When Jesus prayed that we would be one in John 17, Jesus was not praying for uniformity.  Unity is about our relationship with each other, uniformity is sameness of thought or approach.

 

In 1 Corinthians 12:12-21 Paul uses the analogy of the body.  “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

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For the body does not consist of one member but of many.  If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.  And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.  If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing?  If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell?  But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.  If all were a single member, where would the body be?  As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

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The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’”

 

As Americans, when we read this passage we are quick to see how each of us has different spiritual gifts, but we quickly forget Paul’s opening reference to there being no hierarchy among ethnicities in the body.

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To understand what Paul is saying, we need more context.

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In Acts 11, we see the church scattered by persecution, and as they scattered, they spread the Word only among Jews.  There is a noted exception, however, with men from Cyprus and Cyrene who flee to Antioch, and begin speaking to Greeks, establishing the first multiethnic church.  Just 4 chapters later, in Acts 15, Jewish Christians come from Judea to Antioch instructing the Gentile Christians that they need to be circumcised to be saved.  This brings Paul and Silas into sharp dispute and debate with these Jewish Christians.

 

Apparently, circumcision wasn’t the only point of ethnic tension, nor was the expectation to assimilate into Jewish culture limited to the church in Antioch.  In Colossians 2:16, Paul tells Gentile believers to not let anyone judge them for not following Jewish traditions regarding diet and holy days.  And in his letter to the church of Galatia, Paul reminds them that there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female.  Paul isn’t saying that one loses their identity as male or female, their physical reality as slave or free, or their ethnicity or culture as a Jew or Greek.  Just the opposite.  Paul is saying that we are all equal in our standing at the cross, regardless of whether we are Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female.

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Expecting uniformity erodes our unity.  Whether intended or not, it communicates that one ethnicity is superior and the other is inferior.  Audre Lorde says that “it is not our differences that divide us.  It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”

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The expectation that Gentiles should conform to Jewish culture, which Derwin Grey describes as a form of ethnocentrism (we highlight Derwin’s analysis in this essay), nearly destroyed the early church.  If this expectation hadn’t been resolved in Acts 15, Christianity would have never exploded into a world religion but would have been confined to the Jewish culture.  But what does this have to do with building unity in the church today?

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An increasing number of black Christians are attending white or white dominant multiethnic churches, but these black congregants often feel expected to assimilate to white culture at these churches.  They feel they must leave some of their black identity and culture at the door on Sunday morning.

 

But what, exactly, does this mean?  How do many white dominant multiethnic churches make black attendees feel expected to assimilate?  And if they are choosing to come to a white dominant multiethnic church with a long-established culture, isn’t it appropriate that they assimilate to the established culture?  These are important questions we must work through on our way to unity.

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First, we must understand that these Black Christians are intentionally crossing cultures for the sake of building the unity that Jesus calls us to, by attending churches where they know they will likely be required to leave some of their ethnic identity at the door.  These Black Christians are not complainers.  Their fellow congregants have no idea that they are being expected to leave some of their ethnic identity at the door.  We only now know because researchers have shared that insight with us.  We are doing church the way that feels comfortable for the White congregants without taking the time to ask if our culture is comfortable for those coming from a different ethnic or economic background.  Because we lack cultural intelligence, we aren’t even aware of how others are experiencing our church.

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Korie Edwards, author of The Elusive Dream: The Power of Race in interracial Churches, says “multiracial churches tend to mimic white churches in their culture and theology; whites are not comfortable with black church culture or addressing the elephant in the room, race; multiracial churches work – that is, remain diverse – to the extent that their white members are comfortable.”  But does keeping the culture and theology comfortable for White members ultimately lead to unity?

 

I have started to ask my fellow black congregants if they feel expected to assimilate at our church because I truly want to understand their experience and barriers that remain to our building genuine multiethnic unity.  A black Elder said that she feels she must control herself during our Presbyterian style worship services.  A black Deacon told me that our Deacon meetings are more business like instead of spending time discerning what God has to say.  When talking to Elders at our black sister church in Cleveland I realized that we were more punctual and agenda driven in our church board meetings while they spent every other board meeting entirely in prayer.

 

But maybe the area that impacts our unity the most is our focus on White theology.  Charlie Dates tells how, about 30 years ago, the Southern Baptist Convention began an aggressive recruitment of young Black clergy.  “These Black pastors and their churches were then expected to adopt the political agenda of the so-called moral majority.  You had to affirm that abortion, adoption, pornography, and the war on drugs were the key moral issues framing the American social landscape.  They deemed these issues ‘Christian’ while labeling a host of other concerns plaguing my community as ‘political’ and ‘divisive’.”

 

I feel convicted when reading Charlie Dates’ comments.  He is speaking to me.  The path to unity isn’t uniformity in political thought but it does require that we care about issues that impact our black brothers and sisters.  We white congregants need to choose unity over what is comfortable.  And our black brothers and sisters also need to choose unity over what they believe will make us feel comfortable.  We need them to be honest with each other on how our blind spots lead us to offend each other.

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Unity doesn’t come from uniformity, but by recognizing, accepting, and celebrating our differences, understanding that diversity gives us a fuller understanding of God and His mission.