Theology in the Raw - S9 Ep992: #992 - Is Ethnic Reconciliation Part of the Gospel? Preston Sprinkle

Episode Date: July 21, 2022

Is ethnic reconciliation an essential part of the gospel, or is it an optional add on? In this solo episode, I argue for the former, that part of the reason why Christ came, died, and was raised from the dead was to create “in one new humanity” (Eph. 2) a multiethnic kingdom and church. After giving a long personal narrative about why this topic is important to me, I work through several key passages integral to the storyline of Scripture including: Genesis 12, Acts 2, 6, 8, 13, Galatians 2-3, Ephesians 2-3, and Revelation 5.  –––––– PROMOS Save 10% on courses with Kairos Classroom using code TITR at kairosclassroom.com! –––––– Sign up with Faithful Counseling today to save 10% off of your first month at the link:  faithfulcounseling.com/theology –––––– Save 30% at SeminaryNow.com by using code TITR –––––– Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Venmo: @Preston-Sprinkle-1 Connect with Preston Twitter | @PrestonSprinkle Instagram | @preston.sprinkle Youtube | Preston Sprinkle Check out Dr. Sprinkle’s website prestonsprinkle.com Stay Up to Date with the Podcast Twitter | @RawTheology Instagram | @TheologyintheRaw If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review. www.theologyintheraw.com

This episode is sponsored by Faithful Counseling, and I'm so excited to let you know about this sponsor. Okay, so Faithful Counseling is a Christian-based online counseling center filled with over 3,000 U.S. licensed therapists across all 50 states. Look, we all know God is always there for us, but sometimes things in this life can feel downright overwhelming, and it can be super beneficial for your mental, spiritual, and physical well-being to talk to a professional counselor. So faithful counseling is safe and private. You can get help on your own time and at your own pace. The professional counselors at Faithful Counseling, they specialize in many things like depression, stress, anxiety, relationships, sleeping, I could use that, crisis of faith, trauma, anger, family conflicts,

grief, and self-esteem. Everything you share is confidential. And if you're not happy with your counselor for any reason, you can request a new one at no additional charge. And I love that the communication with your counselor is super flexible. You can text, you can chat, you can call them on the phone or connect via video, and financial aid is available. So if you want to get started, go to faithfulcounseling.com forward slash theology, and Theology in the Raw listeners will receive 10% off your first month. Okay, so that's faithfulcounseling.com forward slash theology. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. I'm going to do something a little different in this podcast. I don't have another guest on the show. I want to record a solo episode talking about ethnic reconciliation and the gospel.

I'm, just to say up front, I'm a little nervous about this episode because the conversation surrounding race, racism, ethnicity, multi-ethnic churches, social justice, and CRT and all the things associated with race today, I know it's super controversial, really sensitive. And so I want to be really careful with this conversation. And yet I'm sure I will make some mistakes in even how I talk about certain things here, but I want to address it. So if you've been listening to Theology in a Raw for any number of episodes, you will probably notice that there is a fairly decent emphasis that I have on the show, given the

guests that I have on, a fairly decent emphasis on race, racism, multi-ethnicity, and so on. And that is intentional. I do intentionally try to diversify my guests. I mean, and that's not just in terms of ethnic diversity. I do try to have on almost as many women as men. I still think I might be, I don't know, 60-40 male to female ratio, but I am intentional about sex diversity. I'm intentional about ethnic diversity. I'm intentional also about just topic diversity. I do like to talk about a range of topics on the podcast. But one topic that has been frequently addressed is the topic broadly related to race or multi-ethnicity. I'll talk about the terms race and ethnicity in a second. But this is something

that has been near and dear to my heart for a long, long time. And I'm mainly concerned about the question. If I could frame the question really kind of narrowly, it would be something like this. The question is this, is ethnic reconciliation an essential or intrinsic aspect of the gospel, or is it a secondary optional add-on? I mean, I don't know too many Christians in my world, at least it would say, no, ethnic reconciliation is a bad thing. I don't know. Too many that would say that, but would they say it's an essential thing? And not just would they say it, but would they embody it? Like, would this be a one of, if not, well, yeah, just a top priority in their life and rhythm and ministry, ethnic reconciliation. I mean, and you can see this in practice. Like if you look at some non-negotiables in the rhythm of

doing church, you know, you can see just in practice, what are some non-negotiables in the rhythm of doing church, you know, you can see just in practice, what are some non-negotiables? Like putting on a, like having a Sunday gathering, a Sunday service is typically a non-negotiable, right? For many churches, you know, having a sermon during that gathering is a non-negotiable. Like that's not a secondary thing. Like to be the church is to preach every week, to sing songs in worship. And maybe for some more liturgical leaning churches, the Eucharist, the table might be a non-negotiable. We can't gather, we can't be the church unless we're taking communion, unless we're engaging in the Eucharist. Is that the right phrase to use? A church building might be a non-negotiable, a youth program.

Having some kind of maybe outreach, local or global, or tithing is a non-negotiable. Having maybe some churches, their DNA is built around community groups. Like we are not doing church unless we have a robust community group program. We have a robust community group program. So churches in practice have certain non-negotiables that, you know, that these are some things that must happen in our weekly rhythm. So my question, I guess, is where does ethnic reconciliation fit in the list of priorities for embodying and advancing the kingdom of God as a church. It's one thing to say, oh yes, this is a good thing, but until it's embedded in the practice of the rhythm of the church,

I mean, that's really where the rubber meets the road, right? That's really where we see whether we actually believe that ethnic reconciliation is an essential aspect of the gospel, like an intrinsic part of what it means to be the church of God. So I am going to spend the rest of this podcast arguing that ethnic reconciliation is an essential or intrinsic aspect of the gospel, that it shouldn't be considered, not just in verbal affirmation, but in our embodied practice of the church, that it shouldn't be considered not just in verbal affirmation, but in our embodied practice of the church, whatever that looks like for you, that this shouldn't be considered an optional add-on. Now, I've got a lot of kind of caveats to give up front. Let me talk about terminology really quick. I do prefer the term ethnic reconciliation over racial

reconciliation, although sometimes these terms are used interchangeably. And I think race or racial reconciliation is the more common term. So sometimes I'll use them interchangeably. For this episode, I do want to stick to ethnic reconciliation. I think ethnic or ethnicity is a more sociological and biblical holistic term that includes aspects of the modern construct of race, but isn't limited to race. I mean, race typically refers to skin color. While ethnicity might include skin color, but includes other important aspects like language, culture, socioeconomic status, and so on. And also, I mean, the concept of race, and I'm not an expert on this, so please correct me if I'm wrong. The concept of race is fairly modern, goes back a few hundred years.

