For most of my life, I never thought having a multiracial church mattered. I also thought racism didn’t really exist anymore. Slavery was over. Don’t use the “N word”, be nice to black people and racism is eliminated. As a rough summary, this is what a lot of white Christians think about race. If asked if white churches should reach black people, white Christians will say yes. If asked how this should be done, you’ll often get a response similar to what I heard recently from a denominational leader:
You will become multiracial if you are colorblind.
The idea of being colorblind is the mindset that we see everyone the same. “I don’t see color” is a phrase you’ll often hear from people when the topic of race comes up. It sounds good on the surface, but a closer look shows what this view actually does, especially from a white perspective. If a white person says, “I don’t see color,” this is another way of saying to a minority “I don’t acknowledge the oppression you and your people have endured,” which is like saying “I don’t acknowledge you.” Saying you are colorblind is like saying everyone has the same history and life experience as a white person, which simply isn’t true.
There is of course the historical oppression of African Americans and Native Americans that many of us are familiar with. But there is also the modern day oppression minorities endure, oppression most white people are unaware of exists. This is called white privilege, things people of color aren’t given as they enter the world as newborns that white people are. To be “colorblind” is to deny that this lack of privilege exists and also denied that whites are still the dominant culture in America. To be a minority is to be a minority, it’s to always have to accommodate to a culture that isn’t yours and to have to assimilate to that culture.
Should churches be intentional about being multiracial? The denominational leader I talked with told me when you try to orchestrate it, it’s when you get in trouble and that the mission isn’t multicultural, it’s the gospel. Is being “intentional” the same as “orchestrating”? Those two words certainly have different attitudes and feel to them. To be intentional is to be hospitable. If you’re having a friend over who is allergic to shellfish, being hospitable is not serving seafood. Being hospitable is asking them what they like to eat and serving that instead. It’s being loving.
White churches can continue to be “colorblind” and think that loving all people (a.k.a. being nice and shaking someone’s hand when they walk into church) will magically make their congregation multiracial, but this is just what 1 Corinthians 12 speaks against. If an ear walks into a church full of eyes, what’s going to happen? The ear is going to wonder where the rest of the body is and isn’t going to feel welcome. The eyes might lovingly put eye liner, contact lenses and fake eye lashes on the ear, but the ear still isn’t going to feel at home. It’s going to take intentionality to be a church that strives to reconcile the racial inequity and division of our society that has been caused by our culture’s past sins. The best thing white Christians can do is honor the experiences and cultures of minorities. Listen to them. Learn from them. Be taught by them and be led by them. And especially in church, don’t act like our way is the only way or the best way. And acknowledge that there actually is an “our way,” a “white way” to do church that is–and that this isn’t the right way to do church. The “right way” to do church is found in 1 Corinthians 12, where all of God’s diverse and uniquely made parts come together as one body, Jesus’ body, to represent Jesus to our lost and broken world.
Being intentional about racial diversity as a Christian doesn’t negate the gospel by any means, it is actually a fuller representation of it. It not only calls for the repentance and reconciliation of personal/individual sins, it calls for the repentance and reconciliation of the systemic and historical sins that have drastically shaped the culture we are all living in today. It is living out the reconciling gospel’s heart of what it looks like to love. The point of 1 Corinthians 12 is to show the world how powerful Jesus is to unify the Church in spite of the racial and cultural factors that normally divide us (see verse 13 if you don’t believe me). It is to show that Jesus is the most powerful bond and the most powerful change-agent known to man. This is something worth seeing and worth being intentional about.
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Hey Noah, great post! I love the analogy you used of the eyes and ears. It definitely helps shed light on a emotional and (historically) deeply-rooted issue in the Church today. However, I think you could probably be a little more fair and trusting in giving fellow believers the benefit of a doubt when using the word or approach of being “colorblind”. I found the following to be quite the blanket statement:
“If a white person says, “I don’t see color,” this is another way of saying to a minority “I don’t acknowledge the oppression you and your people have endured,” which is like saying “I don’t acknowledge you.”’
Did you really mean to insinuate that any and every white person that takes that approach feels that way? Maybe you do feel that way, but that seems rather cynical and hopeless. Perhaps instead there is a loving, just, and fair agenda of reconciliation in their heart, as opposed to one of ignorance and superiority? Just my two cents. The great Martin Luther King Jr. in his famous “I Have A Dream” speech said:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
It seems to me that MLK envisioned a future where America was indeed “colorblind”(in the christian loving sense of the word). What are your thoughts?
Hey Dave, thanks for the feedback and the great questions. Definitely making me think, thanks. With the quote you excerpted, I wonder if I changed the wording from “this is another way of saying to a minority” to something softer if it would help get my point across more effectively. The way I originally wrote it, it does sound like I’m saying “YOU ARE INTENTIONALLY SAYING THIS 100% OF THE TIME” — whereas what I was trying to communicate was, “If you have a colorblind mentality, even with a good heart and good intentions, this is how it will be received/perceived by minorities. This is how they will hear it.” Let me know.
And yes, I need to give more benefit of the doubt on where people’s hearts are, thank you for checking me on that. I will edit what I wrote to reflect that, thanks.
Good question and example with the MLK quote. I think his quote represents the exact good intention of white people who use the colorblind strategy. But it’s important to note that MLK said he didn’t want them judged by the color of their skin, but he didn’t say that he didn’t want what they (and he) had to endure to be forgotten or that their unique culture would be forced to assimilate in order to be welcomed/accepted by whites.
I think that’s really what I’m trying to communicate: Sometimes when white people are being color blind, what we are really communicating is “You need to be like us in order for us to accept you fully.” So it’s not really being colorblind, it’s like seeing everything in white. If I see a black person, or an Asian person, or a Latino person, or a Native American person, with cultural expressions each unique to them, I think the negative colorblind mindset which I’m bringing up is one saying, “Well if they dress like me, talk like me, act like me, listen to the same music as me, worship like me, etc., I will be receive them with open arms.” And you do see this sociologically–it’s pretty much natural human nature–a white guy like me who grew up in suburbia isn’t going to have to adjust as much to a black guy who wears preppy clothes, flip flops, listens to alternative music, talks like I do, has graduated from college, etc. so I’ll be able to have him in my social circle or my church much easier –as in he’ll be more comfortable there because he’s already assimilated to that culture
–But this same black person is most likely seen by the black community as “white” because he is acting, talking etc white. Which isn’t right either, but it shows that social phenomena at work on both sides.
So I think our task as Christian white people is to not wear “white glasses”, which is another way of saying “colorblind” in the context I”m using it, even though we are not consciously thinking we are wearing white glasses or intentionally doing so, but realizing it’s being received this way, and thus is why being truly diverse/integrated is really hard and takes the extra effort of intentionality / flexibility that most of us don’t do. And a lot of it falls on us as whites because we are the dominant culture and have been for so long, so it’s more on us to adapt for a minority to feel comfortable than vice versa, because they are already having to adapt all of the time wherever they go (i.e. work, school, the store, etc.)
Dang brother, I just wrote a lot, maybe this will become it’s own new post! Let me know your thoughts on this. Thanks for stretching me.