Welcome. Following the early autumn storms over identity and immigration, flags and demonstrations, a quiet reflection on how some New Testament scriptures might shape our church life.
Inter-Ethnic relations in the New Testament.
As churches in Britain increasingly have faced the challenge of people of different ethnicities belonging together in one fellowship, particular New Testament passages have become prominent. However such passages needto be seen in context, and often can not transfer directly to the situation facing intercultural churches in Europe today. Here I offer a classification of some of the key passages, seeking to identify issues which they do, but also do not address.
1. Intra-Jewish conflict.
As regards narratives the ethnic tensions between Hebraic and Hellenic widows in Acts 6:1-7 has received widespread treatment (see blog # 3. ‘The Church’s First Inter-Ethnic Conflict’, which also summarises Owen Hylton’ ‘Crossing the Divide’, and the excellent chapter by Kate Coleman in ‘Polyphonic God’, pp 191-214). Part of the reason that this passage is so helpful is that it is about power and ‘secondary’ ethnic differences within a shared religion. As the above references indicate it is fertile ground for Christians living in the West today because it recognises how differences can erupt over social or ‘practical’ issues of allocation, and not least because the church leaders took the matter seriously, and proposed specific and practical solutions which empowered the aggrieved side through appointing Hellenic deacons.
2. Jewish/Gentile unity.
Paul’s discussion of oneness in Christ in Ephesians 2:11-22 has rightly received attention, notably as a ground-motive in Bruce Milne’s excellent ‘Dynamic Diversity’ (2007). However here I want to argue that whilst this passage in Ephesians gives us some helpful pointers, without serious attention to its context it can be misleading and unhelpful. This is because Paul’s working model in this passage is of ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ – the ‘circumcision’ or the commonwealth of Israel’ set against ‘you Gentiles’, the’ uncircumcision’, or ‘aliens’ (verses 11 & 12). That is, it is about a diversity which is primarily religious rather than ethnic or cultural. Unthinkingly transposing it into our present situation can lead to wrong emphases.
Paul proclaims how through the blood of Christ the dividing wall between the Jews and Gentiles has been broken down through the cross of Christ, and that God has created ‘one new humanity in place of the two’ (verses 13 & 14). Alleluia!! Great news to both declare and to exhibit before the world around us, and as long as Paul’s original context of Jew/Gentile relationships is to the fore of our thinking there is no problem. It is when this context is lost and the passage is used to argue for inter-ethnic unity in our present day congregations that misunderstanding can develop. The insider/outsider theme can unwittingly transpose into an established/newcomer, and then English/ethnic minority key. The theological/spiritual contrast between the ‘near’ Jews and the ‘far off’ Gentiles in v 13, too neatly slides into a geographical/cultural contrast between established English/white/western and the ‘from a distance’ immigrant descended communities.
The issue in Ephesians 2 on Jew/Gentile relationships in the body of Christ is, therefore, somewhat askew from the widespread issue faced by churches today, that is concern about what we might call ‘intra-Gentile’ relationships in the church. Unless we are careful the outcome can be a patronising assumption that white Christians share the privilege of the Jews in being the original olive tree onto which a ‘wild olive shoot’ was grafted (Romans 11:17). There is an inevitable, theologically based asymmetry behind the joining together of Jew and Gentile in Ephesians 2, which is not the case in the coming together of Gentiles, for example of English, Nigerian, Punjabi or Jamaican ethnicities. There may well be a historical asymmetry in that the English were the earliest and local group in the church, but this easily slides over into a patronising assumption of being the possessors who welcome in ‘the aliens’ (Eph 2:12), rather than welcoming the fundamental unity in which we all come together to the cross.
