Yesterday was our Every Culture Sunday at Hope Church, which was a vivid display of colours, styles, languages, cuisine, and mostly blood bought unity that makes us one. Each person came dressed in a way expressive of their culture and we had a picnic outside with all manner of international food shared as we fellowshipped with laughter and love. Being from England it's quite hard to dress in something distinctly english as most of the world has latched onto the US/UK/European style of clothing. Not being ones for great tradition we don't, for example, bring out leiderhosen every year even. But not to be undone I did South London proud (well, kinda!) by dressing as a typical Thornton Heath rudeboy (as best as I could without spending £100 on some fancy Nike's, and more on some Moschino and Ecko wares, not to mention getting some bling!). Probably my strongest statements of that culture were the infamous low hanging jeans and boxers with a name brand pulled up and visible from behind. That's the first, and I hope only time, I do that! I also managed to pull off a typical bop when I walked and spoke with our unique international flavour by greeting people with "Wha's gwaanin'"! I'm not sure anyone understood me much during the morning! :o)
But the multicultural theme started earlier in the weekend for me. On Saturday I took a drive down to Amanzimtoti where another Newfrontiers church was hosting Evan Rogers for the weekend, who was giving a seminar that morning on multicultural worship. While there were many excellent things about worship in general, I found that Evan's passion for non-racial praise and for diversity inspiring and infectious. The basis for this isn't political correctness, sentimentality, or being in the new SA - the reason is in what God has done in Christ. While the Church has not always caught onto it, the world is only beginning to catch up to what God has done when it comes to "race relations" - and that only as a dim copy.
What has God done? Let's look at a couple of Bible verses. While you may read this and think, "I'm not really interested in 'religious' things", I encourage you to read this stuff as I think the issues of race affect everyone and so this isn't a merely Christian matter, though it is a Christian viewpoint on it.
"Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands - remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility." (Ephesians 2:11-16)
What we have here is a statement about circumcised (Jews) and non-circumcised (Gentiles) people. Before Christ God had selected the descendents of Abraham (Jews) as His own people as a sort of launchpad for his gathering every tribe, tongue, and nation together and blessing them. Until Christ, then, all non-Jews were by definition outsiders and there existed a state of "hostility" between them because of this division.
It sounds a little like God put up a divider to keep Gentiles out only to bring it down again later. But that's not quite true. Gentiles could become God's people also, yet to do so they had to become Jews. In effect they had to change culture, not only belief. Their identity would no longer be Phoenician, for example, but Jewish. Our identity now as Christians is just that - Christ! Christ is our identity, not Judaism or Israel or circumcision! But I'm getting ahead of myself.
But now, through Christ, God has made the two into one by taking down the dividing wall and including Jew and Gentile (i.e. all nations) as His own on the basis of their equal relationship to Jesus.
So far it really only seems to involve unity with one culture - that of Jews being united also with the rest of the world. But to limit this statement to that is missing the point. First off, it's a mistaken presumption that Gentiles were all united and the issue was really with Jews (of which Jesus was one). Genesis 11 indicates at Babel that the nations really were divided because of their collective union under sin, and so though Gentiles were all non-Jews, that was the extent of their unity. There is definite hostility between cultures, as all history demonstrates. More modern thoughts for world peace and so on are not bad things, but they do miss the fact that for all we do share in common there are definite dividers between us. We may be able to perhaps live and let live, but that's still short of what God has done in Jesus.
Second the Ephesians passage is very particular about its wording when it says God's intention was to create one new man out of the two. Sounds a bit cryptic, but what it basically means is that by union with Christ God has taken all nations, Jew and Gentile, and has made a new nation under Christ. As said in the note above, I, for example, am no longer a Brit but am actually part of this new people. Note that this is a work of creation - God created a new man, that is a new mankind. Jews didn't lose their Jewishness and become Gentiles, Gentiles did not become Jews, nor did the two decide to get along. God has started His work of "making all things new" (Revelation 21:5) with His people, for "if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation/creature" (2 Corinthians 5:17)! This is more than patching over the cracks, this is an entire rebuild! It's not a further fragmentation of the "human race" so that Chrisitans then become a subgroup of other subgroups, it is the building of a brand new humanity!
If this sounds like a racial superiority argument then please don't misunderstand me. Christians are not the new Nazis! Instead of being extinguished, different people are welcomed in by us as the ambassadors of this new people. We speak the language of diplomacy, not conquest. Also, because of the nature of this "new race" as in Christ alone, certainly no one nation can be diminished in this view (e.g. Jews - Christians often being accused of, and sometimes guilty of, anti-semitism). In fact, when 2 Corinthians 5 says about people in Christ as being new creations it follows by saying, "Therefore we now judge no one according to the flesh", i.e. according to human labels of race, colour, culture, wealth, education, etc. As Phillip Greenslade says, the only label we give is the only one that fits - a designer label: "For whom Christ died".
