The lack of diversity in the Missional Church (and for that matter the Emerging Church) is a main topic at this year’s Missional Learning Commons coming up here the first week of January in Ft. Wayne. On the Friday night, we’ll be discussing Soong Chan Rah’s book The Next Evangelicalism: a book that deals expressly with the problem of diversity in evangelicalism. The book has received a good bit of attention. I think it voices the consensus approach to the problem most often articulated among these same groups – evangelicals and emerging Christians. It’s worth a read for that reason alone.
Rah starts out the book with some compelling stories and statistics describing the changing global demographics of Christianity. The statistics are undeniable and virtually accepted since Phil Jenkins published his now famous book The Next Christendom. World Christianity has migrated in location and demographics from a largely white Western European-N American context to a multi-diverse Asia, Africa Latin American centered. Euro-NA is now 39% of world Christianity by population while the rest is 60%. (p. 13). The same dynamics are operating within the boundaries of N America (and for that matter Europe). Putting it bluntly, the white evangelical suburban church is shrinking massively, while ethic immigrant churches are exploding. These statistics, these realities, we are all aware of. They are compellingly presented by Prof. Rah. There should be no surprise here to any concerned church leader who has read anything in the last ten years.
Rah’s ‘beef’ however, and I am obviously summarizing to an excessive degree, is that the leadership and power structures of N. American evangelicalism remain largely white male. He lists the institutions, colleges, publishers, denominations, and protests how all of these institutions can be so white male? These leadership structures appear oblivious to the ongoing shifts that he rightfully argues are so obvious. Rah labels this the “white captivity” of the evangelical church.
From this point in the book, Rah goes on to outline how “WesternWhite Cultural Captivity” has bred a culture of individualism (ch. 1), consumerism and materialism (ch. 2), racism (ch. 3). He takes apart church growth principles (homogeneous unit principle), the emerging church and the imperialist assumption of Western global missions. Here some of Rah’s best work occurs in ch. 3 on racism and ch. 4 dissecting the mega church –church growth movements and the inherent racism and Western Enlightenment assumptions that undergird these movements. Racism is ensconced in the culture of the West and by virtue of the Western cultural captivity of evangelicalism, it is deeply ensconced in evangelicalism.
Having said all of this about Rah’s book, I seriously question whether we have answers here. In this regard I found the book disappointing. Rah proposes what he calls “proactive steps” (p. 201) like confessing of corporate sins, submitting of white leadership to spiritual authority of non-whites, and “unleashing the gospel.” There is nothing here that anyone I know in the white powers structures of evangelicalism would disagree with. Indeed, many (not all) of these leaders have tried to implement some of these practices for years. These ways forward are good and always bear repeating! Frankly, however, I think the problem goes much much deeper. I think Rah’s analysis, good in many parts, passes over the deeper cultural issues that lie at the basis of this Western cultural captivity. In fact, dare I suggest? Rah’s analysis itself is so deeply entwined with the White cultural captivity that it can offer little to deconstruct it and get us somewhere on this deeply troubling issue of racism, power, and the White cultural captivity of the N American church.
This is particularly obvious in the way Rah deals with the Emergent church in ch. 5. Frankly I find his analysis totally baffling. I have no desire to defend the Emergent church on this score and I want to include the Missional church in this indictment (I see the two as different but related). I affirm the obvious – THE MISSIONAL AND EMERGENT CHURCHES HAS BEEN AND CONTINUES TO BE PERSISTENTLY WHITE. I also agree that many of its gatekeepers could be blamed for the way they have managed leadership of the publishing and the more public faces of the movement. Yet, for the most part, I have always seen them as pursuing diversity more than the standard evangelical leadership. I think the questions go deeper.
