I don’t know what I expect when I write some blog posts.  Usually I’m just in my own little head trying to get some coherent thoughts out so I can learn and think.  So, I write what I’m thinking.  Somewhere in the back of my mind I do hope it’s helpful to someone else.  But sometimes it stirs up questions and comments I didn’t anticipate.  Like the post “This Black Leader or That Black Leader.”  I suppose I knew it would stir conversation, but I didn’t anticipate being accused of furthering Black-White divides, especially when I’ve written so much to challenge the very question of “race” itself.  Outflanked on the right, I suppose.

Then there was this great question: “Where does the idea of ‘blackness’ come from anyway?”  Hmmm.  That’s a fine question.  It revealed my assumption that everybody had a working notion of “blackness” or “whiteness” and some sense of where it comes from.  I’m glad for the question for two reasons: (1) It proves not everybody does–that’s good news; and (2) it suggests real progress on this front–also good news.

But, perhaps it’s good to attempt a short answer to this question before resuming the schedule of posts I have for this week.  Perhaps answer this question will help make some sense of the previous posts and make the subsequent ones more helpful (at least understandable).  So, where does “blackness” (and for that matter, “whiteness”) come from?

Not from the Bible

First, we ought to say something about where it does not come from.  It does not come from the Bible.  As I understand the Scripture with what light the Spirit has given me, the Bible’s story line emphasizes our great continuity with one another.  To be sure there are different families, clans, nations, languages, and religions, but there is one humanity, descended from Adam, made in God’s image and likeness.  Genesis 10 tells us of the fracturing of peoples into various clans and regions.  But note that everyone there descends from one family, Noah’s.  Acts 17:26, a favorite text of early African American Christians fighting to be regarded as human, reads: “And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (KJV).  I suspect Paul had Gen. 3:20 and Gen. 10 in mind when he preached those words in Athens.  So, if by “whiteness” or “blackness” we mean something approaching “race” as biological other, then that idea finds no support in the Bible.

Not from Genetics

Acts 17:26 (KJV) is also interesting for another reason.  At least in terms of American views of “race,” there has been the long-standing “one drop rule.”  That’s the idea, at first social and then legal, that one drop of African blood made a person “black.”  This is why we ask insane questions like, “What color is Johnny?” or “Is Barack Obama black?”  And this is why we make the equally insane conclusion once we find out that somebody in Barack Obama’s family was black-skinned that, in fact, Barack Obama is “black.”  The one-drop rule resulted in terms like “full-blooded” (as in the case of “full-blood Cherokee”) or “half-breeds” (a pejorative if ever there was one), and “mixed-race” people.  The one-drop rule rests upon a faulty genetic premise: that there is sufficient genetic difference to constitute different “races” (read, “species”) among the peoples of the world.  The mixing of these “bloods” resulted in, it was assumed, real genetic differences between the “races.”  However, you’d be really hard-pressed to find one genetic scientist today who would argue for any genetic basis for different races.  The genetic difference between blacks, whites, browns, etc. is so marginal that we’re left to affirm Acts 17:26: “He made from one blood all nations of men.”  So, race (and therefore “blackness” or “whiteness”) has no genetic foundation.

From Society

So where does “blackness” and “whiteness” come from?  There are four interlocking sources, if you’ll let me speak in general terms.  First, it comes from society.  ”Race” and attendant ideas like “blackness” and “whiteness” are social constructs, made up by people and cultures everywhere.  One thing many people don’t realize is that there has never been in worldwide consensus on precisely how many “races” there are.  Different societies developed different definitions.  In America, most of the history focused on two “races”–black and white.  But in South Africa, that society classified people into three “races”–black, white, and colored.  Early Chinese ethnographers argued for ten racial classifications.  We could go on.  If you want more about this, read the introduction to Colin Kidds excellent work, The Forging of Races.  The point is that “race” and “blackness” or “whiteness” are socially constructed identifiers.

What’s fueling these social constructions of racial categories?  That brings us to our second of the three interlocking sources: spiritual alienation from God and one another.