The result goes far beyond Jew/non-Jew relations. This brings me to the next passage:
"For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:26-28)
Okay, and another:
"Here [that is, in Christ] there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all." (Colossians 3:11)
The effects of this new creation activity mean that every ground of division between all people is gone when they are joined together in Christ. This is more than willing ourselves to be one, this is God having done something to us to make us different than what we were, and united with one another. All other attempts at unity teach us to ignore the present divisions and hostility across the various lines caused by our sinfulness and pride. Here God has dealt with these divisions! Whether it is a breach between Greek and Jew (ethnic), circumcised and not (religious), barbarian and Scythian (so called "civilisation", or lack thereof), slave and free (status), male and female (gender), all are done away with as grounds for division through Christ.
Note: Not only did sin result in division between nations, but also in strife between man and woman (Genesis 3:16).
So what does this mean? Because there's no male and female am I somehow now asexual? No, neither do I suddenly speak Zulu (though I wish I could!). My vital parts and my culture (as in my way of doing things, my norms, my practices) still remain, but the division is gone! It's not merely that I've decided (as I've always believed) that racism is a bad thing, but that I am one with my brothers and sisters in Christ - we are each new and sharing in some amazing new common ground and linked together as one body.
This is what Evan Rogers was speaking about, and this is what we celebrated on Sunday. In somewhere like post-apartheid South Africa this sort of message is so radical as old wounds continue to bleed and even new ones form on new grounds of education or class. But Evan's view (and the Bible's) was bigger than SA - it's a global thing, and this is what I'd not quite seen before.
First of all, our view is shaped by the goal God is heading for.
"I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb." (Revelation 7:9)
John Piper says that God is more glorified by diversity than He is by uniformity. God is more honoured by a complex spectrum in harmony than he is by a one type in unison. Rainbows are beautiful because they mix colours together as one in a way that's bigger than just the sum of its colours (e.g. red doesn't look as good on its own as it does in a rainbow). Symponies incorporate a number of distinct elements in unity, sometimes with even things like the violins being a quartet in harmony with each other and with the rest of the orchestra. God Himself is Father, Son, Spirit - three in one and one in three. God's passion for the nations is not just for peace' sake, but to demonstrate his wonderful nature in Trinity. Piper also says that the worth of something is proportional to how many types of people esteem it - i.e. God is more praised by all manner of different people confessing He is ultimate than just by one group because it becomes clear his value doesn't depend on anything outside of Himself.
In Jubilee Church in Cape Town (where Evan is from) they will, for example, worship in a number of languages and styles. In a multi-cultural context like SA you'd expect that you'd need to sing in English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, etc. But what was clear is that Evan had really grasped it in a way I had not and when I put him to the test by asking, "Do you sing any Russian songs" his answer was an immediate, "I'd love to!". What became clear is that they worship multiculturally not merely to manage diversity but to express unity! It's not that they've found some middle of the road compromise to keep everyone happy, they're actively delighting in expressing their freedom as belonging to the Christ-culture. That's why they started singing Xhosa songs even when they had about 2 black people in a congregation of about 400! It wasn't about keeping people happy, but about expressing the fact that God has made them into a new people, at one with each other and with all who are in Christ!
I've always been able to see why you'd be multi-ethnic in somewhere like SA and why this "one new man" thing is so important as an antidote to racism. But now I've seen something more - a unity of grace that just has to be expressed whether we see there's a racial problem or not. All I can say is God's done something in me since Saturday and the lights have come on. Seriously - I can't wait to get back to the UK and do multi-ethnic church. When I return we won't sing Zulu and Afrikaans and Sotho songs as some novelty, or because I've been to SA, but because we are one new man in Christ! I came back home on Saturday and just couldn't wait to look up even Afrikaans songs (which I previously wasn't all that interested in)!
So it was with great joy that we had our Every Culture Sunday the following day. We worshipped, as ever, in many langauges and styles, but I for one saw it very differently. Everyone was dressed in their cultural gear, we all ate together of each others' food, and I led the church in singing one of Evan's new songs, with a chorus saying:
Simunye (we are one), simunye, we are one new man in Christ
Simunye, simunye, we're bought from every tongue and tribe
Simunye, simunye, by Your blood we're reconciled
We are one, 'cause Jesus paid the price
Wow! What a powerful thing that was! To see former enemies worshipping God together in freedom. Even those who were of that hated Afrikaaner legacy (even if they had not ever been an oppressor in act or thought) freely dressed in traditional attire and worshipped with us and were not excluded as a symbol of a divided age. We had prayers and readings in Spanish, French (spoken in much of Africa, this time by Alain from DRC), Tamil, Sotho, Zulu, and probably some more too. For all the efforts of new SA and others, no such unity exists anywhere else in the world!
Truly God has displayed his multi-coloured wisdom through His Church (Ephesians 3:10)!
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