Revelation 7:9 After this 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, clothed in white robes, with palm
branches in their hands,
Read this passage in
the Modernist, colonial era from a postmillennial (i.e., basically that the
Church is growing greater until Christ returns) perspective and you will think
of universalism. The inclusion of the nations,
races, and ethnicities into Christendom is accomplished politically by the
expansion of a Christian Empire and a State Church from Europe such as the Church
of England. The unity of diverse groups
is established through a singular authority, whether government (headed by the King
or Queen) or Church (headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury). Moreover, a common language, English, a singular
theological authority, Church dogma based on canonical Scripture, and a
singular worship—the Book of Common Prayer—accomplish an overall unity at many
levels despite the continuance of cultural variety at the local level.
Read this passage
in a Postmodernist era (and probably with minimal concern for eschatology) and the perspective changes. A recent directive from the head of a
Christian organization announced that diversity training for employees would
soon be implemented, and Rev. 7.9 was referenced as the basis for this. Whereas the previously described lens for
reading the text focused on how this passage pointed to unity, now the passage is used to endorse diversity. Read a
book like Soong-Chan Rah’s The Next Evangelicalism:
Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity, and you get a
deconstruction of the Modernist, colonial paradigm by attacking the so-called ‘White
Church’ (the category is inadequate) and ‘Western’ culture and construction of equality through the
affirmation of diversity and multiculturalism.
Rah writes,
The imagery of Revelation 7 points to a gathering of
all believers, across all races, ethnicities and cultures. The call for those who are outside of Western
culture is to lift up the message of the gospel through the unique expression
of the image of God and the cultural mandate found in each culture (p. 134).
Enter Identity Ecclesiology. It creates an
ecclesiology focussed on and celebrating diversity among humans, such as race. ‘White
Church’, ‘white privilege’, ‘Black Church’, 'diversity,' and ‘Multicultural Church’ become the new categories for theological reflection on the Church. Identity Ecclesiology is a highly polished lens, derived from contemporary, Western culture, through which everything is viewed. Somewhat ironically—but predictably—when one
views everything through the lens of race in order to affirm a version of equality that
is multicultural, one requires a perpetual focus on race for that
equality to be maintained. (How inconvenient for multiculturalism when the children of immigrants adopt the new country's language and culture!) Multiculturalism is, in the
most significant definition of racism, racist (not negative attitudes or discrimination,
bad as these may be, but always viewing individuals in terms of their racial
groups). A ‘White Church’ is castigated
for all its ills (or alleged ills), and a ‘Multicultural Church’ is held up as
the new standard of excellence.
Diversity is something to be sought after in itself—it is not a neutral
condition but a virtue. Not the right interpretation of Scripture by understanding the author's intent but hearing different cultural interpretations of Biblical texts is the new method of enquiry. Not exegesis but appreciative discourse, particularly to highlight culturally diverse interpretations, is pursued. In either the
multicultural Western society or the multicultural Church, diversity is, in fact, a
cardinal virtue. Also, hiring for diversity is essential. And never mind the country
church or the neighbourhood church or the small church; the new standard is a
large city church that collects ethnicities.
When your ecclesiology depends on city subway systems and motor vehicles and large parking lots to
gather multiple ethnicities together for a worship service, your ecclesiology has become a
political ideology. To see the Church—or
the local church—through ethnicities is itself racist. I would term this Identity Ecclesiology.
Identity
Ecclesiology is the result of several storms in culture. One is the obvious storm of Western culture
itself, beholden to a Postmodern critique of ‘totalizing narratives’ and
rejection of truth so that local constructions of truth may be applauded not
for what they claim but for their difference. Identity Ecclesiology is also the result of immigration and urban dominance; ecclesiology is worked out in large cities during a time of migration of persons fleeing their own national turmoil for safer and more prosperous nations, only to find these nations have a cultural change that insists that their cultures of origin are of equal value. Yet Identity Ecclesiology is also the result
of the demise of mainline denominations.
Ironically, the mainline denominations have succumbed so much to the
culture themselves that they are the primary perpetrators of a cultural
theology that joyfully deconstructs orthodoxy and affirms heterodoxy and multiculturalism (whether or not they practice it).
Yet the demise of the denominations themselves—regardless of their
theology or heresy—also contributes to Identity Ecclesiology. This is because the demise of mainline
denominations has allowed many Evangelical churches to float free from the
historic Church. This might be
temporary, since new denominations in the Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and
probably (soon) the Methodist traditions are reclaiming not only orthodoxy but
also the value of their connections to the historical Church. Yet non-denominational churches and agencies or institutions have proliferated in the interim, and this hyper-baptistic ecclesiology is a
reason for an anti-tradition, Identity Ecclesiology.
Do texts from Paul
support Identity Ecclesiology? Paul
said,
Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew
nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
and
Colossians 3:11 In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew,
circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ
is all and in all!
What we find in such passages is a negation
of the relevance of diversity, not a valuing
of diversity. Equality is not
located in the equal worth of each social grouping but in the singular worth of
Christ. Christology, not sociology, is
the basis for Paul’s ecclesiology. (Side note for academics: the 'new perspective on Paul', I would argue, is largely a sociological reading of soteriology. No wonder that the foundational book on the new perspective by E. P. Sanders--Paul and Palestinian Judaism--begins with an ethnic focus.) Of course, a theology of the Church has social implications, but social equity is not the foundation for our understanding
of the Church. If it were in passages
such as Gal. 3.28 and Col. 3.11, then we would have to value the perpetuation
of slaves and Scythians (a barbaric culture from which many slaves came in
Roman times). If such were valued by Paul and the early Church for
their contribution to ecclesial diversity, then their continuation would be important. Instead, Paul minimizes the relevance of such
social conditions. What elevates the
slave and the Scythian in the Church is not the value of their condition or ethnicity for the Church
but their participation in Christ.
