Intentional Diversity

“Why do they always sit together in the cafeteria and still expect us to include them?” This is how a conversation about diversity began with a college student. It was true that a group of students who happened to be of the same race were sitting together in the cafeteria, and that their race happened to be very much in the minority at this particular Christian university.

 Then it hit me: “Look around,” I said to the student. “Do you see other clusters of people of the same race sitting together?” The answer was obvious. Table after table of white skinned people were sitting together, casually talking and eating and laughing. They were of the same race and were sitting together, and to them and the student observing it seemed quite natural. “That’s different,” the student offered. But he had no real reason why this was different. So, I asked him a question: “If one group far outnumbers another group, whose moral obligation would it be to be inclusive: the bigger group or the smaller group?” He thought for a moment and said, “I guess it would make sense for the bigger group, since the bigger group has the power and the numbers.”

 This little exercise in observation became a sociological and theological case study! It is one that I believe has far reaching implications beyond college campuses and cafeterias. Jesus’ ministry to the “least of these” was not just about those who had very little – although we must be quick to recognize that this was a key element of His ministry. Jesus’ “least of these” ministry was also about those who were outnumbered, overlooked, and even looked down upon. Those who were different due to economics, race, or even population were of great concern to Jesus then, and I believe they still are today.

 So, using our cafeteria case study above and applying it to Christian ministry, here are a few observations that we must consider: 
1. It is the responsibility of the majority and not the minority to initiate inclusiveness. To simply say we want diversity and then wait around for lesser represented groups to flock to our midst is illogical at best, and at worst it contributes to ongoing resentment and distrust.

2. Taking initiative means finding entry ways into the culture and experiences of another group that are acceptable to the group we are seeking to engage. This means that approaching an underrepresented group or person on my terms as a person whose race is in the “majority” will not be sufficient. Due to past racial and cultural experiences, certain groups already practice what theologians and sociologists call a “hermeneutic of suspicion” regarding those in majority communities. This means that there are some built-in cultural suspicions from any minority group regarding a majority culture, usually based upon historical realities. These can be overcome, of course, but they require awareness and sensitivity on the part of the majority culture.

3. Intentionality involves the biblical idea of “seeking.” We who are in an overly represented culture, whether it be in a campus setting, a community, or in a church building are called to take initiative in the “seeking out” process, recognizing that we may have to come humbly and even in a repentant way based upon misunderstandings, exclusions, and other actions that we are identified with. This is true even if I have never individually perpetrated a racist or exclusionary act.

 Jesus, as He sent His disciples into the rest of the world in Matthew 28, expected them to “go” into regions where the Christian message was unknown and often misunderstood. He recognized that if the Church was to grow and become the agent of God’s change that it was created to be, they would have to take Spirit-led initiative, introduce their message humbly, and consistently be people who sought out the “least of these” – those who are overlooked or underrepresented. This moves us from an “us vs. them” mentality, toward an approach that asks, “How can everyone become part of what God is seeking to do in specific cultures and in the whole world?”

The Subversive Art of Reading

The Dangers of Not Reading

The conversation began this way: “Pastor, we have got to distribute these warning fliers this Sunday.  All of our freedoms, especially our freedom of religion, are in jeopardy!”  This well-meaning church member was obviously concerned, judging by the look in her eyes as she grasped the rubber band bound stack of fliers in her hand.  “Leave them on my desk, and I will take a look,” I said.  Over the years, the church board and the entire congregation knew that this had become my policy.  I take seriously the idea that whatever the church distributes or shares in some ways represents the church.  Not only did I read the fliers, which at first glance seemed overly alarming: big red letters, emotional appeals, and “slippery slope” arguments with no direct quotations of the forthcoming legislation in question.  It was that last part that really got my attention.  None of these expert legal and/or religious minds were actually engaging the legislation they were attacking, although there was plenty of negativity and emotional appeal against key state legislators whose track records had not exactly earned them the favor of most Christian voters like those in my congregation.  But the obvious absence of direct encounter with the legislation in question caused me to do something that I was to learn was both revolutionary and even subversive: I went online and actually read the entire legislation! 

To my surprise and dismay, there was nothing in the proposed legislation that even came close to the horror stories that the so called experts from this Christian source had gotten my church member and many like her all stirred up about.  While it was true that there were things in the proposed legislation that people of good conscience could have serious disagreements about, and it was also true that some of those proposing the legislation had a track record of going against certain things that many of my fellow Evangelical Christians were opposed to, there simply was nothing in the legislative proposal that seemed to merit the panic and foreboding that generated the stack of fliers now resting on my desk.  In short, this particular organization seemed to be playing upon fears and upon the disconnection already earned by certain legislators to forward an agenda that actually had nothing to do with Christianity or religious freedom.  I simply slid the stack of fliers into the garbage can.  More about that later.