It seems to me that the very things Rah says we must leave behind, individualism, materialism, consumerism, mega church business growth principles, ARE THE VERY THINGS EMERGENT/EMERGING CHURCH, AND ESPECIALLY MISSIONAL CHURCH PEOPLE LIKE MYSELF HAVE BEEN LEADING THE CHARGE AGAINST? But in many if not most cases, within the various ethnic groups I meet, and the many conversations I’ve had now over many years with black urban, Hispanic, and Asian churches (including Korean) – this often falls on deaf ears!! Many Asian, Hispanic churches are composed of immigrants who came to N.America for the express purpose to have the opportunities to achieve individual freedom and material success. I cannot say I blame them not listenimg! This means however that the very idea that we must somehow reject or even repent from materialism, individualism etc. is simply not on the radar in the same way. Yet it is this very Enlightenment rationality (individualist freedom, unlimited economic opportunity) which stands behind and provides the coding for racism and white power structures (I can’t go into deeper length on this now, sorry!). Many black urban churches I know cannot warm to the idea that after years of oppression and denial of economic opportunity by the white power structures, they should now be asked to not pursue this kind of success? Again, I cannot say I blame them. Rah himself acknowledges this very thing about his own immigrant church. On page 60 of his book, Rah talks about his own Korean immigrant church’s inability to provide a spiritual and theological corrective to the materialist narrative of the American culture. Rah’s summary (pg 60-61) of how American prosperity, individualism and the American dream become conflated with an evangelical Christianity among immigrant communities is telling. Yet it is to a large degree this same narrative of conflation that Missional and Emerging churches are critiquing.
This conflated message is not just located in Rah’s own immigrant community’s local community. Indeed most sociologists (see Peter Berger’s article here) would agree that the great majority of the spreading church in Asia, Latin America and Africa is driven by some version of prosperity gospel and charismatic experiential Christianity. It is a version of Christianity that I would argue is indisputably tied to the Western values of individualism, consumerism and materialism. And I would suggest that the inherent pride and “us against them” mentality that this ideology breeds, will soon be found in our various ethnic churches in N America. It is part of the same forces that breeds racism in our time. Do we need to ask, does Rah need to ask? in what sense is the Western Cultural Captivity capturing the various ethnic groups, baptizing them into the same racism we white affluent evangelicals have become so shaped by? If this is true, can Rah or anyone help us in a way forward?
I say none of this to demean any ethnic or minority groups or to pardon white evangelicals from the host of our racial sins. My point is rather that all of these solutions that Rah has proposed, have been tried for years, getting us nowhere. And that the missional church/emerging church, is one of the few places WHERE WHITE EVANGELCIALS OR EX-EVANGELICALS ARE CRITIQUING WITH ALL OUR MIGHT THE VERY THINGS RAH POINTS HIS FINGER AT!! We have been engaging the issues of individualism, materialism, consumerism, the way we sell out to American corporatism and give up the way of life we have in Christ. Unfortunately, for many reasons which I totally understand, this message that resonates so well with white sons and daughters of an affluent white evangelicalism (because they have seen it and it has been found wanting), does not translate as well to many ethnicities that have never participated in the economic affluence of the white West. They say “we have been oppressed for years” (in the case of African Americans), or “we came here for economic opportunity” (Asian or Hispanic Immigrants) and now you tell us this? I understand this. And I think the largely white Missional and Emerging church folk need to listen and learn from this. I already have learned much from this. There is some flat out miss-timing, even injustice, in asking those we have exploited to now reject some of the things we European Americans have gorged ourselves on for the last century as Americans.
I’m not saying this to chew out Soong-Chan. I seriously ask Rah, what should we do, how should we go forward. Yes it’s all true, we humbly confess .. and we have more to do … But there are some deeper cultural issues here. We need more than what has become the standard account on this issue.
For my money, J Kameron Carter’s (Professor of Theology and Black Studies at Duke Divinity School) Race: A Theological Account is the best book on the issue of race and the development of Western White Christianity. To grotesquely oversimplify, Kameron helps us see (through Foucault and others) how “race” was constituted by the West once the Roman church separated itself from the Jews (and the nation of Israel) in the first three centuries. In other words, once the church’s identity was no longer seen as an extension of the ONE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL, chosen for Mission to the world, and became in essence separated from the church of Jerusalem, race became a constituting factor in the church and it was an invention of the Western church to create all sorts of fleshly power relationships. If we would escape the cycle of race, we must escape the Western culture that shapes us by this concept of race. Rah is right about this. It is encoded in our language, our culture and the ways we relate in the Western church. It is part of democracy and part of capitalism. This is how deep Rah’s White Cultural Captivity goes. The question is, to what extent have the various ethnic churches now coalescing in America and indeed around the world, by their buying into capitalism and the great United States, become grafted into this same racist account of the world? And how do we all get out of it. We must deconstruct race as a constituting encoding of our very language and the way we think. Has Rah accomplished this in his book? Or moved us deeper into the ways race defines us? I seriously don’t know.