And I, from the little I've looked into it, it has kind of a dark history. Like it was originally invented as a way to organize and classify people according to the skin color in order to create a social hierarchy according to race. And so, you know, I'm, I'm a little more nervous about using that term, even if it is more common. The Bible though, really talks more about ethnicity, Jew, Gentile, rather than race, black, brown, white, or whatever. So, that's my first caveat, ethnicity over race. I also prefer reconciliation over diversity. Hard to achieve reconciliation without first achieving diversity, but simply achieving diversity doesn't guarantee at all reconciliation. I mean, any government law or

NGO can guarantee diversity. But my question is, does the gospel contain the power to bring together different ethnic groups into one family where animosity is overcome, where shalom or peace is established, where the beauty of different ethnicities are celebrated together in one family. So that's my main question. It has to do with reconciliation, not simply putting a bunch of people of different ethnicities in a room together. Now, there's also questions about the term reconciliation. My friend, Street Hymns, he said, I think it's a great point. How can we be reconciled, brought back together when there was no legitimate relationship in the first place? And he's speaking specifically of the checkered history, to say the least, between blacks and whites in America. I think this is

obviously a really great point. So I want to clarify that I am thinking more theologically here. I'm thinking of ethnic tensions that, if you go back to the beginning, were a departure of the Genesis 1 and 2 ideal that God had created. So I'm thinking of going back to Genesis 1 and 2, not trying to go back to some kind of, you know, 17th or 18th century, you know, situation where there really wasn't any strong relationship to be reconciled back to. I'm thinking more going back to the original Genesis ideal. That was really kind of blown apart.

I would say maybe if you really want to get nitty gritty in Genesis 10 and 11 with the table of nations in Genesis 10 and the Tower of Babel, I think that was kind of, yeah, where you see the spread of the nations, the people being divided into different kind of ethnic groups. And then you see the Tower of Babel, and you see kind of seeds of ethnic tensions being sowed there in Genesis 10 and 11 as an outworking of Genesis 3, which is obviously a departure from the Genesis 1 and 2 ideal. So I am thinking more theologically here. So ethnicity over race, reconciliation over diversity. And lastly, I want to distinguish between assimilation and integration.

The question shouldn't be, can a minority ethnic group simply assimilate into the ethnic rhythms of the majority? But can multi-ethnic groups integrate into a composite whole where ethnic distinctives are celebrated, not smothered or diluted. And in my experience, I think many churches in my world would be totally fine with ethnic assimilation. I don't think this is intentional for many churches. I think it's one of those kind of blind spots we have that, oh, totally, we want lots of different ethnicities in our church and that'd be awesome. But if we don't really do some very critical self-reflection, we might miss the fact that we still are trying, we kind of want them, oftentimes unintentionally, to conform to the majority flavor and rhythms of the church. I want to go beyond that. I don't want to just

assimilate minority ethnic groups into a dominant, in our context, white majority evangelical culture. I want to celebrate and integrate different ethnic cultures together. That would be my main goal of ethnic reconciliation, not assimilation, but genuine integration. Assimilation would be fairly easy for the majority group, of course. Integration is much more complicated and complex, but I do think that the Bible's, the biblical vision is for integration, not just assimilation. Now, a little personal history here, why this topic is so important to me. I mean, I would say I grew up in a, well, I would say a mildly racist environment. Maybe mildly, maybe I need to put a little stronger than that. You know, I, you know, around Thanksgiving

wasn't uncommon for my, um, relatives to tell racist jokes. And as a little kid, I'd kind of laugh at them or whatever. I kind of uncomfortably like, uh, even, even as a five, six year old, I'm like, I don't know, it doesn't feel right, but it's kind of just what we do, you know? But I also, I don't know, deep down as I reflect, and I'm hoping I'm not reading my modern mindset back into my childhood context, although that's possible, but I never, I don't know, just, I always felt this almost like social pressure to kind of mock or make fun of different ethnicities, but deep down, I never really had that bone in my body. Like I didn't, I don't know. I didn't feel it. Like I didn't feel deep down like animosity

or bitterness, whatever, towards different ethnicities. But I almost felt this like weird, unspoken social pressure to, to feel that. But there are several life-changing experiences that I had that shape really how I think about the topic today. The first one that I can really remember was in fifth and sixth grade, I moved houses. My parents had gotten divorced when I was 10 years old and I was living with my mom. And so we moved when I was 10 years old across town to a different neighborhood. And I attended Nelson Elementary in Fresno, California. And Nelson Elementary was an interesting place because it was a pretty – well, and again, processing as a kid, I didn't have categories. I didn't think too hard about it. But now looking back, I'm like, wow, this is an interesting school. It was made up of about 50%, maybe around 50% rich white kids and about 50%

of poor kids of color, primarily of Latino descent, primarily Mexican descent. Now, I was in a weird space where I was a white kid, but I was a poor white kid. And my neighborhood was filled largely with either other poor white kids or poor kids of Latino or primarily Mexican descent. So at school, most of my friends were still white, but they were in the rich neighborhood and I didn't belong in the neighborhood. So I felt a little bit like, I kind of belong here because I'm white, but I don't belong here because I'm poor. And then when I go home, you know, go home after school and I was in the neighborhood with a lot of kids of color. So I didn't know quite where I fit in. And I still remember though, kind of reflecting on that tension there. Again, I didn't have the categories. No one

like discipled me through this at all. It wasn't talked about, but it was just kind of this interesting, weird mix of like wanting to be one of the rich white kids and i was white so i kind of was but they let me know that yeah you're kind of one of us but not really like you don't live next to us you know um so i felt i always felt kind of a little bit on the outside there but then when i was around my friends my mexican friends they're like well you're kind of one of us because you live in our neighborhood but you're not one of us because you're still white. So it was the first time I really felt this subtle tension. Fast forward to 1994, graduate high school from Bullard High, 1994, Fresno, California, moved down to Chula Vista, California, where I attended,

just south of San Diego, Chula Vista, where I attended Southwestern University, played baseball there for a couple of years. It's a junior college, even though it's called Southwestern University. Why is it called university? Can junior colleges be universities? Anyway, Chula Vista is five miles north of the Californian-US-Mexico border. Southwestern University, I'm going to guess, I'm going to just estimate, was about 80% non-white. Primarily, again, Mexican or Latino descent. If I remember correctly, the next highest population might be of Asian descent. White people made up about, I'm going to, again, just estimating based on kind of like, you know, the class, the classes I attended, whenever I attended class, I was, you know, I would, you know, the class about 30 people. I always remember about two to five, two to four white people, um, in, in the classroom of which I was one of them.

