I firmly believe that we are all moral creatures, and all equally Dependant on Christ. I equally believe that we are all different, with different strengths and abilities. This is fairly standard for a Christian: I observe, as Christ himself noted, that these who have get more and those who have little have that taken away from them.
I have written many times that I despise progressive or leftist politics, because they function as neo-feudal Lords “representing” (that is, exploiting) groups of people the see as voting blocks they “own”. Woe betide the gay, the black, the Hispanic, the Maori and Pacific people if they do not vote in the approved way. Woe betide the elite if they say the “wrong” things. The post-modern cone of silence, of self censorship, is as destructive as the doublethink of the Soviet era.
But today I am concerned about the other consequence of the politics of identity. It splits the church.
1If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death —
even death on a cross.9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name
that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus
every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
We should be one. We should be of many colours. The congregation should consist of families — and there should be roles for all of the family. Yes, there are, on average differences between racial groups. Yes, some people are rich, some are professional, and some are poor, some are sick and some are in prison. But we should be one.
(I said nothing about ritual and roles. For we are different: Men may be called to lead families and congregations, but women are called to raise children, and in every church there is a role for older women to confront the silliness of those who are younger than them. It is to the shame of my generation that most of the women have remained with the mindset of a silly teenage girl, and the younger women are often more mature than their mothers).
In the USA, the tradition of Black Churches and White Churches — based originally on the separation of races and a stupid concern with miscegenation (this was a nation that had eugenics laws) has become traditional and this means that the two groups of Christians can be divided.
In NZ, the Chinese, Pacific and Korean churches — based on the missionary churches that converted those countries, and often giving services in their own language — perform a useful service to those who think talk and walk in those languages. But the next generation tends to want to integrate. The fervor of the immigrant communities needs to fertilize the remainder of the congregation. But the congregations should be one.
And the progressives don;t want that. They want a separate Maori and Pacific branch of the church — even when it gets in the way of other projects they have. For that allows the use of wedge politics. They want equality when it suits them — women, those living together (that is in sin) in the leadership (particularly if gay) — but the want inequality when it suits them in the form of some kind of affirmative action — and since my children belong to both of the unfashionable racial groups, being Chinese/European — I have a personal interest in removing progressive institutionalized racism.
For it is a grievous error. For we should be one.
I need to add one thing, from my experience as a young man. I used to live in the poorest suburb in Auckland, and attend the local Presbyterian Church, where the leadership deliberately chose to remain one congregation, many services. The Pacific Church — the area had a large immigrant population (Still does, but now they are Vietnamese and Somalis) and we had three services, one in Rarotongan and Samoan, one in English, and an evening service. That morning service had melded into int songs and customs from the Islands. Which grated. Which made is uncomfortable. Which needed to be negotiated — because the Scottish and English ways of NZ Presbyterians grated the Rarotongans and Samoans just as much.
It is far easier to remain in ethnically divided holy huddles. But we need to consider Christ. It would have been easier to stay out of this world, and not experience the nastiness and brutality of our existence, and sell as the foreshortened time he had before he died the most horrible death for our sake.
Compared with crucifixion, a little irritation is nothing. We need to confront, name, and repent of the politics of identity. For in Christ we are one.
Pingback: Against the politics of identity… number 231 | – Dark Brightness | oogenhand