From the Fall

Read Genesis 3-4 and 10 again.  What was meant to be one humanity under the reign of God subduing the earth and filling it with His glory became a alienated, hostile, murderous, dispersed, confused, and separated mass of peoples.  The effects of the Fall are real, and it’s our fallen nature that drives us to not only classify ourselves along racial lines but also to join feelings of alienation, hostility, and xenophobia to those classifications.  What’s the first thing Cain says when God pronounces his banishment?  “Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me” (Gen. 4:14, NIV).  Do you see the alienation from God and other peoples in Cain’s speech?  It’s an alienation he received from his parents and that we receive from his parents.  The spiritual “other” or “alien” really emerges from sin’s entrance into the world.  And it’s partly what explains the existence of “blackness” and “whiteness.”

From Psychology

The Fall touched every part of man, corrupting him at his root.  The rational faculties of man are no exception.  That’s what I mean when I say “race,” “racism,” “blackness,” and “whiteness” come from our psychology.  There’s a theory in social psychology called “social attribution theory.”  Simplifying a bit, the theory teaches that basically all of our minds are pretty quick stereotyping machines.  We recognize certain characteristics in others and then our minds–often so quickly that we’re not conscious we’re doing it–begins to make attributions.  You’ve perhaps heard of the famous (though flawed) psychological study that showed a black baby doll and a white baby doll to little children and asked the children to describe what they thought about the dolls.  Routinely the children rated the black doll as dirty, dumb, and so on, while rating the white doll as pretty, desirable, etc.  That study was pivotal in the Brown v. Board case that led to the end of racial segregation in the United States.  I point to the study simply to illustrate the point: we are assigning attributes to one another all the time based upon things like skin color and hair texture.  It’s not simply that we have a category of “races” in our minds, or simply that we notice skin color.  That’s not how the mind works.  We notice skin color, file the person into a racial category, and then our minds take over by filling in assumed attributes (positive or negative) about the person.  We do it and we often don’t even know we do it. The mind is a mercilessly efficient stereotyper.  That’s why we have the notion of “blackness” or “whiteness.”

From Interaction

Now, there’s a fourth source of “blackness” and “whiteness” we need to consider: cross-ethnic interactions.  Our experiences with one another have a lot to do with forming, reinforcing, and shaping our notions of “blackness” and “whiteness.”  Part of what it means to be “black” or “white” gets formed in the crucible of shared pain, suffering, joy, hope, failure, success, loss and so on.  Despite our various categorizations, we share one planet and occupy one social world.  There are places in this social world where we may retreat with others who share our identity, but even then we’re aware of “the others” and that awareness shapes how we’re together.

Now, here’s an important point under this category of interaction: White people helped define “blackness” for Black people, and Black people help define “whiteness” for white people.  The entire argument for slavery which depended on defining “blacks” as inferior and subhuman had and has a tremendous effect on how others see Black people and how Black people see themselves.  Many others bought and buy the lie.  So, too, did some Blacks.  And those Blacks who did not nevertheless had to forge a definition of “blackness” in response to the negative definitions of whites.  There’s a dynamic negotiation and struggle for the control of “blackness.”  Where does “blackness” come from?

But the truth is: White people created “blackness,” and Black people have returned the favor.  ”Blackness” and “whiteness” come from the conflicts and interactions of black-skinned and white-skinned people fighting for that most absolute power of defining self and others according to your own social location.  In the same whites, Blacks have mounted counter-strikes to define white-skinned people, so that “whiteness” in the Black imagination includes certain things.  To be silly and very stereotypical, “whiteness” includes the inability to dance, strange tastes in music, no ‘cool’ or ‘soul,’ and so on.  Or, to be more serious, “whiteness” represents risk to one’s Black self, oppression, marginalization, and so on.  We are simply one lifetime away from a social setting where mistakes with Whites ended in lynchings, cross burnings, and so on.  That’s ugly, real, painful history.  It illustrates how “blackness” and “whiteness” result from a fallen social world where attributions and interactions happen at the speed of thought and carry enormous consequence.