Um, my baseball team that I played on was about at least 60% non-white. Again, these are just really, really rough figures. Maybe, maybe, maybe it's more than that. I don't know. percent non-white again these are just really really rough figures maybe maybe it's more than that i don't know um yeah that was that was the first time where when i had an extended experience of being in the ethnic minority like i remember going into a classroom being a minority and feeling that feeling you get when you see another or a couple other white people come into the room like oh there's someone kind of like me and And that just feeling of like, oh, I'm not alone. Feeling some kind of instant camaraderie with somebody that I don't even know, might not even talk to, but just kind of like that, you know, you kind of glance at each other and just notice like, where, um, ethnic, I don't want to

say tensions. I wouldn't say I experienced a lot of tensions there. We, you know, I related to and got along with non-white people in a way that I didn't even think about, um, the ethnic differences. And also like, you know, um, when it comes to, you know, going back to the kind of race conversation, there was a decent percentage of people of Mexican or Latino descent that had blonde hair, blue eyes, light skin. Sometimes, you know, in the middle of the summer when I was at the beach every day, I might've had darker skin than some of them. So, so that's where some of the visible kind of differences were a lot more blurry, but

clearly, you know, I'll be sitting next to somebody who looked totally white, blonde hair, blue eyes, you know, and I would say hi to them and they would speak back to me in an accent. I'm like, oh, gosh, I thought you were from North Dakota or something. But they had an accent. salting my story here with different moments when ethnic differences were kind of brought to the forefront of my experience. Fast forward to 2008. I was teaching at Cedarville University in Ohio. A little shout out to Cedarville University. A colleague of mine at the time was Jeff Cook. Jeff Cook ran the urban ministry program. And he taught a class called an introduction to urban ministry, which was the most talked about class at the college. He's no longer there. I

don't know if they still have that program anymore. But when I was there, everybody talked about the class introduction to urban ministry because it revolutionized the way people thought. It was like this whole... jeff almost had this like cult following on campus like there were people who um took the class and now their eyes had been open and everybody else who was kind of like ignorant i mean i don't think he intended intended it to be divisive at all i wouldn't say it's divisive but there was kind of this like oh yeah you don't really get it until you've gone through Jeff Cook's class. So in spring 2009, I decided to take class as a professor. I told Jeff, I was like, dude,

can I take your class? He's like, you're a professor. You don't take classes. You teach classes. I'm like, I want to take your class. And he's like, all right, you can take class. So as a professor, I sat in on this class and one of the highlights of this class was, I forgot what he called it, poverty weekend or something where he, as part of the class, the kids, he would go down to downtown Springfield, Ohio, just north of Dayton, Ohio, which was a fairly poor city, Springfield, Ohio, at least when I was there 15, 10, 15 years ago. poor city, Springfield, Ohio, at least when I was there 15, 10, 15 years ago. And he would make the kids live homeless for a weekend, Friday through, I think we go back Sunday, no food, sleeping outside. And he had all kinds of exercises that he would have us do to just experience 48 hours of what it is to be, you know, to have life on the streets. Now the weekend that was poverty weekend when I attended the class happened to be negative 19 degrees outside, negative 19. Now I'm a California kid, so we don't have negative degrees. Um, I did spend some time

in Scotland before this. So I experienced cold weather, but oh my word, the Midwest and negative 19 is no joke. And so surely I thought Jeff would cancel the weekend. Um, and then even the class was like, okay, so obviously we're not doing it this weekend. So when, when are we going to do poverty weekend? He's like, oh no, we're doing it this weekend. And we're like, uh, it's negative 19. And he's like, what are the homeless people going to do? Like they don't get the like checkout because, because it's cold out. I's like, what are the homeless people going to do? Like they don't get to like check out because it's cold out. I'm like, you could be kidding me. Like this guy's going to be facing some lawsuits. So we went and stayed out, spent the night on the streets at negative 19.

Jeff did come to me because I was a professor with the students. And he kind of come to me and whispered, you know, through the side of his mouth. He's like, hey, can you keep your ear to the ground? Just make sure no one's like freezing to death here. Like, yeah, well, I'll call an ambulance if I see somebody just, you know, yeah, freezing to death. But anyway, so we, yeah, long story short, man, it was, yeah, it was a life-changing experience. We dove into dumpsters because we were hungry. We begged for money outside of a gas station and felt the cold degrading chill of soccer moms,

not making eye contact with you when you're asking for money. We listened to the story of prostitutes and he brought in prostitutes and had them tell their story why and how they got into prostitution. I remember meeting a homeless guy who had a master's degree in English. We were at a, we were part of the, I think it was Sunday morning. We go and we serve food at, we were going to help out with like a soup kitchen or something. And he made us, he's like, make sure you serve soup. And then you go and you hang out and you eat soup with the people who are eating soup. And I remember I sat down across from a guy with a big beard, definitely looked very homeless and started talking to him and he was really articulate. And I'm like, tell me your story. And part of his

story was he has a master's degree in English. I'm like, what do you do on the streets? And I, if I'm, this is going back, I hope I remember this correctly. It was something like, what do you do on the streets? And I, if I'm, this is going back, I hope I remember this correctly. It was something like he was like driving down a country road one day and somebody was backing out of his driveway and he smacked into the driveway, huge accident, got severely injured. Long story short, his injury was like crippling. I think he might have been in a wheelchair at least for a long time. Lost his job, ended up losing his wife, his family, his house, fell into alcoholism. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And his whole life slipped away and he ended up on the streets.

And I remember thinking, and I think Jeff even reinforced this, that we are all one thinking, and I think Jeff even reinforced this, that we are all one bad decision or one unfortunate event from being on the streets. And that really, that really hit home with me. I was like, wait, everybody? And Jeff was like, everybody. Everybody is one event away from being on the streets. So it was really through, and that doesn't have to do specifically with ethnicity, more with socioeconomic complexity and poverty and so on and so forth. But it was through that course when I really started to cultivate a love for marginalized people. And I became a little bit, I would say, frustrated at how the majority middle-class people kind of fails to understand the complexity of poverty and ethnic tensions.

I remember when it's negative 19 out all night, we were lighting dumpsters on fire, trying to keep warm. We did not sleep. I think I slept like an hour. I just snuggled in my sleeping bag for a bit of that for a while. It got so cold that I was going to probably freeze it if I didn't like get on my bag and go huddle by a fire. And I remember the next morning, you know, almost everybody didn't really sleep all night. And Jeff comes in, says, hey, you guys look tired. And we're just glazed over like we just want to sleep somewhere. Like he's like, do you think you guys can fall asleep right now? Like kind of sleep all day?

And we're like, oh, yeah, I can sleep all day right now. And he's like, now you know why you see so many homeless people asleep during the day. A lot of them, at least in cold weather places have been trying to stay warm all, all night. I'm like, I never thought about that. Around the same time, I began studying the lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. A buddy of mine, Ed Uzinski, who many of you know, he's been on the podcast several times, introduced me to the writings of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. I grew up thinking both of these men were terrible and demon possessed and enemies of the gospel.

