16 Mar Thoughts about “A Quiet Exodus”

In case you are reading this because you are intrigued by the title, and don’t know to what it refers, and you weren’t one of the, oh, 75 people or so who forwarded me the article (thanks, everyone!), it refers to an article published in the New York Times last week about the many black Christians who have felt forced to leave white evangelical churches over the last year since the 2016 presidential election. In particular, it focused on one black woman’s experience at Gateway Church (in Dallas, not our neighbor here in Austin) and her challenging journey to find a place of worship.

While the focus of the piece was primarily on the black experience inside predominantly white churches, there was some reference to challenges faced by multiethnic churches, which is where we fall, and primarily why I’d like to talk about it a bit here.

What I would like to do (and this will likely be a longer read for you, if you’re up for it!), is to lay out some thoughts as to why predominantly white churches are a place where minority congregants have deeply struggled, where multiethnic churches can struggle as well, and why we, as a church, despite trends that have gone the opposite way, have not just maintained but actually grown significantly over the past year.

You should read what follows with more than one grain of salt, an extra helping of grace, and remember that what we are trying to do at Mosaic is to blaze trails where many don’t go, and for that reason alone, difficulties and failures are inevitable. What I offer are more reflections and thoughts that I hope can help all of us, no matter what background we are from. Here we go:

1. Predominantly white churches struggle to maintain black (and by inference, other minority) congregants mostly because of unexamined theological paradigms.

Now, right away, I can think of many of my white pastor friends who would disagree and would likely be immediately irritated by that statement, but here’s what I mean: Much of evangelical theology over the past 30 years has been built around something called the “HUP”, or the “Homogenous Unit Principle”. The big idea behind the HUP is that Christians have the best chance of reaching other people for Christ (a core tenet of the umbrella of evangelicalism) that are just like them. In other words—the thought goes—to reach more people, I should reach out to people just like me. Why? Obviously, it’s because we have more in common—common interests, sports, hobbies, music, neighborhoods and so forth—and so barriers to Jesus are theoretically lower. The HUP has been taught and preached and imbibed at churches all over the US and has given rise to some of the largest megachurches in the country, and for all the people who have come to Christ, I rejoice, and so does all of heaven. But the challenge with the HUP is this, and perhaps you have detected it: it is deeply individualistic, and assumes that the focus of the Gospel is only the conversion of individuals, and as a result, our churches can become full of people just like me.

So, while the HUP has a kind of power that can see people come to faith in Jesus, it ultimately only addresses a person’s soteriological needs and, to an extent, some of their psychological needs. But, it effectively blocks out the Gospel’s power to be able to address social and ecological issues as well. What did Jesus come to seek and save? “That which was lost” (Luke 19:10). What did Jesus come to do? “to proclaim good news to the poor…to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18). What will he come again to do? “Make all things new” (Revelation 21:5).

There’s a saying in the tech world: “We shape our tools, and our tools shape us”—and it’s true. We create smartphones, which in turn shape our behavior and our culture. The same is true of theology: well-meaning, Jesus-loving, and really smart white theologians have—certainly unintentionally and with the best of motives—shaped a primarily individualistic tool, based out of their thinking and cultural heritage, which in turn has shaped the church. If the church is the place where we only address the needs of an individual’s standing before God, then we are only doing a portion of what the missio Dei is, the mission of God is.

Thankfully, many church leaders and thinkers across denominational lines are raising their hands up and lifting their heads up and saying, “Hey, wait a minute! This isn’t working!”, and I suppose you could count me as one of them. What to do, then?

I propose, in its place, then, we adopt something called the “DUP”, or the Diverse Unit Principle. That is, we begin to create churches shaped by the need to reconcile all four “losts” (people to God, people to themselves, people to each other, and people to creation). I believe the ensuing tension created by the pull of this “quadrilateral” can create the necessary space for diversity to flourish—because now we are addressing needs that different cultures have gifts and abilities to meet and contribute towards. Additionally, moving away from a primarily individualized Gospel message also can begin to address the power sin has on systems, which the New Testament does itself at length, with all its talk of “the powers”.

There is a warning here, though: I have, and likely you have, too, seen many well-meaning white Christians struggle to understand why church should be about more than just individual conversions and personal discipleship. The idea many have is this: if we only talk about conversion and discipleship, everything will be ok. What that kind of thinking misses is this: talking about injustice is a discipleship issue. Justice language dominates the Bible from cover to cover, and to live a fully formed life of a disciple of Jesus, we should embrace every part of His word.

In the end, many white Christians leave multiethnic spaces for the same core reason many black or brown or Asian Christians do, even though they might not understand why on the surface: over theological issues. Let me ask you: what did Jesus come to save: Individuals just like us, or the whole world, full of people not like us? We all must choose, and I choose the latter, and to do that, we need better theology.

2. Multiethnic churches struggle less over theological paradigms, and more over cultural paradigms.

The greatest single struggle I have personally witnessed (I am sure there are many that you feel, but this is the big one for me!) is the tension experienced between individualistic cultures and collectivist cultures. This, as you can see, is closely related to number one, but expresses itself a little differently. What I mean is this, and I’ll give you a brief, somewhat humorous, and highly generalized example:

When I was a campus missionary at the University of Texas, our group, thankfully, was highly multiethnic and for several years, predominantly black. Which meant, in short, that I had the privilege of attending many graduations of African, African-American, Latino and Asian students. What came as a shock to me was the marked difference in reaction between white families, and non-white families (again, in general). When a white student graduated, there was, of course, support and cheers—but from like, 5 people! And this was my own experience as well: when I graduated from college—and it was certainly a big deal, as neither my father or my grandfather graduated from college—my mom and dad and sister were there, along with a set of grandparents. They told me congratulations…and we went to Wendy’s on campus for a burger…true story.

