Multicultural churches are all the rage these days. Conferences are packed with pastors learning how to start a multicultural church or how to turn the churches they pastor into one.
That long-overdue trend is welcomed because God is the God of diversity. In light of God’s call to reconciliation, churches ought to reflect the diversity of their neighborhoods.
But I believe we still need monocultural churches, particularly among newly arrived immigrant populations. Here are six reasons why.
- Monocultural churches can provide a safe haven for minorities within a dominant majority culture.
After the U.S. Civil War ended in 1865, formerly enslaved African Americans left their former white masters’ churches to form black congregations.
The rich history of the American black church is one of not only worship, but as the hub of the African American community.
For minority populations, especially newly arrived immigrant populations, monocultural churches can provide this same safe haven today.
- Monocultural churches allow for minority perspectives to develop and be heard.
On a national scale, American Christianity was shocked into reality with the publication of Soong-Chan Rah’s book, “The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity.”
The subtitle should have been “Freeing the Church from White Cultural Captivity” because Rah writes compellingly of the “white captivity of the church.”
Rah’s advocacy for other voices – voices of minorities – to be heard and respected could be realized if white churches and leaders recognize and listen to the voices from Korean, Laotian, West African, African American and other churches whose members are in the minority in American cultural life.
- Monocultural churches can provide a connection to home, customs, language, ritual and power structures that generations of immigrants wish to retain.
The myth of the American melting pot has been debunked as Americans of all ethnicities have attempted to connect with their ancestral roots.
For those in the minority, the identity fostered by language, dress, ritual and customs is difficult to retain, but important to remember.
- Monocultural churches can become points of transition, assisting newcomers to America as they navigate their new culture.
When I traveled in China, I was always interested in talking to Americans who had lived and worked in China to find out what restaurants they frequented, where they shopped and how they learned the Chinese language.
The same need exists for new immigrants to this country. Those from their own countries can help new immigrants negotiate the meaning and pace of American life.
- Monocultural churches help resist the marginalization of minority groups.
The danger any minority faces is not only being assimilated into their new culture, but being absorbed and marginalized by it.
Monocultural churches, like the black church, have given rise to a unique expression of the Christian faith and established a unique place for its people in American church life.
Therefore, I believe that predominantly white churches and denominations must reject outreach to minority populations that is motivated by an ideology that views them as the answer to white church or denominational decline.
- Finally, monocultural churches do not confirm the notorious church growth teaching called the “homogeneous unit principle.”
Church growth studies advocated that because people (usually white) found it easier to be with people like them, it followed that homogeneous churches would grow more quickly and easily.
However, monocultural churches are not excluders, but incubators that allow potentially fragile populations to establish themselves, grow, develop a unique witness and thrive in the rich diversity of American church life.
Of course, none of these reasons is intended to sanction prejudice, discrimination or exclusion in any church. In the Book of Acts, the church in Jerusalem cared for its Jewish widows and its Greek widows as well.
Before you jump on the bandwagon of exclusive multiculturalism, remember that historically monocultural churches like German Lutherans, English Baptists, Scottish Presbyterians, British Anglicans and others established themselves in colonial America.
These monocultural churches became incubators for those who came to these shores seeking freedom, which included the freedom to remember their past while building a new American future.
Chuck Warnock is pastor of Chatham Baptist Church in Chatham, Va. A version of this column first appeared on his blog and is used with permission. You can follow him on Twitter @Chuck_Warnock.
Chuck Warnock is pastor of Chatham Baptist Church in Chatham, Virginia.