And I remember hearing my, I think one of my relatives call Malcolm X, uh, Malcolm excrement was his joke about Malcolm X. And so that was, I just had a really bad taste. Like Martin Luther King was kind of a pseudo Christian. Malcolm X was basically the devil. And that was kind of my, um, understanding of these two men growing up. But I, yeah, started reading their writings, reading books about them, listening to sermons listening to speeches reading speeches and i just yeah i spent a year really just studying like the civil rights movement reading their writings listening to sermons and stuff and just really became fascinated with both martin both martin luther king malcolm x now i especially became enamored and fascinated

with malcolm x i mean he mean, he's often known for being more militant and violent than MLK. And in some ways he was. And MLK has shaped my nonviolent ethic and big fan of MLK. But Malcolm X, I became more enamored with Malcolm X. Malcolm X is one of the most interesting, committed, honest, virtuous, and intelligent men of the 20th century. I make no apologies for that statement. Studying X opened my eyes to even more of the complexities of, we'll just say, relations as it's often put in America. His autobiography, the autobiography of Malcolm X as told by Alex Haley or something, it's rated one of the top books of the 20th century and it's one of the top most influential books in my life. You have to read this book. It's so, so good. So eye-opening. And I became a huge fan of Malcolm X. He is a fascinating person.

Fast forward a few years. It's 2010. I'm on the preaching team at Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California, where Francis Chan used to be a pastor. So when Francis Chan left, the church basically went to a team teaching model. And I was one of the four or five team teachers. And one of the first books we went through was the book of Ephesians. And we all kind of divided the book into chunks and assigned different passages. And I was assigned Ephesians 2, 11 through 22. crystallize a lot of thoughts that were already going on in my mind and heart regarding ethnic reconciliation. This is one of the clearest and most important passages on ethnic reconciliation. Let me just open it up here. So we often know, I mean, if you're a Christian, you know, Ephesians

2, 1 to 10, for by grace, you've been saved, right? Through faith. It's a big, huge reconciliation passes between you, us, humans, and God are reconciled to God through the cross. And a lot of times, Ephesians 2, 11 to 22, the last half of that chapter just gets a back seat. We have to ask the question, why? Why do we kind of lose steam after 1 to 10 and kind of glaze over 11 to 22? So let me read the first few verses here. Paul says, so then remember that at one time you, because you were Gentiles in the flesh,

and he's writing to Gentiles. Ephesus is largely Gentile. You were Gentiles in the flesh called uncircumcised by those called the circumcised. Okay, this isn't just something you do to your genitals. Like this was a sign of ethnic difference, circumcision, which is done in the flesh by human hands. At that time, you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel and foreigners to the covenants of promise without hope and without God in the world.

But now, which kind of echoes the but now in Ephesians, is it two, three? I guess it's right in front of me. Let me see. Oh no, the but God. But Ephesians 2, 4. But God, you know, Ephesians 2, 1 to 3. We're horrible. We're terrible. We're sinful. We're evil. But God, verse 4, who is rich in mercy rescued us, right?

Well, now we have another but now, another contrast. This is what you used to be, 2, 11 to 12. But now in Christ, you who are far away, this isn't a general description of humans who are far away from God. This is Gentiles who are far away from the ethnic entity of Israel. But now in Christ, you who are far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he is our peace who made both groups into one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility. The peace here is not just peace between humanity and God. It's peace among or between different ethnic groups.

In his flesh, in the flesh of Jesus, he, Jesus, made of no effect the law consistent of commands and expressed in regulation so that he might, so that, that's a purpose, so that he might create in himself one new person or new man, according to this translation, from the two. Who is the one and who are the two? The one is the family of God. The two are Jews and Gentiles, two different ethnic groups, so that he might create himself one new man from the two resulting in peace, peace, not just between humans and God, but among Jews and Gentiles, different ethnic groups. He did this so that another purpose so that he might reconcile both. Who are the both Jews and Gentiles, different ethnic groups in one body through the cross by which he put the hostility to death. Simply put, part of the goal of the cross of Christ was ethnic reconciliation, not assimilation,

not Gentiles becoming Jews or taking part of the Jewish culture so that they can become part of the covenant, but genuine integration. Gentiles coming in as Gentiles. This is why the rules and regulations have to do with kind of the dietary laws and stuff, which dietary laws became, they became through history, kind of like ethnic walls of division. We'll get to that more in a second. So Christ tore that down. This is one main reason why the dietary regulations were done away with in the New Testament because of the desire for ethnic integration and reconciliation. The one new humanity is a beautiful to play at the composite whole, both Jews and Gentiles, which is a paradigm for all forms of ethnic reconciliation, especially ones where there has been ethnic division and animosity. I was blown

away. So this is my sermon and I think it might still be online somewhere, but don't look at it because if you're a preacher, right, you cringe at sermons you preach six months ago, let alone 12 years ago. But yeah, that preparing for that sermon was kind of where I'm like, oh, it's coming together now. I'm not just becoming passionate about ethnic reconciliation on a personal level, but now even more so on a theological level. And what's even fascinating to me is I had studied Ephesians in seminary. I took a whole class on Ephesians in seminary. And part of the class was to read Ephesians 30 times before a class even started. It's a great, great exercise, by the way. If you're a professor or whatever, I would highly recommend doing this. Like

the class started was, I took the class on Ephesians in the fall. And over the summer, the professor said, you need to read Ephesians every day for 30 days before the class starts. So that when we jump into this class, you're already drunk on Ephesians, so to speak. So going into this sermon in 2010, I knew Ephesians really well. Whole class taken on it. Read through the Greek. Exegeted the Greek, every word, never recognized the impact or the, what now I see as a very, very clear point of Ephesians 2, 11 to 22. What is that? What is, how, how does that happen? How does that happen? It's just another indicator that, man, we have blinders on when we read the text. Our context, our status, our culture, our ethnicity shapes how we read the Bible.