To my knowledge, the only ethnic group in N America able to call the church into diversity and out of white cultural captivity with a critical distance to prosperity-driven-capitalism-endorsing-Christianity, ARE THE NATIVE AMERICAN CHRISTIAN indigenous groups and their leaders that Rah talks about in his book (see here for instance). I know some of the leaders as friends, and frankly they have a reserve for buying into the American economic system (for obvious reasons) and yet have a love for Jesus Christ. For my money, these are the ones we should be looking to for leadership on this issue … but will we all listen?
OK I’m ready for backlash .. comments?
During this time of advent, I pray for peace, reconciliation and the unity of all nations under His one single Lordship. Amen.
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Are you interested in this topic and Rah’s book? Join us for the Missional Learning Commons in Ft Wayne. It’s low key, it’s for mutual edification and it’s FREE! A non/conference gathering of “missional co-conspirators.” Check out info on the missional commons website. If you’re going to show up let us know via the Facebook Page, or e-mail me at fitchest@gmail.com. No other registration needed
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For my part, David, you put into words what I could not articulate in reading Rah’s (important) book. This has weighed heavily on me as I am part of forming a new missional community in the heart of an urban community characterized by poverty, injustice and racism. It is also a community characterized by racial and cultural diversity. And yet, our community is very, very white. Sure, we are a church where women are our primary leaders (which is a significant thing, in my opinion), especially those who are young and on the margins socio-economically. However, even though we are trying to embrace the direction that Rah points, we have found it hasn’t been enough. So I appreciate this post.
I also affirm your conviction that the First Nations (Native America) Christian community is well poised to lead us in this challenge. People like Richard Twiss, Anita Keith, etc. have been dear friends and trusted leaders in my life. As my community is significantly First Nations (largely Cree & Ojibwe), I want this for our people. I still struggle to know how to get there.
Two of the (many) challenges that stand out for us in this process are as follows. First, as we (rightly) emphasize these correctives, we have struggled to do so without unintentionally communicating a lower of value on our white folks. While they have undoubtedly benefited from white privilege, many of them are from very poor backgrounds, having faced a great deal of prejudice themselves. This is not insurmountable, but very challenging.
Second, we need to be clear when engaging these necessary critiques of white power & privilege that we do not equate the evils of absolute power with “whiteness”. By this I mean, much of what is identified as white privilege is not inherently “white”, but inherent to the power structures that brought us here. This does not reduce our (white) culpability at all. However, if we tie too much of the critique to the identity of “whiteness” we risk the very real dangers of attempting to right a wrong, but violating the abuser in the name of justice.
At any rate, we are struggling with this and find your post hopeful and helpful Thank you.
Peace,
Jamie
David, I wouldn’t be so concerned with blowback. I have read virtually the same concern for Rah’s work in every review I’ve read.
Hello all,
Thanks for this review, David. And thank you for the honesty with which you seek to find the answers to these very difficult questions. It is both encouraging and hopeful in regard to leadership in the Emergent/Missional church. Aside from conversations with Brian McLaren, I’m not sure that I have seen such honesty in regard to these before now.
In regard to Jamie’s comment, as he and I have discussed some of this before, I would agree a bit that we can easily run the risk of creating a “white” problem. I think this further runs the risk of setting up, yet again, an issue of race and potential racism. One of the things that my father-in-law, Terry LeBlanc, constantly challenges me on, as a white, Western male, is that the issues at hand are rooted in a Western worldview; therefore, I would propose that, instead of the possibility of creating a “white” problem, we begin to investigate further, as you mention here, David, the depths to which our worldview, as Westerners, influences our understanding of change for the church. The difficulty here, however, is that we will not necessarily see those differences if we continue to have the conversation with ourselves (kind of a communal navel gazing in the Western church). As you’ve mentioned, there has to be shared dialogue, and listening, with various cultures around the world. (As a sidenote, there is quite a strong [though possibly little known] movement of indigenous Christians around the world, as evidenced by such things as the World Christian Gathering of Indigenous Peoples, iEmergence*, and others.)