Learning to Read

I have often credited several people for teaching me to read.  Of course, my parents, grandparents, teachers,  aunts and uncles, who early on surrounded me with books and read to me had a great deal to do with the beginnings of my journey into reading.  When I entered Christian ministry, reading took on a new dimension for me.  In fact, there are a couple of seminary professors – particularly my first systematic theology professor – who really taught me to read.  What I mean is: this professor and others like him emphasized that being a minister of the Gospel has always included the responsibility of being a continual learner, not just for the sake of my own enlightenment and education, but also for the sake of leading others into a faith of depth and real meaning.  Reading for me became more than a diversion or even a bother: it became a part of my calling.  My professors made sure I had plenty of it to do!  But in  doing so, and in being challenged to read in ways that explored and interacted passionately as well as analytically with all kinds of works, reading took on a different dimension for me.  I learned that reading could be – and sometimes should be – a struggle, an adventure, a pleasure, a painful interaction, and sometimes a combination of all of these, and that this was alright. 

To this day, I tell the students I have been privileged to work with in the past fifteen years or so that my goals as their instructor are not just about learning the course materials, but also learning to read in such a way that you will never be able to look at any book or pamphlet the same again.  Nor will you ever be able to simply “take someone’s word for it” without studying to “show yourself approved,” echoing Paul’s words to Timothy in the New Testament.  Reading became both an ethical responsibility as well as a revolutionary – even subversive – part of my calling to be a Christian minister.  Of course this implies that I am to lead others into this kind of revolutionary journey, which puts me at risk of being confronted about my own interpretations.  I have learned and embraced the fact that this is part of that “iron sharpening iron” that the Bible speaks of. 

The Potential Cost of Reading

Subversive reading includes reading for enjoyment: reading things that excite and challenge us.  It also includes reading those things that challenge and even aggravate us in a way that temporarily suspends our own disbelief long enough to honestly engage where an author is coming from.  We then re-engage our Spirit led analysis and are then in a position to filter out some aspects of what we have read and cling to other aspects.   Of course, sometimes this subversive call to read means that we no longer simply believe the television and radio personalities and take initiative to engage for ourselves.  Unfortunately, this seemingly logical and simple act can be the most subversive of all to some: especially those who want so much for something to be true that they will forgo reading or analyzing something that may conflict with the narrative they prefer.  As Christians, especially as Christian pastors, I really do believe that we have a responsibility to lead those around us beyond this simplistic and neglectful way of approaching reality.  But there can be a cost to this.

In the case of the church member I mentioned above, the “cost” for me was their decision to leave my congregation.  Later in the week when the woman who brought the materials followed up with me and this time not only wanted me to share the fliers but also set aside some time in the worship hour to bring these “grave matters” to the attention of the congregation. 

I told her that I had indeed looked not only at the fliers but had also read the supposed “dangerous” legislation, and I saw a real disconnect between what the fliers claimed and what was actually true.  She looked at me as if I had torn a Bible up right in front of her!  “Pastor, don’t you care about Christian values?  Don’t you care that the very freedoms we value are going to be taken from us if we don’t help motivate fellow Christians to vote this down?”  I said, “I do believe in Christian values.  An important value in Christianity is honesty, and I feel that if I distribute the flier it would be dishonest.  It may be that the legislative bill is not the best one for lots of reasons, but I have read it.  I have even read what other Christians have said about it, and I am convinced that this campaign to defeat it has nothing to do with Christian freedoms or religious values and is simply about garnering political influence for the organization that sent them.  If they can get well-meaning people afraid, then they can get them to give to ‘the fight,’ even though in this case, there really is no threat to freedom or to Christian theology.”  I urged her to vote for whatever legislation she wished, and to privately urge others to do so.  But I could not in good conscience make this a church matter.  The church, I told her, has bigger fish to fry.

In her request for membership transfer to a larger and more politically activist church up the road, she expressed her disappointment that I did not care enough to speak out for "Christian values" and those things which threaten them.  In my phone follow up with her, she and I actually parted gracefully.  I did ask if she had ever gotten around to reading the actual proposed legislation.  She paused and then said: "Pastor, this organization got several experts including high paid lawyers to do that for us, and I trust their interpretation."  I hung up the phone with chuckling to myself, "Who would have thought the simple act of reading could cause so much trouble?"  Maybe Jesus, whose first hometown sermon consisted simply of reading the Isaiah scroll promising a Day of Jubilee, folded it up, and subversively said: "Today, this has been fulfilled in your midst," just before almost getting thrown off a cliff(!), chuckled too.  