So, I was blown away. I mean, this was not, again, I'm like, this is Ephesians 2, 11 to 22 does not say that, hey, if you get around to it, let's pursue ethnic reconciliation. It says that this is part of the goal of the cross of Christ to establish shalom among different ethnic groups, especially those that have a history of animosity like the Jews and Gentiles. So that forced me to kind of back up and look at a wider biblical and theological lens of ethnic reconciliation. So I would, let's go back to Genesis 12. Genesis 12 is where God first starts to establish his covenant promises with Abraham. And if you have done any kind of Bible study, you know that

the God's promise to Abraham becomes a, I don't want to say a, maybe the theological backbone to the new covenant. Well, I mean, we, I guess we can go all the way back to Genesis one and two and three and God's covenant, or at least promise made to Adam and Eve in the garden. But Genesis 12 and Genesis 15 documents God's, well, the next step in that plan of redemption. And it's a huge step. God's promise to Abraham becomes foundational for the coming of Jesus, the Davidic covenant, the God's covenant with David, the second Davidic king, and the inauguration of the new covenant and the new Testament and so on and so forth. Like, and that's, this is not, there's no dispute about this. And there's no dispute about the fact that Genesis 12, one to three is so fundamental to the storyline of scripture. Like it is the, again, compare it to

like, if our theology is like a house, Genesis 12, 1 to 3 is like the cement, the foundation of the house. If you don't understand that, the whole house will crumble. So Genesis, as part of this, these promises to Abraham in Genesis 12, 3, God says, I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse. bless you and whoever curses you, I will curse and all peoples, peoples on the earth will be blessed through you. And I don't have the references in front of me, but that last statement, all peoples of the earth or all families of the earth, another translation has it, will be blessed to you. This is repeated all throughout Genesis and throughout the Pentateuch, especially. It's a common, like after Genesis 12, 3, we see a lot of references to the same promise, all peoples. That refers to all different kinds of peoples. The point is God is going to not just bless the physical descendants of Abraham, but it's going

to be through the descendants of Abraham that God will bless other ethnic groups. All peoples of the earth will be blessed through you. And just to give a 30 second overview of the Old Testament, we see glimpses of this promise being worked out in the Old Testament, but we don't see it come to ultimate fruition until the New Testament. So we see glimpses in the Old Testament. We see, for instance, Joseph blessing the Egyptians at the end of Genesis, right? It's through Joseph, which is through Abraham, through Abraham's seed, through Joseph, that all peoples here, the Egyptians, are being blessed, in this case, very much physically blessed with food during the famine, right? And at the end of Genesis, through Joseph, God blesses all peoples,

non-Jews, Egyptians, through the seed of Abraham. Rahab is blessed. Rahab, the Canaanite harlot, Canaanite harlot is blessed. Ruth, the Moabite widow is blessed. Uriah, the Hittite is blessed. is blessed. Uriah the Hittite is blessed. God sends Jonah to the Assyrians and they receive a blessing through Jonah, who is a seed of Abraham. He's ethnically Israelite. Elisha heals the Syrian general Naaman. And so on and so forth. We see glimpses of all people's different ethnicities being blessed through the Jewish people throughout the Old Testament. But the radical in-breaking of the Genesis 12, 3 promise happens, of course, in the New Testament. We see glimpses of this throughout the life of Jesus, where he is constantly reaching out and blessing people outside of Israel. Yeah,

there's too many examples to list, Um, but we see Jesus, um, extending this promise to different people outside of Israel. The floodgates kind of open in, in Acts chapter two at Pentecost, when it says, um, Acts chapter two, five says, uh, that there were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven, every nation. So these are God-fearing Jews, but were part of other nations. And when they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard their own language being spoken.

And they were utterly amazed saying, aren't these all speaking Galilean? How is it that each of us hears them in our native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, and Phrygia, and Pamphylia, and Egypt, and parts of Libya near Cyrene. Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism. That's an important point in verse 2.11 and Acts chapter 2.11, that there are both Jews and converts to Judaism, namely Gentiles, non-Jewish people,

ethnically different, that had already converted to Judaism. They spoke a different language. They showed up to Pentecost in Jerusalem, and they were hearing the apostles speaking in their own language. Cretans and Arabs, those are ethnic distinctions. We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues, our own languages. This is a celebration of different ethnicities receiving the same spirit and language barriers being overcome. being overcome, both by celebrating the different languages and yet not letting those languages become barriers. They didn't all just lose their ethnic tongue. They heard what was being spoken in their own ethnic language. This is the birthday of the church. This is central. Well, this is foundational to what it means to be the church. And, you know, I just can't overemphasize the significance of language here. One significant

barrier to ethnic reconciliation has been language, right? I mean, if you've ever, you know, learned a foreign language or if you've been to another country that speaks a different language, foreign language, or if you've been to another country that speaks a different language, you'd know how integral language is to one's ethnicity. This is why this might be offensive. Hopefully, it's not. Shouldn't be. Just true. If you're a long-term missionary to a different culture that speaks a different language and you don't learn their language, how can you say you love the culture, love the people and not learn their language? I'm not talking about short-term trips or whatever, but like, if you're like, no, I want to go reach French people.

I want to go reach German people. I want to go reach people who speak Swahili or whatever. Like it just, it's a bad look when Americans go and say, we love you, we want to reach you or whatever, but we don't want to learn your language. It's like, well, then you don't, how do you, then you're always going to be an outsider. So yeah. Um, and other ethnic, there's other ethnic distinctives that missionaries should engage in. You know, I remember, um, hearing, well, yeah, just, we'll just say some people I know were missionaries in France back in the seventies and eighties. And, and, um, they were with a kind

of conservative mission organization that had a no drinking policy. And they learned early on that it is so offensive to go try to reach French people and then get to know somebody, get to know the baker, the, the, the butcher. And the butcher, and then they invite you over for dinner. And if you're a guest, if you get invited over for dinner and you'd be the guest of a French family, they're going to break out a special bottle of wine, probably by a local vineyard. It's a big, it's a sign of a relationship. And for you to stick your hand out and say, oh no, no, we don't drink your wine. Like that is, they learned early on that this is going to work. You don't plant legitimate churches in France if you're like, oh no, we're not going to drink your wine. You might as well just like stick your finger out

and say, you know, F you, but hey, I love you. You know, like, we're not going to drink your wine. You might as well just like stick your finger out and say, you know, F you. But hey, I love you. You know, like that's just not going to work. So they did not abide by that drinking regulation in order to reach people for Christ. So learning one's language is kind of a first step towards reconciliation in another country where language is part of the culture. So the breaking down of language barriers is a significant sign of ethnic reconciliation in Acts chapter 2. And we see this theme carried on through Acts in Acts chapter 6. One of the first major disputes had to do with ethnic tension.

Jews and Gentiles in Acts chapter 6. Acts chapter 8, we see salvation extended to the Samaritans and then to an Ethiopian eunuch. More ethnic barriers being broken down. This is intentional. This is part of the outworking of Genesis 12.3. We see the church at Antioch, probably the most influential church in the book of Acts. The church at Antioch was led by a team of multi-ethnic leaders, prophets and teachers, which included two Africans, two Middle Eastern Jews, and one dude from Asia Minor named Saul, Paul.

Multi-ethnic leadership at the most significant influential church. So Acts narrates not just the spread of the gospel or the growth of the church or a bunch of signs and wonders, it celebrates the power of the gospel overcoming social, gender, and ethnic barriers. Now, again, remember Genesis 12.3, through you, all the peoples of the earth will be blessed. I want to turn over to Galatians 3.8.