As I have been influenced by Terry and his family in relation to seeing my own worldview bias, one of the most difficult situations I continually find myself in is being aware of my cultural bias toward interpreting scripture through a Western lens. For me (and my wife, Jeanine), this is one of the biggest problems in many facets of the church today, including the Emergent and Missional ones. I am constantly reminded that the Bible is not a Western document, yet I, and I see others do it as well, continue to try and interpret Scripture through my Western lens. I think that what I am learning, as I struggle to not throw the baby out with the bathwater in regard to the good of Western culture, is that the way in which I see the world has to be deeply influenced, or deeply shattered, by biblical understandings of whatever it is I am interpreting (change, community, discipleship, economics, ethics, morality, etc. and so on).
David, again, thank you very much for this review. I hope that I have not been overly verbose…LOL…May it be known that there are various opportunities to be had in relation to interaction with the Native North Americans that you have mentioned here, one of those being the next North American Institute for Indigenous Theology (NAIITS)** symposium in Newberg, Oregon, June 10-12, 2010 at George Fox University. And I know, from personal experience, that many of the Native North American leaders, including but not limited to, Richard Twiss, Anita Keith, Wendy Petersen, the entire LeBlanc family (Terry, Matt, Jennifer, Jeanine, and Bev), Randy Woodley, Adrian Jacobs, Ray Aldred, and Casey Church are all very much open to dialogue regarding this very issue. I am deeply indebted to them all for the transformation in my own life over the past six years.
*iEmergence – http://www.mypeopleinternational.com/what_we_do/iEmergence.html
**NAIITS – http://www.naiits.com/Home.html
Jamie,
That was insightful! Thanks and I pray you continue perservering.
Jonathan,
We need some fresh avenues to pursue this issue, I’m greatful for Rah .. but pushing to move further on some of these things …
Blessings
Good points, David.
As a Korean-American, emergent-y person I def agree with most your points. I consider Prof. Rah to be a mentor of sorts but I have personally expressed some disagreements regarding the Emergent Church chapter which, for the record, he conceded. So I want to say he’d most likely concede to your points to a considerable extent.
Yes, Asian Americans are complicit in perpuating materialism, individualism (although it looks different and it causes massive clashing between generations), and consumerism. Sure I can blame modern, white, western culture for “telling us” that those things are good. And it’s true. They did! Sadly, the Asian American church is not providing an alternative narrative suitable for our own story. And Prof. Rah points to that, as you confirm.
The issue I still have is that there are still gatherings that occur, still (un-,non-)conferences that are established, and yet there are STILL no minorities invited to be the main speakers. So it can look like a bunch of white emergents talking about how they’re so ethnically homogeneous and how bad that is. So they invite other white guests to speak to the problem… and it’s a cyclical problem.
Maybe I’m cynical but I’d also think that if there were a solid balance (or even majority) of minorities, it might not be as marketable to the emergent crowd.
It’s not all of us, but there are definitely Asian American Christians (esp. in the emergent stream) who want to be heard, and NEED to be heard for Emergence Christianity to be a blessing to America. We just don’t think it’s happening yet.
I have wondered for a while now if one of the challenges might be to resist the impulse to think that by changing the face we fix the problem. That is, at a conference or in a book, we try to replace the white male with a minority face/voice. While this does need to happen, without question, perhaps the deeper question the very medium through which those faces/voices emerge. Perhaps it is as much the emphasis on conference and books that is problematic than it is the homogeneity of the leaders. It is like advocating for women pastors, then expecting to pastor like men pastor, in systems men design in their own image, through theologies built of patriarchy, etc.
If this is the case, what would the new mediums of leadership look like? Just a thought.
Peace,
Jamie
Good question and point Jamie … and I think I agree with you Dan that the proliferation of books and conferences led by authors (white), with large amounts of money needed to attend, all funneled by the media machines of the publishers, to some degree contributes further to entrenching of existing (white) power structures. On the other hand, some of the leadership of Emergent/ or now Missional etc. has been grass roots driven from blogs, churches pastorates etc. For sure some leadership has been produced by the publishing houses and main publications, and there has been some gatekeeping there. But my perception there has been that any gatekeeping has been more “theological” than anything else… and this happens more between groups like Emergent, or Neo Reformed where certain theological identities have been forged whether we/they admit it or not.