But, over and over again, as I saw students from more collectivist cultures graduating, the experience was consistently different: not only were mom and dad there, but all the siblings were there, aunties and uncles were there, grandparents were there, cousins were there, the student’s 5th grade teacher was there, and 17 friends from back home were there. There would be signs made, air horns used, and a general commotion would be made for the 20 seconds that student walked across the platform. Why? Well, there are many reasons, but one primary reason is because, in contrast to more individualistic cultures, which sees my own success as my own success, collectivist cultures sees your success as my success, and my success as your success. It is something the community celebrates and enjoys, because one of them has achieved something significant, and they understand that no one ever really makes it on their own. In other words, in an individualistic culture, the person on the stage is his or her own self; in a collectivist culture, the person on the stage is me or us.

Now, let me apply this in two ways: I remember a number of years ago when Trayvon Martin was tragically shot and killed. Suddenly, the country began seeing (mostly) African-American people wearing hoodies with the words, “I am Trayvon Martin”. Of course, much of white America was predictably perplexed: You’re not Trayvon Martin, they thought. Trayvon Martin was Trayvon Martin. You are you. But not to collectivistic cultures, as many of us/you know.

Second, and this is the salient point for Mosaic Church, and one I hope that we all will consider: when a presidential election comes, or for that matter, any election, cultural issues are involved as well in terms of how we process what happens. For example, if a candidate has a track record of making disparaging remarks about women and minorities, to vote for that candidate can (and many times, will) be seen as a vote against women and minorities, despite whatever other important issues are at stake.

Again, there are more issues at stake than just those, and those other issues may be ones which justify a vote for that candidate. But when, as we have seen, that 81% of white evangelicals voted for our current President, despite his language and tone towards women and minorities, that kind of number is just going to cause many in a multiethnic space to struggle deeply with being in fellowship with those who, to them, don’t seem to care about their well-being. It should come as no surprise that the rise in hate groups came on the heels of the results of the current election. To be sure, those groups were already there, and there are many factors that contribute to their origin, but the reality is that words from leaders empower people’s behavior, good and bad—and the rise of these hate groups have only served to confirm what many minorities feared—that a vote for our current president was a vote for continued marginalization.

Now, you may disagree with my line of reasoning—that’s fine. But what you cannot disagree with is the experience of many (not all) minorities in our local church and multiethnic churches across the country who deeply love their country, their church and the people they worship with, and yet wonder if the people they worship next to share their deepest concerns.

I am not writing this to persuade you, or anyone, to vote differently. I am writing this to persuade you to think and feel differently about your neighbor and about the kind of a church you are a part of. Our church is far more than a multiethnic, multigenerational space—we do much around the world and in our local community. We do children’s, youth and college ministry, marriage ministry, people do prison ministry, care for orphans and do foster care. But, and this is the point—people in our nation aren’t arguing over those things, for the most part. They do argue over how to share space with people who don’t always seem to carry the burdens they carry. That’s just a fact of life—we should acknowledge it, and try to do better with it. We can do that by continuing to affirm people where they are, and help bring all people in to a place where they can say with confidence, we may not vote the same, but I know you care deeply about my wellbeing as an image bearer of God and a fellow sibling in God’s household. And that is the hard work of being in diverse community.

3. Mosaic Church has grown and thrived because of the grace of God and the hard work of many people.

What you have read so far (and if you have made it this far, congratulations!) is not an exhaustive list. And, I’m completely confident that some of it is not exactly nuanced how you would like it, doesn’t completely scratch your itch like you’d like, nor fairly represent where you may be coming from. Such is life in a diverse church! So, if you disagree with what you have just read, just remember, what you just read are thoughts, not facts. But what is not in question is the fact that while many multiethnic churches have fallen apart or disbanded over the past year (Michael Emerson, the nation’s leading researcher on race and religion, was quoted as saying the last election was the single most traumatic event to happen to multiethnic churches over the past 30 years), Mosaic has grown. Why?

First of all, the grace of God. God has been faithful to us in ways I cannot begin to describe. “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col 1). He loves us, is for us, and meets us in the middle of hard spaces and places. It’s just who He is. So, thank God.

Second, it is because of the hard work of many, many people, likely including you, if you have been here for any length of time. You have labored, forgiven, spoken up, written an email, turned the other cheek, laid down your life, sought help, served some more, gotten counseling if needed…the list goes on. So, thank you.

You may know that many in our city are increasingly turning to us to help them in the same work. This is not something I have ever set out to do, and in fact, I have quite literally talked people out of doing what we are doing—because my perspective was, that for them, having a diverse church was a growth strategy (how can we get more people?) instead of a discipleship strategy (how can we live out the Gospel more faithfully?).

In the end, I believe in the multiethnic church, because I believe, as I have seen from my own life, that I am better when I am around diverse people groups. I believe that relationships have the power to change people—maybe not everybody, but enough somebodies to make a difference. Most of all, I believe that because the first church was multiethnic, that the word of God that we have in our hands today was not the product of one people group, but the product of the grace of God and the gospel of Jesus working itself out in a diverse community struggling with how to relate over cultural and ethnic lines—and therefore gives us the tools and the power to do the same.

If we will begin to read the New Testament, especially, with something I call a multiethnic hermeneutic, that is, through the lens of seeing how often Jesus reaches out to those unlike him, how often the early church wrestled through Jew/Gentile issues, and by seeing the vision at the end of the book of Revelation, where every tribe and nation and tongue is gathered before the throne of the risen Lamb of God, King Jesus—then we can begin to find courage to be brave enough to continue to love one another more and more as we continue.

I love this church. I love the people in it. I love you. And most of all, I love Jesus, who loved me and gave Himself for me—and you.

Our best is yet to come.

Morgan