So…

That’s why any discussions of “race” almost immediately move to discussions of our experiences.  It’s in the interactions that these things get defined in powerfully personal ways.  Now the problem with the quick move to experiences is that (a) we can’t change our histories, (b) our histories can enslave us, and (c) our personal histories often blind us to the underlying issues of the Fall and the social attributions we make.  So, our histories keep us from doing the harder, deeper work of forging a biblical view of ourselves and others.  And this is very important: Because these ideas are formed through interaction, it’s going to take massive levels of interaction to undo the damage that’s been done and to forge a new path.  We won’t escape the quagmire by waving a wand or by fiat.  Nor will we get there by simply decrying the fact that others “still think this way.”  We have to roll up our sleeves, reach into our hearts, pull out the old and plant the new.  I pray the Lord will allow us to do this more and more by His word and His Spirit.

Some References for Those Who Might Like to Read More:

Collin Kidd, The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600-2000 (Cambridge, 2006)

Joseph L. Graves, Jr., The Race Myth: Why We Pretend Race Exists in America (Plume, 2005)

Nell Irvin Painter, The History of White People (Norton, 2010)

Winthrop D. Jordan, White Over Black: American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill, 1968)

David R. Roediger (ed.), Black on White: Black Writes on What It Means to Be White (Schocken, 1998)

Debra J. Dickerson, The End of Blackness: Returning the Souls of Black Folk to Their Rightful Owners (Anchor, 2004)

W. Fitzhugh Brundage, The Southern Past: A Clash of Race and Memory (Belknap of Harvard, 2005)

Mia Bay, The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925 (Oxford, 2000)

Eric L. Goldstein, The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity (Princeton, 2006)

Mark M. Smith, How Race Is Made: Slavery, Segregation, and the Senses (Chapel Hill, 2006)

Scott L. Malcolmson, One Drop of Blood: The American Misadventure of Race (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000)

Amitai Etzioni, The Monochrome Society (Princeton and Oxford, 2001)

Grace Elizabeth Hale, Making Whiteness: The Culture of Segregation in the South, 1890-1940 (Pantheon, 1998)

Urban Faith has an interesting 30-minute discussion of Evangelicalism in Black and White Communities with Dr. William Pannell of Fuller Theological Seminary. For those new to him, William Pannell…

was the first African-American to serve on Fuller’s Board of Trustees. In 1992 he was appointed as the Arthur DeKruyter/Christ Church Oak Brook Professor of Preaching, served as dean of the Chapel from 1992 to 1998, and also served as director of the African-American Studies Program. A gifted preacher and professor of homiletics, Pannell has nurtured several generations of Fuller students from the classroom to the pulpit. He currently serves on the board of Taylor University in Indiana and is the author of numerous articles and books, including The Coming Race Wars? A Cry for Reconciliation (1993); Evangelism from the Bottom Up (1992); and My Friend, the Enemy (1968). [From the Fuller website]

Here is the video:

Here are the interview questions and their time frames:
1. What is Black Evangelicalism? [00:03]
2. What was your relationship with the late Tom Skinner and the rise of Black Evangelicalism? [2:05]

3. Why did you write My Friend, The Enemy (1968)? [7:55]
4. What is the Obsidian Society? [12:53]
5. What are the challenges facing young black evangelical scholars? [14:17]
6. What is the state of preaching as we move deeper into the 21st century? [16:46]
7. What lead to the development of your book, The Coming Race Wars, published in 1993? [20:00]
8. Dr. Pannell on President Barack Obama [23:38]
9. What implications does race in America have on President Obama? [25:48]
10. Dr. Pannell on the Tea Party [27:35]

Books mentioned in the interview:

Tom Skinner, Black and Free
William Pannell, My Friend, the Enemy (1968)
William Pannell, The Coming Race Wars: A Cry for Reconciliation (1993)

I enjoyed this conversation between Colin Hansen and John Piper regarding John’s new book, Bloodlines. I deeply respect and admire John’s faith in the Lord, willingness to risk, and courage to stand on this issue. And in these videos you can see his passion and investment in arguing for a blood-bought reshaping of our thinking about ourselves.