From Black and White to Living Color: The Purpose of This Blog

The Complicated Life of the Believer

The biblical injunction from God through the prophet Micah to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with the LORD your God” seems straightforward.  However, Christians today, like Israel back then, know that it is not.  Our world is filled with complex permutations of circumstances that often cloud what “justice” should look like (hence, we have an overabundance of lawyers).  We also struggle with the difference between genuine mercy and enabling harmful behaviors.  Not to mention the fact that humility is in such short supply, even in Christian circles, as to become almost unrecognizable.  Even attempts at humility can become nothing more than photo opportunities that result in the opposite of humility, otherwise known as pride or even hypocrisy.

We live in a gray world in which we are often pleading for simple answers.  Even country music, long noted for its wrestling with sin, has gotten in on the act.  One recent hit song cries:

            I miss Mayberry; Sittin’ on the porch drinking ice cold Cherry Coke;
            Where everything is black and white.

Beyond Black and White

Unfortunately, the black and white simplicity of Mayberry or Leave it to Beaver only exists on TV.  Even Scripture reminds us of this.  One only has to look at the lives of biblical characters like Adam, Abraham, Samuel, Samson, and David – just to name a few – to see that not even Scripture proposes an easy “black and white” approach to living.  Our world is in living color.  It lives in vibrant contrasts of reflected light.  It dies in real red blood and sometimes in flesh colored agony. 

Therefore, Christian ethics begins in the gray: the murky, clouded highways filled with complicated stories of real life people in specific contexts on this journey called life.  The ends of Christian ethics are not found in the transition from gray to black and white, however.  Instead, the goal of Christian ethics is a movement through the gray and into real color-filled living.  This color-filled living takes seriously the nuances of context and circumstance.  It allows us to take into account the complex tapestry of voices – past and present – through which God continues His dynamic and vibrant -- albeit sometimes messy-- work.

Honesty demands that we admit that there are many gray areas – indeed that we live and work and minister and die “in the gray.”  The truth-filled love of Jesus Christ demands that we recognize that simplistic black and white thinking does not always do justice to the truth or to what is good and right.  The “good” and the “right” are the keystones and goals of Christian ethics.  Christian ethics is about not only getting to the results of what is good, but it also addresses how we get there: our motives, our character, our context, etc.  Living as “children of light”(I Thess. 5:5) involves allowing the light of God’s love and truth to bring into high definition clarity those circumstances that inform our decision making, so that in the end we may be consistent followers of the God who reveals Himself in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

The basic tools of developing an ethical system, as well as the relationships that inform and guide our approaches to ethics as Christian ministers are the main subject matter of this blog.  Honestly confronting the “gray” areas can shed clear light upon Christian ethics as more than a set of decisions to be made and defended.  Instead, we will begin to see the heartbeat of God Himself as we allow the guiding principle of love – what can be rightly called John Wesley’s “supreme theological and ethical category” – to move us beyond the seemingly hopeless gray areas, through the simplistic and short-sighted black and white trivialities, and into the breathtaking colorful landscape of grace.

Getting There

In a manner than seeks to be rooted in Scripture and the Christian tradition, paying specific attention to the Wesleyan tradition, my goal is to first of all honestly address the gray areas.  As the late singer songwriter Rich Mullins once wrote: We are awfully small, and we are not as strong as we think we are.  That means that our simple "black and white" solutions often betray more about us than they do about the issues we are trying to fix or solve.  The demonstrate our desire to move quickly from gray to black and white, much like the movie Pleasantville, in which the characters are trapped (without realizing that they really are trapped) in a literal black and white world with strictly controlled routines and bland existence.  The two teenagers who become trapped in this world from their world of real life at first enjoy and even embrace the simplicity, but soon realize that although the world of color and complications is frightening, it is a far better way to live.  They seek to demonstrate to the inhabitants of Pleasantville that the colorful and complicated world that they fear is worth the risk.  

God has no fear of living color!  God, in fact, has given us this colorful world and has even given us a dangerous gift called freewill, with which we can either live passionately in the beauty of His love and grace, or live in darkness.  Black and white solutions, though often promising short term comfort, are soon overwhelmed by the nearly infinite possibilities in a world filled with people who have the freedom to say "yes" or even "no" to God.  

I am seeking to trust God enough to allow me to face the discomfort of the gray areas.  I also want to trust God enough to move me beyond simplistic or trite solutions that often masquerade as black and white solutions.  Of course, I am not saying that everything in the Christian life is complicated.  There are indeed simple truths, and these truths are, in the words of the classic hymn, simple gifts.  However, there is a difference between simple and simplistic.  My prayer is that Christians allow God's Spirit to demonstrate the passion and power of living beyond the gray and moving into the glorious realm of life where the light of His love fully shines and illuminates the darkness with the whole spectrum of living color!