3. Unity across diversities.
Galatians 3:28 and Colossians 3:11 both make similar points. In Galatians it is being baptised into Christ through faith that gives a unity that transcends religious/cultural, social status and sex divisions. In Colossians it is being re-clothed (after baptism) and renewed in Christ that unites us so that Christ is all and in all. Here ethnic, religious and social status divisions are again invoked, but also two descriptors that do not refer to polarisations: ‘There is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!’ Whilst ‘Greek’ can have a general reference to the non-Jewish population, ‘barbarian’ has a specific reference. So Andrew Walls writes: ‘Greek was not here an ethnic term. It had nothing to do with where you were born, with your race, or your skin colour. It was a cultural term. It stood for those who spoke Greek, who thought and read and built and lived in a certain way, who shared a certain universe of ideas, common to all civilised peoples. Those who did not were barbarians, barbaroi, people whose language was all baba. That is what the word means. And to the imagination of Roman folk what lay beyond the frontiers of the empire from the Atlantic to the Danube were the barbarians, fierce, unmanageable, and as the sand by the seashore for multitudes - people who, if the imperial frontiers were to collapse, would destroy all civilization. Christians of the Roman Empire shared the attitudes of their non-Christian colleagues towards the barbarians’ (in ‘Christian Conversion and Mission: A Brief Cultural History’, p 38). Walls’s rather negative assumption about the capacity of first-century Christians to embrace deep-seated ethno-cultural diversity is not evidenced, but he does refer to Tertullian in the second century praying for the upholding of the frontiers of the Empire for fear of the consequences of a barbarian invasion.
Paul in writing to the Colossians had in mind ‘barbarians’ within the Empire, whereas the focus of both Tertullian and Walls was for those without – in Walls’s case setting the scene for his argument that the collapse of the imperial frontiers led not to disaster but rather a swing in Christianity’s centre of gravity through the conversion of the tribes of western and northern Europe.
As regards Paul’s experience of ‘barbarians’ there is an intriguing vignette in Luke’s account of his ministry at Lystra where, following the healing of a lame man, the crowds in the Lycaonian language declare him and Barnabas to be the gods come down in human form and prepare to make sacrifices to them (Acts 14:11,12). Is Paul’s possibly exasperated response (‘Friends, why are you doing this?’, v 15) that of a Roman citizen, brought up in Tarsus, a city that ‘rivalled Athens as a centre of philosophy’ (N T Wright: ‘Paul, a Biography’, p 11), and so a sophisticated Roman intellectual, here discombobulated by such coarse, superstitious, rural idolatry?
Be that as it may, Paul was convinced that not just religious, class and sexual differentiation (as in Galatians 3:28) is overcome in Christ, but also cultural differentiation. As regards the Scythians, Josephus (a late first century Roman-Jewish historian) wrote ‘they are little better than wild beasts’ (‘Against Apion’ 2.269; quoted in ‘From every People and Nation: A biblical theology of race’, by J Daniel Hays, p 189 n9). Hays continues ‘Scythians were occasionally the objects of fun in Greek comedy because of their uncouth ways of speech’: an unhappy congruence with present-day examples.
For churches in Europe today where there can be quite deep-seated and basic cultural differences between members, Paul’s insistence that such cultural differences are subsumed in a unity given through our total allegiance to Christ is an essential expression of biblical faith.
4. Unity across social differences.
Given that in our situation ethnic differences often match (though decreasingly so) with differences in wealth, power and status then it can also be helpful to look at how the church in the New Testament related to social differences. Writing to the Corinthian church concerning their celebration of the Lord’s supper in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 17ff Paul upbraids them: ‘Do you show contempt for the church of God, and humiliate those who have nothing?’ (v 22). The blithe disregard of the well-off for the needs of the impoverished members of the church means ‘it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper’ (v 20). (For a fuller discussion see my blog # 20 ‘Barriers to Inclusivity in 1 Corithians’). Whilst this was probably not an ethnic distinction, nonetheless in our contexts where social disparities can often reflect ethic disparities, Paul’s fierce rebuke to lack of respect should cause us consideration, repentance and re-ordering of attitudes. (Further, it may be worth noting that in ‘Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes’ E Randolph Richards and Brandon J O’Brien speculate that when Paul in 1 Corinthians 1 upbraids them for their factionalism in following Paul or Apollos or Cephas or Christ the background is not about personality or theological clashes but about ethnicity: the partisanship of Aramaic-speaking Jews, Greek-speaking Jews, Romans and Alexandrians (p 66).)
In our present context, when it is increasingly noted that social class is as significant a division as ethnicity, then Paul’s emphasis on penitent awareness of our unconscious disregard for others and the primacy of respect for our fellow members of the body needs to be a vital feature of the spirituality of healthy inter-cultural churches.
***********************
Add On.
Handsworth has five ethnic groups who provide at least 1 in 12 of the population, without any obvious problems currently. To me that sounds like integration.