Confronting the Racial Sins of Our Fathers from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

Can’t Afford to Be Color Blind from The Gospel Coalition on Vimeo.

I think John nails the colorblind issue in the second video. He captures the tension and dynamic very well, showing both the pros and the cons of the issue.

If I might, I’d want to tack on one footnote to what John has said extremely well. Sometimes the appeal to being colorblind masks a deeper issue of being “justice blind.” That is, some people have called for a colorblind society or positioned themselves as colorblind people as a means for willfully ignoring justice issues that themselves are predicated upon color. Examples abound. Fill in the blank.

So, there arises a suspicion of the notion because of very real justice or injustice issues attached to color. We don’t want a naive movement toward colorblindness (in the positive sense) when it gives room for “justice blindness.” That’s part of the tension and concern. In a society filled with systematic statistical disparities on the basis of skin color on everything from educational achievement, employment rates, internet access, incarceration, banking access, poor health, home ownership, poverty, and so on, we cannot afford a blindness to color that perpetuates a blindness to justice.

I’m grateful for Piper helping to make this plain. The move toward a post-race society must include movement to a color-just society. This is better known to us as judging a man by the content of his character and not by the color of his skin–whether that “judgment” be the charitable interpersonal judgments that help to eliminate prejudice and racism or the charitable judgments of “justice for all.”

P.S.–I’m certain someone will wish to point out that I’ve at least intimated that “justice” looks like “equality of outcome” and not “equality of opportunity.” Fair enough. But before you dismiss the thrust of this post with that critique, how about defining “justice” yourself and attending to the color-based injustices and disparities so plentifully around us before/as you point out your disagreement with my definition. Until then, I need to let you know that I kinda like the definition of “justice” that I use and pursue over the definition of “justice” you don’t.

Protesters took over a Wake County Public School board meeting in Raleigh, N.C., during a protest of the school board's decision to eliminate a busing policy focused on diversity.

You’ve heard of Brown v. The Board of Education, the landmark Supreme Court case that began the dismantling of “separate but equal” in public education.  Well, it seems that the gains of the Civil Rights movement are imperiled in at least one jurisdiction, Wake County, North Carolina.

My wife served in a Wake County high school for three years as a history teacher.  I coached junior varsity and varsity basketball in the same system.  In North Carolina, Wake County schools were the gem of the state.  And with good reason.  The system managed an integration policy that to some extent ameliorated some of the wide income and resource gaps between various neighborhoods in the system.  It was a busing strategy that had some challenges (many of our students were bused past three or four high schools in order to attend school, leaving home sometimes as early as 6:30am).  But on the whole, the system worked to give greater opportunity to all.

Thanks to the backing of sibling billionaires, what was once widely regarded an effective system for ending both segregation and class disadvantage may now be dismantled.  Black Voices, an internet newspaper associated with The Huffington Post, reports on the community’s response to the election of five school board members bankrolled by Charles and David Koch (not N.C. residents), the Tea Party, and State libertarians.  Those school board members received millions in support from the Kochs on a platform to end the school district’s policy of diversifying student bodies and returning the district to neighborhood schools.

Following Brown v. Board of Education, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus deployed the state national guard to deny the "Little Rock Nine" entry to Little Rock's Central High school. President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to escort them into the building.

Critics rightly understand this to be a return to segregation along ethnic and class lines.  Neighborhood and class segregation remains a stubborn reality in most places around the country.  Poverty concentrates, and so does wealth.  And while neighborhood segregation no longer holds sway in the country as a matter of law, we’re nowhere near the level of meaningful social interaction we might like to see across class and ethnic lines.  The new proposal for neighborhood schools just might be a giant step back to the 1940s.

Do we really want that?  Do we really want armed soldiers escorting students into schools?  Do we really want to strategically limit opportunities by zip code, skin color, and income?  Surely the lessons of Jim Crow are not already fading from public memory and conscience.

Don’t make me dust off my red, black, and green!