Our own Missional non/conference has deliberately rejected pursuing sponsors from publishers, or paying fees for speakers, or charging people money to come. We have sought to make it organic from ground up … using a few blog posts and connections with friends- word of mouth … still the leadership that has come forth and the attendance … is largely white … it reflects where the missional church is ahppening on the ground for some of te reasons indicated in this post maybe? Of course we hope this all changes this year!!
Blessings and thanks to all for the conversation
I haven’t had a chance to read Rah’s book yet, but I really like your analysis David.
my 2 cents
- we’re obviously in a time of transition and I don’t expect any solution to be clean – theologically or practically
- critiquing against individualism, materialism, homogeneous growth, etc. is one thing, but what are we radically for? If we’re really for the value that diversity brings – then I think denominations/leadership/conferences would take a bigger risks in more fringe folks…
- an intentional team/gathering full of colorful faces may seem superficial, but it’s at least a start towards something more profound
- because we’re in such a hole right now, change is awkward both ways – no one likes being the token minority either.
- missional/emergent/mainstream ‘white’ leaders don’t fully realize the amount of power they truly wield when they go out of your way to create friendships and affirm the work of non-white leaders – not only for the leader, but it speaks deeply to the communities they’re a part of.
- while it’s easy to paint with broad strokes about the general population, there are plenty of whites and minorities who do ‘get it’ – why don’t we do a better job starting with them?
I’m pretty hopeful about all of this, I see sparks flying everywhere. all the angst and deconstruction is a clear sign something’s got to change soon…
Lon,
good 2 cents … thanks!!
As long as whites want minorities to join their cause (emergent, missional) their way of doing things, their way of thinking about church, theology, etc. that cause will be predominately white. If diversity is the goal, then whites have to submit and participate in the program of the minority, even if the minority program (way of doing church, ministry, theology) looks like the system that the emergent/missional cause is trying to avoid. It is through position of humility and sharing the pain that whites can build bridges of dialog that don’t look like a recapitulation of past white dominated systems.
It seems that both sides are looking at the other and saying ‘been there, done that’ while neither situation is an exact duplication of the other’s past experience.
Timely for me. Finishing the process of writing a primer/fieldbook for missional communities.. it has become a communal project, but I had not thought to include a First Nations friend.. to my shame.. but I will now.
It seems that one of the problems we face in moving toward the reality of the new community is that the bar is so low. We are so far off track that it takes very little to look radical..
Dave, thanks for highlighting both the importance of cultural diversity in the work of the gospel and for pointing to the immense depth of our racism. I really resonate with Maria’s insights here. The biggest danger for a majority Euro-American Christian movement is to co-opt minorities, even in leadership positions, so that they can satisfy their color quotient.
We all need to invest in significant relationships with the other. In particular, I have found Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace to be helpful on this issue, and I’m blessed to be a good friend of Church of All Nations PC(USA) — cando.org . They are doing reconciliation work at the most fundamental levels with over 25 nations represented in the congregation of 300 people.
Humble, repentant, and trusting relationships are the way forward.
Since I haven’t read the book, I guess I won’t comment too much here. But I do know of a church in San Francisco (Grace Fellowship) that might serve as a good (if not exceptional) example of diversity AND an alternative cultural narrative to live into (rejecting consumerism, militarism, individualism, etc…requiring service, self-denial, worship, and reconciliation). While visiting a couple of times, it was evident that even though most folks seemed to be Asian-American there was a wide distribution of gifts and opportunities to serve the community across race. I first heard of the church via an article on the “New Monastics” in the Christian Century (http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=1399):
Given my own location in a very multicultural community I share many of these same frustrations.
I applaud the work you do on this blog, and the way you are attempting to push this issue further to its roots.
I think you have a valid point in that the dematerialist and anti-individualist message of many missional and emergent churches does not rub well in many minority church circles. Much of this as you note is due to experience. But I think its important to note that our experience of these things is different in kind and form from the majority. Minority people are in that liminal space between embrace of the material/individual and resistance to it. We have been creative and internally our approaches to balancing these positions is, no pun intended, diverse. There are plenty of material/individualist critiques in and outside of the Black Church for instance.