Postmodern leanings in the Church today—including some Evangelical churches, institutions of education, and mission agencies—are creating
challenges that we might no longer be equipped to address. The failings of Christendom, with its
colonialism, patriarchalism, and any domination of others by the self-assured, superior group, have provided grounds for a permanent critique, a hermeneutic
of deconstruction, of 'catholicity' (a Church united despite local differences) in favour of diversity (a Church united by celebrating local differences). Past errors undermine the Church's voice in the present context. Moreover, Postmodernism has
moved from affirming that each group's identity is of equal value (a hopelessly flawed assumption) to a Tribalism that values victimhood groups
more than others (a frightfully flawed conviction). 'Intersectionalism' characterizes Western culture today: the higher level of victimhood one can
claim by identifying with an increasing number of oppressed, minority groups, the higher one climbs in
social status.
Rah’s railing against the so-called ‘white church’s’ ethnocentrism proceeds
with two amazing omissions. In his concern
that theological enquiry should collect ethnically diverse authors (pp. 116-120),
there is an inevitable disvaluing of academic quality and theological orthodoxy. If we promote ethnic diversity to the primary
level of theological discourse, we run the risk of changing the way we go about
theological enquiry as a theological tradition.
Oddly enough—for Rah’s thesis—the African Anglican Church would be the
first to call the Western Episcopal
Church in America or Scotland or the Western
Church of England to task for its failure to hold fast to the tradition of the Anglican Church. The concern is to contend for the faith once
for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3), not to begin and carry on theological
enquiry by hearing from diverse voices—even if it is to listen to ethnically
diverse voices within the orthodox faith.
The second omission in Rah’s Next
Evangelicalism’s railing against the ‘white church’s’ ethnocentricism is his failure to consider the remarkable story of foreign missionary work by the American and
British Evangelical churches. The story of 'Modern missions' is not just about the missionaries who gave their lives to tell the world about Jesus in foreign lands and translate the Scriptures in numerous languages that had never been reduced to writing before--bringing dignity to those cultures and helping to preserve them; it is also about the Western Church's support of foreign missionary work. Moreover,
when Rah engages with the question of missions, his primary value is in
missional reciprocity, where, as Oscar Muria suggests, ten short-term
missionaries from the US to Kenya should be reciprocated with ten short-term
missionaries from Kenya to the US (p. 136).
My suspicion is that Muria suggested this as a critique of western
mission tourism more than anything else.
Yet Rah cites this suggestion as a positive way to conceive of missions in a
multicultural Evangelicalism. The notion
that ‘mission’ may be about a task, not, as Rah hopes, cultural exchange and
interaction (p. 136), seems to have missed his reflections altogether. The proclamation of the Lord Jesus Christ is
a challenge to every culture. Rah is
aware of missiological discussion about the ‘translation’ (so Lamin Sanneh,
Andrew Walls) of the Gospel into various cultures (in contrast, for Sanneh, to
Islam), yet this truth about Christianity is not an endorsement of cultural
diversity in itself. First, culture is
not static—it is always in flux. The affirmation
of a culture in itself can be embarrassed by persons within that culture who
are advocating for cultural change. Second,
while the Gospel may find a remarkable ability to take shape in some form or
another in diverse cultures, it is a challenge to every culture. The Gospel is not just translatable, it is
also transforming.
So, what is Revelation 7’s vision all about? To answer this, we need to step back to
Genesis 11. The story of the Tower of
Babel is the third story in Genesis 1 – 11 of the assertion of humans over
against God. In the Garden of Eden, Adam
and Eve rejected God's knowledge of good and evil, choosing autonomy from God to make their own choices. In the story of Noah and the Flood, humans rejected God's righteousness, for the thoughts of their hearts were continuously evil (Genesis 6.5). And in the story of the tower of Babel, human beings rejected God's superiority, seeking to ascend to the heavens to assert their equality with God. So God caused them to speak different
languages and scattered them abroad across the face of the earth (Genesis 11.9). Cultural diversity was God’s
curse on humanity. Revelation 7 (and
other passages in Revelation, incidentally) picture eschatological unity of the
diverse cultures of the earth by their worship of God, acknowledging Him as their Lord. What do every nation, tribe, people, and
language cry when they gather before the throne of God? They cry, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who
is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!’ (Revelation 7.10). Ecclesiology needs to be Christocentric, not
ethnocentric. Revelation 7 is not about
the innate worth of diverse cultures but about the undoing of difference in the
transformative unity of life submitted to the Lamb upon the heavenly throne.
We do, indeed, need to ask, ‘What is the next Evangelicalism?’ Under the pressure of Western culture and
Postmodernity, it may well end up being a multicultural, Identity Ecclesiology
that prioritizes cultural diversity and asserts the equality of all
cultures. Or it may reclaim its
connectivity to the historic Church through catechetical instruction in
continuity with orthodoxy, its vision for Christian mission as the proclamation of
the Gospel to the ends of the earth rather than a cultural exchange and the pursuit
of intercultural studies instead of missions in Evangelical seminaries, and its
affirmation of individuals as worthy because Jesus died for them instead of worthy
because of the contribution of their particular ethnicity to enrich the multicultural church.
[See further: Rollin Grams, 'Is Diversity a Christian Virtue?';
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