Senator James Webb (D-Va) offers an interesting op-ed at The Wall Street Journal entitled “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege.”  Webb questions the validity of viewing white America as a monolith along with the continuation of government programs originally designed to remedy slavery’s legacy but not serve all “people of color.”

Here’s Webb’s conclusion:

Where should we go from here? Beyond our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need, government-directed diversity programs should end.

Nondiscrimination laws should be applied equally among all citizens, including those who happen to be white. The need for inclusiveness in our society is undeniable and irreversible, both in our markets and in our communities. Our government should be in the business of enabling opportunity for all, not in picking winners. It can do so by ensuring that artificial distinctions such as race do not determine outcomes.

Memo to my fellow politicians: Drop the Procrustean policies and allow harmony to invade the public mindset. Fairness will happen, and bitterness will fade away.

Read the entire piece.  This isn’t typical Democrat speak.  And it’s a certainly a rare opinion in Northern Virginia.  Webb gets points for breaking the party line with a dissenting opinion.

But is his reasoning solid?  I’m curious; what do you think?  Does Webb’s point of view hold?  Is white privilege a myth?  Ought tenure in the country privilege someone to government support or resources?  And curiously, are southern white Baptists really an ethnic group?

This morning, I read with interest Time Magazine’s David Van Biema’s article, “Can Megachurches Bridge the Racial Divide?“  It’s a positive look at Bill Hybels’ and Willow Creek‘s efforts at diversifying a once all-white suburban congregation.  The article gives great attention to Hybels’ leadership on this issue at Willow, his steady “drum beat” approach to identifying racial issues, the work of small groups in building community across racial lines, and so on. Hybels has apparently shown a level of repentance and leadership that few have.

“I hadn’t [preached] about it in 24 years.” So he promised his congregation, “I’m not going to overwhelm you.” Yet he persisted, sermonizing repeatedly about America’s racial history and continuing inequities. He pledged to open Willow to every ethnicity. In 2003, he recalls, he threw down the gauntlet, telling his flock that the church’s racial outreach was “part of who we are, and if it can’t be part of who you are, you probably need to find a church that doesn’t talk about this issue.”

Amen.  I was encouraged with the read, and I hope you will be also.  Still, the article raises a number of questions worthy of further consideration.

Is It Demographics and Probability, or Is It Leadership and Gospel Change?

For example, why should “megachurches” be lauded as the possible bridge over troubled racial waters?  Is there something “mega” about their teaching and Christian ethic, or is the apparent ability of megachurches to achieve some diversity simply reflect economies of scale?  If you grow a church large enough (20,00+ in this case), are you bound to have some measure of diversity as a matter of probability if not intent?  Willow’s history teaches that you can be a big church and not be diverse at all.  Indeed, that history could be cited in other megachurches, I’m sure.  So, leadership matters.

But I’m still left wondering whether the success at Willow has more to do with the Chicago-area demographics, the church’s size, and the probability that if you’re even a bit friendly and welcoming the church will start to “brown.”  More impressive, in my opinion, would be to see this same kind of leadership and dynamic occur in small town churches, historically and socially bifurcated along ethnic lines.  Megachurches tend to be in “megacities” or at least in significant metropolitan statistical areas where cross-ethnic interaction is at least more probable and generally more frequent.  Leave the urban hubs, how effective is the church at crossing these lines?  I tend to think there are a handful of smaller churches in smaller areas doing about as good as Willow.  And it’s clearer in many of those examples that what’s at work isn’t probabilities but gospel sanctification.  I’m not saying that the gospel isn’t at work at Willow (please don’t misunderstand me), just that it seems clearer in a different setting with a different racial history.  So, the work of God among the saints at Redeemer Presbyterian in Jackson seems more brilliant in its power and display among that band of Christians than in this article.

I’m thankful for the work of God on this issue wherever it occurs.  But I wonder if there aren’t some confounds in this article and in the assumption that megachurches are the “saviors” on this issue.

What Is the Best Measure of Congregational Diversity?