Galatians 3 is one of the more significant summaries of the gospel. You want a tight summary of the storyline of scripture from Abraham to Jesus, Galatians three. Look at what Paul says in chapter three, verse eight. Paul says, scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel, okay? Announced the gospel in advance to Abraham saying, all nations, all peoples will be blessed through you. In light of everything I'm saying, please look at Galatians 3.8 and ask yourself the question, is ethnic reconciliation an add-on to the gospel? Something good that we should pursue if we have the time and space and interest, or is it an essential aspect of the gospel? Like one significant purpose of why Jesus died. Again, I'll say it again.

Paul says that the scripture said that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham saying, all nations will be blessed by you, blessed through you. Paul says that the promise, that the roots of ethnic reconciliation embedded in the Abrahamic promise in Genesis 12, 3 is the gospel. I'm not even trying to make an argument here. It's just a linguistic observation.

The term euangelion, ton euangelion or whatever in Greek, is the content of the gospel here is all the nations will be blessed through you, which again is specifically about ethnic reconciliation. If you're still not convinced, let's back up a chapter to Galatians chapter two. Galatians chapter two, Paul narrates this conflict he had with Peter. Okay. And really the roots of this chapter in Galatians two goes back to Acts 10 through 15. If you go back to Acts 10 to 11, in particular, Peter has this vision where he learned that the Old Testament dietary laws are being done away with. And these dietary laws had built a barrier between Jews and Gentiles. And God was now tearing down this barrier like we saw in Ephesians 2.

And Peter was doing it. If you go back to Acts 10 through 12, you see that Peter was doing this. He was shocked at first. He has this vision. Go eat these animals. And he tells God, but they're unclean. And God says, don't say they're unclean anymore. They're not unclean. And this, the animals kind of represent the people and these people Gentiles are not unclean and go to the house of Cornelius and yada, yada, yada. Peter was doing it.

But, and we kind of get glimpses of something that happened after that, that Peter ended up feeling pressure from some Jews or maybe Jewish Christians to stop doing this. He was bullied by some Jewish people who said, what are you doing eating with Gentiles? Jews don't eat with Gentiles. You're eating unclean food. You need to separate yourself from these Gentiles. Stop eating with them. And so Peter caved in. He started to rebuild that wall, the dietary laws that had separated the Jews from the Gentiles. And what

does Paul say to Peter? In Galatians 2.14, he says, Peter, you are deviating from the truth of the gospel. Let me say it again. The truth of the gospel. Why? Because Peter was erecting, re-erecting, rebuilding walls of ethnic division. Paul did not see ethnic reconciliation as some secondary thing that we should pursue, that we should care about if we get around to it. He says, this is part of the truth of the gospel, of the euangelion. Flip over to Ephesians 3. So I would say a huge chunk of the book of Ephesians is about, almost all of Ephesians is about, almost all of Ephesians is about reconciliation between differences. Unity among difference is a huge theme in Ephesians, but especially ethnic reconciliation.

And it really goes back to, well, I would say Ephesians 2 to 4 really captures this theme. Let's see. Yeah. theme. Let's see. Yeah. So Ephesians 2, 1 to 10, reconciliation between humans and God, 11 to 22, reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles, a paradigm for all forms of ethnic reconciliation. And then in the first verses in Ephesians 3, Paul says, for this reason, what reason? The reconciliation of Jews and Gentiles. So the theme continues in chapter three. For this reason, I, Paul, prisoner of Jesus Christ,

on behalf of you Gentiles, okay? So he's still talking about ethnic stuff, but something happens in verse two here in Ephesians two. He seems to go on a tangent. And this is something, I'm not sure what translation, I cut and pasted a translation. I forgot which one I'm using here, but it has a dash at the end of verse one Ephesians three one.

And so he goes on, which kind of signifies some kind of tangent here. So for this reason, I Paul prisoner Jesus Christ on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you've heard of the stewardship of God's grace that was given to me, how the mystery was made known to me. It kind of goes on this seems like a rabbit trail. It's actually not. And my friend, Tim Gavis, wrote an article years back on why Ephesians 3,

I think 1 to 11, he said, is not a digression of Paul's main thought, but is capturing Paul's main thought. He's going back to the roots of how he came to be an agent of ethnic reconciliation. So he's going on about how, you know, God has called me in to be an agent of God's grace. To you Gentiles, you guys are fellow heirs, same body, partakers of the promise. Like he just goes deeper and deeper and deeper into the significance and beauty of Gentiles being reconciled to God through the cross. Of this gospel, I was made a minister, Paul says in verse 7, 3-7. To me, verse 8, the least of all the saints, I was given the honor to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, to bring to light everything in the plan of the mystery that was hidden for

ages in God who created all. I mean, it just goes on. It's just like he's getting into this. Ooh, hallelujah. I'll stop. This really grandiose climactic moment of the whole kind of story of salvation and how he's been grafted into it. A story of salvation that is focused here on

ethnic reconciliation through the cross. Verse 10 is so, it's been one of my favorite verses in this whole conversation. Paul says, so this is one sentence, Ephesians 3, 2 through 10 is one sentence summarizing the storyline of scripture and how Paul's been grafted into it all around the theme of ethnic reconciliation. Look at verse 10. So that the Greek word is henna. So that that's a purpose clause. Okay. I just can't, I don't know how to over, I don't know how to, I need to, I just need everybody to get this. So I don't know if I need to yell and scream or do a dance or cartwheel or something. So that this is the purpose of the whole thing. So that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places.

Now, most Christians I know have read this statement in all of Ephesians 3, just in really abstract terms, like, oh, grace and peace and salvation and Jesus and cross and gospel. And it's great. We've been saved and not by our own works. And man, it's awesome. And we need to preach like Paul and God's plan of salvation is a mystery. And now it's been proclaimed. All these abstract terms, these are all biblical concepts, but they are all rooted. All of those terms are intrinsically connected to ethnic reconciliation. God planned to bring different ethnic groups together so that, verse 10, through this one family, Ephesians 2,

the manifold wisdom of God in bringing together different ethnic groups on equal footing, integration, not just assimilation, that the embodiment of the multi-ethnic church will proclaim to the rulers and authorities in heavenly places, to the demonic powers that God is one. The church is the coming together of different ethnic groups. And it is, the multi-ethnic church is the embodiment of the power of God. And it's to proclaim to all the forces of darkness that God achieved what he set out to do in Genesis 12, 3. This doesn't sound like an optional add-on, folks. Correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, again, please biblically fact check me. Go back, do Greek word studies, whatever. Go look

at the context, look up words, like go back and read the context. All I'm trying to do is follow the biblical logic of what Paul is saying here. Ethnic reconciliation is a major theme in Paul's ministry. It's all throughout the book of Romans. Have we even talked about Romans yet? Oh my gosh. Romans one through four, especially three and four is all about, I mean, all about, it's about lots of things, but it's, it's, it's, it's the main driving theme is to show that Jews and Gentiles are both saved equally by faith on equal footing. Romans nine through 11 is a lot of that is about ethnic reconciliation, 14 and 50. I mean, the whole book of Romans is shot through with this theme. Galatians, we've already seen it. Ephesians, we've already seen it. The Jerusalem collection. We didn't get into that. No, no time. If you Google my name, Preston Sprinkle,

