Diversity: Finding Our Way Together
Several years ago, as I was staffing a Discipleship Training School (DTS) for YWAM in BC, one of our guest speakers was Richard Twiss, a member of the Rosebud Lakota/Sioux Tribe, who spoke on the topic of contextualization of culture in faith, using his First Nations context as an example. The students staff, made up of people from Canada (including white, Hawaiian and First Nations), Germany, Switzerland, Australia, Finland and South Korea, were quickly captured by his message. However, I noticed that many of the white Canadians were subdued in their enthusiasm, myself included, but we could not put our fingers on what it was.
In the following week of teaching, during one exercise, the group was make collages about their identity using magazine photos. When we were finished, a startling trend emerged from the results. Almost every collage made by the white Canadians contained the exact image: a large, full tree floating above a rich green field, its vast root system not touching the earth at all. I was stunned. Each of us, while excited about seeing culture and race celebrated as a gift, not only to individuals, but to the larger Church, we felt lost, disconnected to a defining identity.
I hesitated writing this post, as so many cultures and races have faced long histories of subjegation and oppression, often at the hands of dominant white cultures. The last thing I want to do is diminish the significance of those realities in society and especially in the emerging church. However, if we are going to address the issue of the racialization of faith and move towards an inclusive and embracing praxis, I believe it is crucial that we put all our cards on the table.
While there are many aspects to this I could address, I want to focus on two. First, many white Canadians, like myself, have a widely diverse culture heritage. Though this is true of many American’s, I think the Mosiac culture of Canada magnifies this lack of rootedness. For example, more than half of my heritage is French Canadian, but since I do not speak French, it is a culture I cannot turn to for identity. Additionally, as we consider the history of white (male) culture, a topic of regular discussion in there emerging church (and rightfully so), a heritage of misogyny, slavery, colonialism, consumerism, etc. is not something to look to for identity. Some suggest that we should only look to Christ for our identity, but while I agree in general, the statement usual fails to acknowledge the God-given significance of the diversity He has created. Even postmodernity, while the closest I have ever come, is too young and ill-defined to be called an identity.
I find deep resonance with both First Nations culture (especially Ojibwe & Cree) and Celtic culture, neither of which are my own. I long to find expression to my faith that I have not found within a history of modernist Evangelical religion. Yet, to draw upon these cultures for myself can (arguably and legitimately) draw criticisms of again appropriating what is no mine to take, like so many white men before me. And yet I desperately long for a rootedness that I suspect may never be relieved.
Second, as a white male in this emerging conversation, I am left with a deep uneasiness on how to address many of the issues of race that are being raised. Granted, the Canadian experience, while ripe with its own racial failures, differs greatly from US experience, particularly where the African American community is concerned. Anyone who knows me knows that pursuing, celebrating and embracing the richness of diversity is one of the single most significant driving forces of my life & faith. And yet I find myself often torn about how to move forward.
There is a constant tension between relinquishing power to make space for those who been held back and using that same power to inform and bring the very change. There is the risk of abadoning the very important and God-given uniqueness of our own cultural diversity (which “white” hugely fails to encompass), offset by the reality that sacrafice is often necessary to achieve restoration. We need to move forward in our pursuit of reconciliation and restoration with the urgency it deserves, but we mustn’t downplay the massive steps forward we have through God’s grace and power.
I firmly believe that in order for us to address these important issues- issues in which we all have much at stake, regardless of race- we must be willing to go ahead side by side, never ignoring the inequities of both the past and present, but not allowing them to define our relationship. It will require grace, patience and mutual, intentional appreciation. And who knows. We just might enjoy ourselves on the way.
That is stunning.. and I have nothing intelligent to say about it.. except I know that to unpack this one would have to talk about myth and ritual and the things that root us in human society. Ok, here is an intelligent quote…
In “Original Self,” Thomas More wrote,
“Myth is the narrative in which we find ourselves when we become aware that our lives are shaped by stories. The myth at work at any particular moment may derive from the family and from powerful but hidden currents of imagination strong in the culture. Our basic humanity also accounts for the deepest stratum of our lived myth. We are always in a myth, but cultural narratives do vary from one place to another, and even in a single culture they can shift over time.”
While we post-moderns are reacting against authority, we are desperately looking for enduring myths. I’m not talking about stories that aren’t true, but about the real Story. We are experiencing “mythic vertigo” as the narratives that anchored our culture are no longer accepted. More continues,
“In this time of deep change, we may feel dislocated … Sensing the waning of a myth, we may take several different steps: We may try to reinstate the old myth, insisting that it is the only truth that will hold us together. We may try to invent new myths, but these, Hopper says, are … too rational and fail to give us the deep inspiration we need. We may also turn to countermyths, stories that emphasize a vision opposite to that of the dominant but weakening myth. Our literature and movies show fragmentation, falling apart, destruction, violence, and hopelessness.
“Stanley Hopper’s solution for our sense of mythic vertigo is a new appreciation for the role of imagination. He recommends that we replace theology, the rationalistic interpretation of belief, with theopoetics, finding God through poetry and fiction, which neither wither before modern science nor conflict with the complexity of what we know now to be the self. This is a theology for a period highly influenced by technology and by psychoanalysis.
“If we could make this shift, which is being forced on us by our very success in science and other areas of knowledge, we might find a more solid security, one that is not easily disturbed by the findings of science or the shifting of mores. We would realize that our conceptions about the nature of things are always provisional and therefore may best be served by a poetic sensibility that looks deep into experience. Our sense of the religious life might be less external, less factual, and less rationalistic.”
Len,
Excellent quote. Thanks. I have been considering similar lines of late, in so far as what the “founding myths” of the emerging church are or will be. Any thoughts?
Peace,
Jamie
Jamie,
Thanks for the note. I am indeed alive, and posted a new one yesterday. I’m a little confused why it didn’t show up for you. Can you see it now?
Thanks for checking in,
Grey Owl
Roots in Christ are not sufficient? They detract from the natural differentiation of the cultures and races? This does not resonate for me. The source is the source. The individual cultures are units within the whole that behave as families, distinct from other families by characteristics that give them identities. They still belong to the extended family. Using this family dynamic, remember that there are always black sheep. Those who don’t identify with any of the nuclear families, even their own. One day, though, some of these black sheep start families of their own. Suddenly, you don’t have the person who doesn’t fit, you have one more family that belongs to the whole, as the black sheep truly did in his own way all along.
So your church doesn’t provide you with an identity? Give it time. Make your family, make your identity, and remember that all of our family trees go back to the same source regardless of what our individual traditions are.
Wanderer,
I never said that roots in Christ are not sufficient. Rather that the statement usually exposes a shallow appreciation for the issue.
I see what you are saying here, and I do draw identity in many respects from these elements. However, while some may be happy without them, I feel robbed that I have no real connection to my cultural heritage beyond my name and some DNA.
In addition to identity, the post also expresses my frustration of dealing with inter-cultural & inter-racial dialogue as a white male. While we cannot ignore the failures of the dominant culture, I believe we need to move past “white males” being type-cast in these dialogues.
Finally, I also struggle with finding deep resonance with some cultural expressions, yet not able to authentically embrace them.
Thanks for you comments & encouragement.
Peace,
Jamie