Van Biema cites Emerson’s 20% as the threshold for diversity.  He writes:

By February 2009, Willow had hit the 20%-minority threshold that signifies an integrated congregation. Today its membership is 80% Caucasian, 6% Hispanic, 4% Asian, 2% African American and 8% “other” ethnicities. Says Bibbs: “The church would never be the same again.”

In an area like Chicago, would you call this an integrated congregation?  For the record, I think most African Americans and Hispanic and Asian brethren and the 8% other might say that this is not feeling like a terribly diverse experience.  If 80% are white, chances are the variegated others are still feeling very much like “minorities.”

Using an arbitrary percentage as the measure of “diversity” is all the more troubling because it doesn’t work everywhere.  There are still places where certain ethnic communities barely exist.  A flat statistic like this is imposing and perhaps unattainable.  And in other areas, like Chicagoland, one suspects the ethnic percentages to be more diverse than Willow’s congregation.  A better measure for how well we’re doing might be to suggest that a church should look like the community it lives in.  If the community is 50/50 black and white, the congregation should be 50/50 black and white.  If the community is 30% white, 20% African American, 35% Hispanic, and 15% Asian, the church should look that way.  We should expect that the gospel raches the nations without prejudice, and that the church created by the gospel would know the same tendency.

It’s great to celebrate the work at Willow.  I certainly do.  Hybels could have continued on his 1975 track, and no one would have criticized him one bit.  I think the Lord has done a gracious work in our brother’s heart.  But sociology shouldn’t define this for us.  Theology should.  And the heart of God beats for all the nations.  If all our friends look just like us such that we’re not connected enough with the nations to reach the nations, then we’re shamefully off mission.  We need the grace of repentance the Lord appears to have given Hybels, and we need to work for a church that includes all the nations in its location.

Is Diverse Preaching Leadership the Litmus Test?

A while back, the venerable, Puritan-reading, cross-over dribbling, golf-club-swinging, church-planting Tony Carter observed that genuine integration and diversity wouldn’t be possible until white brethren submitted to the leadership of men from ethnic backgrounds.  Carter: “Most of my white evangelical and Reformed brothers and sisters speak positively and eloquently on racial diversity. For this, I commend them. However, until we see white men and women doing what black men and women have long learned to do—namely, sitting under and submitting to the leadership and authority of those who are ethnically different—we will not see real diversity.” (see here)

Add prophet to Tony’s list of titles and achievements (honestly, though, I don’t really know how good his cross-over is; one day, we’ll see).  The Willow article illustrates Tony’s observation:

Most disturbing, according to about a dozen minority congregants, was that Hybels never promoted a nonwhite member to a pulpit pastorship or senior staff position at the main Willow campus. (Bibbs, never a “teaching pastor,” now advises other churches on multiculturalism at the Willow Creek Association.) An African American recently joined Willow’s elder board. Curtis Sallee, a black 15-year “Creeker,” comments that while “what Bill has done racially has been nothing less than miraculous, there needs to be someone who speaks for the church, a teaching pastor or staff, who’s a minority. That’s the next step. I don’t know whether they are ready to take it. But they’re going to have to address it sooner or later.”

Hybels acknowledges the situation as “extremely frustrating” and attributes it to the fact that paid leadership is drawn from the longest-serving church volunteers, who are still mostly white. The argument, however, doesn’t account for the homogeneity of Willow’s pulpit pastors, the past several of whom have been out-of-church hires.

Do you find it difficult to believe that among a 20,000+ member congregation, with networked resources of hundreds of like-minded churches, there is not one qualified ethnic minority who could participate in the pulpit ministry at Willow?  I do.  Especially when among the teaching pastors of Willow there is, contrary to Scripture, a woman listed.  Willow’s failure to find gifted and qualified ethnic teaching pastors is all the more disappointing when Van Biema points out that “the past several [pulpit pastors] have been out-of-church hires.”  One wonders if a deeper dynamic isn’t at work.  The article maintains:

Willow’s predicament is hardly surprising. To some white congregants, naming a person of another color to tell you what Scripture means, week in and week out, crosses an internal boundary between “diversity” (positive) and “affirmative action” (potentially unnerving). Daniel Hill, a former Willow young-adult pastor who founded his own fully multicultural River City Community Church in Chicago, says, “There’s a tipping point where the dominant group feels threatened.” Consciously or unconsciously, Hybels stands at that point.