Jerusalem collection, I think you'll get a blog that I wrote on this. Paul ran around the ancient world. Paul's missionary journeys that we read about in the book of Acts, a large focus of the missionary journeys was to go around the Gentile churches, wealthier Gentile churches, collecting money to bring back to the poor Jewish church in Jerusalem. There was a big famine in the area and the Jewish believers were suffering. And Paul brought back this gift with the intention, a gift given from Gentile believers to Jewish churches in Jerusalem with the intention to show the symbol of reconciliation. Hey, you Jews, I know you have a hard time with these Gentile people. I know these Gentiles don't quite get you, but they're giving you money. Of all these Gentile churches, I ran around the whole ancient world, the whole Mediterranean, collecting money from largely Gentile churches

to give to you, you Jewish believers, as a sign that we are both one family. The Jerusalem collection is a beautiful statement about poverty relief. It's also a beautiful sign of ethnic reconciliation. And Paul spills more ink on the Jerusalem collection throughout his letters than he does on the doctrine of justification by faith. That's not, I'm not trying to be edgy. I'm just making an observation. If you add up the words, I'm not, I'm not saying that this means it's more important than justification by faith. Personally, I would see it as integrated into justification by faith. But anyway, he's just, he spends more ink in his letters talking about the Jerusalem collection than he does about the doctrine of justification

by faith, just to put it into perspective. Revelation, let's just, I got to start wrapping this up. Revelation 5, 9 through 10, climactic moment, celebrating the finished plan of God, says the 24 elders, and I take the 24 elders in Revelation 5 to symbolize old covenant believers, new covenant believers, the 12 tribes of Israel, and the multi-ethnic church. So even the symbol of 24 elders combines the largely ethnocentric old covenant and the multi-ethnic new covenant coming together in one, symbolized by 24, not just 12 elders. They fall down before the lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of God's people. And they sung a new song saying, you, Jesus, are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain and with

your blood, you purchased for God persons from every tribe, language, and people, and nation. And you made them this multi-ethnic gathering to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God. And they, this multi-ethnic gathering will reign on the earth. John does not say you purchase for God people and end there. He specifically talks about the redemption of humanity as a multi-ethnic gathering. This passage, this heavenly hymn celebrates precisely the redemption and reconciliation of humanity as a beautiful array of ethnic groups coming together, languages and tribes and peoples and nations as a conclusion, as the finished work beginning in Genesis 12, 3, shot through the Old Testament, climaxing in the cross of Christ, which was partially intended to bring together these different ethnic groups and both Ephesians 3, 10 and Revelation 5, 9 to 10 celebrates the victory that was won. So out of allegiance to God's word in the gospel, I would say that ethnic reconciliation is part of the good news, the

gospel that Jesus aims to bring about through his death and resurrection. I believe it is biblical. I believe it's Trinitarian that we are to embody the presence of God in the world and that God is unity among difference. And then a multi-ethnic body shows this off better than a uni-ethnic body. Practically, I think multi-ethnicity helps to blunt ethnocentrism. If a gathering is not multi-ethnic, I think it can easily sway into ethnocentrism where you think your ethnicity, oftentimes subconsciously, think it's kind of doing the right thing. say, um, like white people often describe black churches as, wow, they have really long services, three hour services. Wow. That's long. What does that mean? Long means there is a standard that they have gone beyond that services should be an hour and 15 minutes, hour and a half at the most. If you go three hours, that's long. That's not normal. That's long. Just little things like that. Like, I'm not normal that's long just little things like that

like i'm not saying it's like a racist statement or whatever it's just it just shows that that when we are in our mono-ethnic rhythms of church we it's just so easy for anybody i'm not just picking on white people this goes for anybody black churches might say you guys have short services you know we just tend to think that this is kind of the way to do it and any other way is a deviation from the way it should be done. Michael Emerson has been an American sociologist who's done a lot of research in this question in terms of like America and multi-ethnic churches. The definition he gives, I believe, of multi-ethnic churches. The definition he gives, I believe, of a multi-ethnic church is when no one ethnicity makes up more than 80% of its members. I think that's that kind of standard.

Once you are 80% or more of a certain ethnicity, then you're no longer a multi-ethnic church. So you probably remember the statement of MLK decades ago said Sunday morning at 11 a.m. is the most segregated hour of the week. It was an indictment on the church that as different aspects of society like the military and sports and everything was starting to become more multi-ethnic, the church was still kind of a stronghold of segregation, which is ironic since the church should be the opposite. The church should be leading the way of ethnic reconciliation. But in MLK's day, it was still kind of a stronghold. Fast forward to 1998, Michael Emerson says that 7.4% of American churches are multi-ethnic, 7.4%. By 2010, that has grown to 13.7% of American churches are multi-ethnic. So there's some progress happening here, which is great. Now, again, just because they're multi-ethnic doesn't mean reconciliation is happening.

It just means they're just ethnically more diverse, but can't have reconciliation without diversity. A 2012 study out of Baylor University showed that close to 20% of American evangelical churches in 2012 are multi-ethnic. So we do see progress, which is great. But again, this is progress in terms of ethnic diversity, not necessarily reconciliation. necessarily reconciliation. So I, in a sense, I'm glad that there are, I think, a growing number, just anecdotally, a growing number of people I know and organizations that are making ethnic reconciliation a more significant issue than it has been in the past. Let me give a few caveats here at the end. And so here's where I'm just going to give some thoughts. And here I'm relying on friends of mine who have done, who are doing the work. So I've just been talking theologically

here for the most part, biblically and theologically. I'm not a leader in a multi-ethnic church. I haven't done the on the ground work of multi-ethnic reconciliation in a local church context as a leader. Okay. I try to play a certain role that I can in the ministries that I run, both at the Center for Faith, Sexuality, and Gender, and through Theology in Raw, by having these conversations, by having a diverse range of guests on. And it's not easy. If you're not intentional, it's just not going to happen. So just, I don't know if I've even said this publicly, but you remember a few years ago, um, through the center

for face, sexuality, and gender, we produced a video called a short documentary called dear church. I'm gay. If you haven't seen it, 20 minute documentary, it's free on YouTube, dear church. I'm gay. It's great. And I invited five white people, LGBTQ Christians, and five LGBT Christians of color, of different ethnicities. I invited, so 10 people, half were white, half were not white. Every single white person said, sure, I can do that. And every single person of color said, well, you know, one guy, I remember one guy, bless his heart, said, well, you know, my grandma still lives in Nigeria and she would be, I'm not out to her. Um, so, uh, can you blur my face? I can't be seen. I'm like, well, I appreciate that. And I certainly

