I wonder if the former isn't sometimes a little backwards too.
I've claimed, and still believe, that the rule that "You don't get what you want unless you want something else more" has wide application. If the church puts "welcoming all races" as top priority, I think they miss out. If we get the "in Christ Jesus" part first, I think we'll have a better shot at the "neither Jew nor Greek."
Of course it's very easy to kid ourselves about how well we apply the gospel. Suppose the claim that "the biggest factor in whether someone attends a church is whether they were invited" is true. Then the question is not "Is the church environment friendly and inviting to visitors?" but "Am I friendly and inviting out there in the world?"
When reviewing Purpose Driven Church I noticed that the result was segregated by design. The church plan tried to reach particular groups--and if it succeeded, it wouldn't be diverse. The language of the service matters--I'd attend a Coptic service in English more often than an evangelical service in Tagalog. The music matters, the idiom matters. I don't know how you design a service that's supposed to be equally welcome to everyone--except perhaps by being equally obscure to everyone (latin).
It comes back to us in the world.
2 comments:
This is excellent, and I will come back to this and read it again a couple of times over the next few days, as I am writing up my distress at a recent church decision.
There are lots of reasons to say or do things that look like a desire for racial justice. There are even some political motivations, where racial justice isn’t really desirable, it’s just important to look like you care and agitate.
If your only criteria is race, anything that is designed without that as its primary feature, will appear racist. Depending on your agenda, that could be good.
A church can be a really confusing place for this issue. Some people have the Christian motivation and perspective you suggest, where “there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” However, many people in a church are on a journey from the values of the world to the values of Christ. One’s perspective doesn’t change, just because they attend church.
I love the idea of Particles for Justice. Do they support every particle being a neutron? Or affirmative action, to prefer protons to electrons? Seems like an unstable universe.
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