethnically diverse at this point. But God helped us build a bridge to the people in our congregation to reflect God’s heart for redemption.
Blog post by Peter Kihyun Park
© 2012 – 2011, Peter Park. All rights reserved.
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