To reiterate what others have said here, the missional and emergent church needs display what it is for as well as what it’s against. And for my mind, that means that the anti-individualist and dematerialist stance need to be on EQUAL footing with the cross-cultural stance. How can we as a movement (and I see myself in it) embrace the diversity of 2000 yrs of our heritage, but not the diversity within 2000 miles of our community? I’ll agree with you that Rah’s book is only just guessing at the answers.
I believe we should also consider that this impasse has alot to do with how current missional leaders and their minority counterparts are socialized. Generationally I see some limitations in their outlook. Anecdotally, I’ve seen stark differences in how Boomers & early Gen Xers want to continually “conversate” about race, while late Xers and Millennials have a more tactile proclivity to try and live the issue. I don’t want to paint with too broad a brush, but those distinctions of social location are worth examining.
Lastly, I consider myself part of growing third culture movement among Americans and Xtians as well. Yes, I’m African American by virtue of my biology and family, but I have been profoundly influenced by being raised and schooled in environments of hyper-diversity, that make me hard to pigeonhole. When you say you’ve reached out to minority church friends, where do these groups fit in the larger constellation of minority life? How about the overwhelming number of unchurched minorities of every socioeconomic standing? The ones who didn’t grow up in churches or left them long ago. How about the ones that don’t live in the old neighborhood anymore? How about the ones who have been socialized in an environment of diversity they don’t want to give up on Sundays?
In the end I believe nothing, nothing really, can ultimately salve our discomfort with the faithful imperative to take the first step to cross social boundaries, save actually taking the first step.
Sorry for the length, but hope this adds to the conversation. If I wasn’t going to be in L.A. then, I’d check out your learning commons in Ft. Wayne.
Indeed most sociologists (see Peter Berger’s article here) would agree that the great majority of the spreading church in Asia, Latin America and Africa is driven by some version of prosperity gospel and charismatic experiential Christianity. It is a version of Christianity that I would argue is indisputably tied to the Western values of individualism, consumerism and materialism.
That certainly puts a finger on one part of the problem. I don’t know about evangelicalism, and i haven’t read Rah’s book, but one of the things that has struck me is that the overwhelming majority of those here in South Africa who are interested in the emerging/missional church movement are white. And for the most part they seem dissatisfied with two things — some are looking for an alternative to the neopentecostal/megachurch/prosperity gospel that has dominated the white Protestant scene for the last 20 years or so. Others are in the Dutch Reformed Churches, which, having backed the wrong horse in the apartheid era, are looking for a new direction and some are hoping to find it in the emerging/missional church movement (and some of them also seem to have had a brief flirtation with the megachurch scene as well).
Blacks seem to be largely absent from the emerging/missional church scene, but there is great concern among people in the traditional Zionist/Apostolic African Independent Churches (analogous to your native American ones?) about the growth of the Neopentecostal/megachurch/prosperity movement, some of it home grown (Frederick Modise and Grace Bible Church in Soweto) and some imported from West Africa (Winners Chapel) and South America (The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God).
Missiologists like to talk about “contextualisation”, but have often failed to note that these movements have brilliantly contextualised the gospel to fit the aspirations of yuppies and wannabe yuppies. Since the Reagan-Thatcher years the gospel of neoliberalism has been sold in the West, and these churches are now working to spread it throughout the world. Marxist historians claim that the main aim of 19th century missionaries from the West was to spread the gospel of capitalism; I think that they would have an even better case for saying that 21st century missionaries from West Africa to Southern Africa are doing the same thing.
J Morrow – thanks for nuancing and bringing more concrete analysis to this issue … (I have read and learned) blessings and I hope we meet along the way.
Steve Hayes … wow … thanks for chiming in with that piece … it really is sobering.
Blessings DF
[...] to pull in other folk into a lively conversation. Here’s my take on Prof. Rah’s book here. If you’re coming Friday night, please come having read the book. We hope to have a serious [...]
This is such an important topic, I wish more people would write about it, not just spamming other people’s ideas. Researched content is hard to find on the Internet these days.