I’d be curious to know what some of you think about this last quote as an explanation for the absence of ethnic leadership in the pulpits of predominantly White congregations.  Rutland, Vermont figured this out in the late 1700s and early 1800s in the ministry of Lemuel Haynes.  And again, churches like Redeemer Presbyterian with its pastor Mike Campbell, an outstanding preacher, seem to be doing a good job at cross this “tipping point.”  And to date, we’ve not experienced an exodus of white members here at FBC.  Quite the contrary, whites join this church in numbers comparable to other ethnic groups even though both of the main preaching pastors here are black men.

I’m hesitant to conclude that having ethnic representation among the teaching pastors ought to be the marker or “tipping point” of genuine diversity.  Obviously, the Scripture places emphasis on godliness.  But I’m also hesitant to conclude that there are no godly, qualified, gifted and interested men from Willow’s ethnic membership or in the larger Chicago-area who could not serve faithfully among Willow’s teaching team.  So, the work goes on.

Conclusion

I couldn’t agree more with Van Biema’s assessment of the scandal of ethnically-segregated churches.

[T]hose many who desire a transracial faith life have found themselves discouraged — subtly, often unintentionally, but remarkably consistently. In an age of mixed-race malls, mixed-race pop-music charts and, yes, a mixed-race President, the church divide seems increasingly peculiar. It is troubling, even scandalous, that our most intimate public gatherings — and those most safely beyond the law’s reach — remain color-coded.

And yet, there is much to be encouraged by in this day of the Lord’s grace and work.

But in some churches, the racial divide is beginning to erode, and it is fading fastest in one of American religion’s most conservative precincts: Evangelical Christianity. According to Michael Emerson, a specialist on race and faith at Rice University, the proportion of American churches with 20% or more minority participation has languished at about 7.5% for the past nine years. But among Evangelical churches with attendance of 1,000 people or more, the slice has more than quadrupled, from 6% in 1998 to 25% in 2007.

We dare not despise the day of small things, even as we pray for a fuller communion with God and with all His people.

Bob Kellemen at RPM Ministries offers a gracious review of Glory Road: The Journeys of Ten African-Americans into Reformed Christianity.  Kellemen is a good student of African-American theology and church history and offers a warm critique of Glory Road.

For my part, I think Glory Road could be one of the most important, helpful, and encouraging books published in the last ten years on African-American Christianity.  I think its warmth, humor, honesty, and theological integrity

could be a winsome tool in capturing the hearts of many people who have not come to know the wonderful truths and history of the Reformed tradition.  If you haven’t read this book, rush out and make it a stocking stuffer or New Year’s read.  It’ll reward you.

HT: Phoenix Preacher

I loved this cartoon found at an atheist site.

It’s interesting to consider how an atheist and a Christian might read these remarks with both agreement and disagreement. I agree, for example that the genetic “cousinage” of all humanity means we’re staggeringly more similar than different. I agree that recognizing that common identity should make a fundamental change in self- and group-understanding.

Yet, I disagree with the implied premise that religious affiliation should not “trump” other markers of identity. There is only one human “race,” yet there are two spiritual races–the race of Adam and the race of Christ. At the judgment seat of Christ, our biological commonality will be infinitely less important than whether we have been made new through faith and union with Christ in his death, burial and resurrection to share in His glory as a redeemed humanity. Our thoughts about identity may condemn us before Christ, but they could never save us apart from Christ.

Terrible inference. Love the cartoon.

Tony Carter on Moody radio.

While attending and participating in the God Exposed conference at SEBTS, I had the privilege of sitting down with my first pastor, Peter Rochelle, and three new friends to talk about diversity in the SBC. The audio is up and I hope it’s an encouragement.