wouldn't want to out you to your grandmother, but I, part of the goal of this documentary is not to blur faces, to proclaim faces. Another guy was about to come. I was going to fly a guy out from South America, but that last second, he said the same thing, like the shame surrounding his family. There were ethnic hurdles that prevented all five persons of color from being part of the video, even though they wanted to be. And so we went ahead with the video shoot. I had everything lined up and we shot the video and there's all, all five

people in it are white. And, uh, you know, um, and people, I remember meeting with a bunch of black pastors in, in, um, Ohio and Cleveland, Ohio. Uh, I was doing a conference at a, at a, at a, at a, a black church hosted a sexuality conference. And, um, the path I, I, I said, yeah, I said, one thing I want is can you gather a group of 12 black leaders from the area? And I would love to learn how we can, as an organization meet your needs better. Um, I feel like we're doing a decent job with more white churches. How can we break down some of the color barriers here? And one of the main things was, you know, one of the pastors, I won't say his name, but a brilliant, first of all, brilliant theologian said, yeah, I really liked your video, dear

church. I'm good. It's good. It's good. The only thing missing is I would like to see more people that look like me like that. That would really help me in my ministry. And I was like, oh my gosh. And I explained to him saying, I 100% agree hundred percent agree. And I'm, I'm trying, it's not always easy, you know, looking back.

So, so now when the resources we produce, you know, so with that documentary, we, we kind of like, wow, we tried, but it didn't work out. So we're going to have all white people. We've gotten to a point now to where we won't move forward with a resource unless, until we can find ethnic diversity, because I think that is super important. Yeah. So is it just something that, hey, if it works out, that's great? Or is it something that this is an essential part of what we're trying to do. So let me give a few clarifying remarks. I know, first of all, what about churches or ministries or whatever that are in mono-ethnic areas?

This, you know, like what if your town neighborhood is 95% white? Or not just white. I'm just going to keep using white as an example because I'm white, so this is the hurdle that I run up against. But it would be true of another context. It's 90% non-white. For example, Boise, Idaho, where I live is 92% Caucasian. And the non-white people typically live in certain, clustered in certain parts of the

city. So it's not totally segregated Like some places in the South that I've been to where it's like, man, you literally crossed a railroad tracks and it's like, you go from all white to all nonwhite. It's not quite like that, but yeah, it would not be uncommon for a church to have in its four mile radius to have 95% white people living there. I asked Derwin Gray this question. How do you form a multi-ethnic church that's not in a multi-ethnic area? And he said, and I just kind of summarized, that churches should, generally speaking, reflect the ethnic and gender and socioeconomic makeup of their community.

So if your community is 95% white, then yeah, it's okay. Your church should be 95% white. You can't be busting in people necessarily just to diversify the church. There are other ways in which you can still make this a priority. So I think even he suggested, Derwin, that mono-ethnic churches can and should partner with other churches that are in a more diverse area. So Boise, Idaho. I just had a conversation last night actually with my pastor and his wife. You know, Boise, Idaho has a pretty decent refugee population, especially from Middle East middle east and central and eastern africa is um some somalia

yeah central uh uganda rwanda tanzania and other other places in central africa a lot of i mean i think i want to say about 12 000 maybe refugees from um different parts of the world so there's several churches in the area that are all kind of like, uh, refuge kind of refugee immigrant churches. Um, so even at the church I go to at Calvary Boise, we have a Congolese church that uses our building on Sunday nights and has like a hundred people in it. And the pastor's amazing. I mean, I just, he's incredible. A godly man. His stories will blow your socks off on how he came to christ but i mean i don't even know if how many maybe i mean i don't know how many people in the church i go to the

white largely largely not exclusively and actually the church i go to is largely white but it's probably more diverse than most churches in boise but i don't know if they know that they have like a congolese church that meets there every single uh sunday so just, I still wonder if this, if ethnic reconciliation is a priority on par with preaching a sermon next Sunday at nine and 11 and doing worship, if it is that much of a priority that your eyes might be open to more potential opportunities to embody the multi-ethnic vision that Christ died for. Also, there's another example from my hometown. There's a largely black, I want to say there's like kind of one main, there's a couple, but one main black church in town, and it's like 70% black downtown. The pastor there, I think is probably one of, if not the best preachers in Boise. He's incredible.

And I remember I was talking to him and he's been here for like 20 years. I was talking to him and I said, hey, so how many times have you been invited to speak at other churches in town? And he very just didn't, it's like, oh, the kind of thought is like, I think once. I'm like, wait, once? Once? You know, with your preaching gifts, I'm not just a gifted speaker. The dude's got a doctorate. He's super smart.

So he blends kind of the black preaching tradition, like the just powerful rhetoric with sound exegesis. Like he's kind of like MLK, like just super thoughtful, but also just rhetorically off the chart. I mean, he's an incredibly great preacher. And once, like this is just, he should be getting, churches in town should be banging down his door to say, please, can you come share our pulpit? We would be honored if you came and preached to our people. You have no time restraints. You do you.

However you preach in your church on Sunday morning, would you please come here and preach to our congregation? Like he should be getting invitations every week. One in 15 or 20 years? That's crazy. So again, here's an untapped opportunity. I mean, just a time. This is, and I'm not saying if he comes and preaches at your church, then you're doing multi-ethnic stuff, you know.

But it is a step, it is something. It is something to just show your people that there are other people in this town. There are different ethnic expressions of the gospel. people in this town. There are different ethnic expressions of the gospel. So all that to say, I just think if you see ethnic reconciliation as a priority, you will see opportunities in your neighborhood to embody that climactic statement in Ephesians 3.10. So I'll end with this. You know, I know that this conversation has been combined with angst around CRT and the social justice gospel and the woke church and all this stuff. And look, it's unfortunate that a lot of these divisions in the church are influenced by our secular political divisions and our news outlets in America. It is so depressing when you start talking about ethnic reconciliation or social justice that people automatically read

these categories through a political news lens. They let Fox News or CNN shape how they even think about things like ethnic reconciliation or diversity or racism or whatever. We need to get back to the text of scripture. What does the Bible say about these things? So go back to our leading question. Is ethnic reconciliation an essential and intrinsic aspect of the gospel or a secondary optional add-on? I'm going to say

hands down, if you read the Bible in light of everything I've said, it is woven into the very fabric of the good news that Christ sought to proclaim, that Christ died for, and that the Father raised Jesus from the dead partly to accomplish and to announce to the powers to be that God's plan has been accomplished. So go and do likewise. Thanks for listening to Theology in a Row. We'll see you next time on the show. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.