Paul tells us that “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male and female, since you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  This means that, positionally, we are all equal at the foot of the cross and that there is no spiritual hierarchy based on race, gender, or social status. 

 

Some quote this verse to justify treating everyone with colorblindness, i.e. disregarding racial or ethnic characteristics when interacting with or selecting individuals for opportunities.  The idea is that to build oneness in the body of Christ we should be race neutral in our interactions with our brothers and sisters in Christ and look beyond their race, culture and ethnicity.  The argument is that when Paul is saying “there is neither Jew nor Greek” he meant that we shouldn’t see each ethnic group’s distinctive characteristics or experiences.  (In our essay The Myth of Colorblind Christianity we highlight Jesse Curtis’ research into how evangelicalism sacralized not being race conscious to protect the racial status quo.)

​

Paul saw cultural differences

​

However, although Paul insists that no spiritual hierarchy exists between male and female, Peter and Paul both give instructions for specific and distinct responsibilities of husbands toward wives and wives toward husbands (I Peter 3 and Ephesians 5). Though Paul confirms the equal value in Christ of both slave and free, he also gives each group separate instructions regarding treatment of the other (Colossians 3 and 4; I Corinthians 7). In several letters to first century churches, Paul goes into great detail about cultural differences between Jews and Gentiles such as diet, holy days, and circumcision. Not only does he fail to suggest these differences should be ignored, he gives clear instructions for Christians to carefully avoid both unfair judgment and needless offense in these matters as the two groups live and worship together (Romans 14).

​

Paul didn’t believe Gentiles needed to assimilate to Jewish culture

​

Paul talks about God building one new humanity.  But what does that mean?  If could mean that Paul expected all Gentiles to become Jews, it could mean that everyone should set aside their ethnic culture and merge into a new culture, or it could mean that God brings us together in unity, even though our cultural diversity persists.

​

The first major church dispute was initiated by how fast multiethnic churches were growing outside of Jerusalem.  These ethnically diverse churches were blowing up the mental and cultural circuits of the Jewish believers in the holy city.  In his book, The High Definition Leader, Derwin Gray details how this dispute arouse of out ethnocentrism and how a similar ethnocentrism is present in the American church today.

​

“During the first century, there were several streams of thought concerning the salvation and inclusion of the Gentiles into Israel, from the destruction of the Gentiles, to the Gentiles coming to worship God without proselytism, to Gentiles making a pilgrimage to worship the one true God.

​

Specifically, converted Pharisees responded to the news about the growing churches from Paul and Barnabas by saying, ‘it is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses’ (Acts 15:5).  They leaned on their ethnicity as the means for their salvation and coupled it with belief in the Jewish Messiah.  Their thinking was that Jews were God’s chosen people.  It was Jews who had the Law, the Sabbath, and circumcision.  Therefore, Gentiles had to become Jews in order to become saved and to become members of God’s people.  This is called ethnocentrism.”

​

“Sure, the Jerusalem Council in Acts 1 was about circumcision and food, but it was also about ethnicity.”

​

“In the twenty-first-century American church and in the world, these concepts of circumcision and eating restrictions do not mean much, but when we build homogeneous local churches, even though ethnic diversity is possible, it is a form of ethnocentrism.  Homogeneous churches essentially promote a culture that says, ‘Our way of being the church is better than your way, and that’s why our ministry models are geared to reach and minister to people who are like the majority culture that make up our church.’  I suspect this is done out of ignorance, not malicious intent.”

​

The problem that Derwin identifies is not limited to homogeneous churches as it is also easy for white dominant multiethnic churches to unconsciously maintain an expectation for other ethnicities to assimilate to the majority culture.  The way to build genuine multiethnic unity in the church is to acknowledge and celebrate our cultural differences, and accommodate each other, instead of expecting everyone to assimilate to the majority culture. 

 

Building Cultural Intelligence

​

If the formula to unity were to look beyond one’s ethnicity and race, then there would be no need to build cultural intelligence, that is, to work towards deep understanding of another’s culture.  But Paul did build cultural intelligence, adapting his sermons and the writing style of his epistles to resonate with the culture of his audience.

​

Blindness to racial injustice

​

Some point to Paul teaching “there is neither Jew nor Greek” to suggest we shouldn’t talk about how black Americans experience life differently than white Americans, or how our black congregants experience our church differently than our white congregants.  The idea is that true equality must be race neutral, even though being race neutral prevents us from seeing how systems and structures are oppressing specific groups of people.

 

Dr. King said that Black America is that man in the Parable of the Good Samaritan, robbed, beaten and bleeding by the side of the road.  Dr. King understood that when Paul’s Biblical injunction, “there is neither Jew nor Greek”, to imply equal standing not erasure of a minority group and the oppression they face.