What we want is to all the gospel to determine what in our culture is to be rejected, what is to be celebrated, and what is to be redeemed. For instance deference to elders (a value in both Africa & Asian cultures) can be an unhealthy, ungodly thing that places the demands of parents ahead of the claims of Christ. On the other hand, this value is clearly upheld in scripture to the point of being included in God’s top ten list (honor thy father & mother). Too often since that cultural value is not upheld in the dominant culture, the temptation is for us to reject it entirely rather than challenging the White church to reevaluate its own cultural assumptions. After all, is it really such a bad thing that we refer to those older than us differently than we would to our peers, or does it at least insert a constant reminder of God’s command to honor our elders?

Obviously these things can and are abused, but that doesn’t mean we throw out the baby with the bathwater and exchange our cultural sins for those of Whites. What we’re contending with is a history where Christianity has meant explicitly and implicitly behaving according to the norms of White western society. Being a Christian therefore meant rejecting everything that was non-White. So how can we be AA (or BA in my case) and Christian and how can our churches help that happen?

Asian culture: security found from working hard, pulling one’s self up by one’s bootstraps (self-relient), being well-prepared, therefore adverse to risks.

Jesus: self-relience always fails, complete Trust in God always leads to risk, security only found in Jesus’ work on the cross for us.

Of course there are things in Asian culture that affirm the Gospel as well, but every culture must always be deconstructing itself as we bring our whole selves under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I believe that the white churches of old were actually of this bent, but because the culture informed their theology to a large extent, they rationalized slavery, manifest destiny, and other forms of oppression. Here again, I feel that economics and politics spoke much more loudly than our faith.

My dissatisfaction is not so much in the delineation between faith and culture, but rather the gravity in which one factor has over the other. Often, from my limited observations, I have seen the Gospel lose out to profit, security, reputation, face, etc.

Your recommendation is duly noted however and such candid preaching and teaching should be in place about how our faith should inform our culture and not vice versa.

Generally speaking the white church is not a cultural center for whites because, well, the whole culture is. Therefore they can simply be “about Jesus” at church because there are so many other places they can be about other things. The good of this is that Jesus gets a lot of airtime in those circles. The bad of it is that Jesus is easily made peripheral to “real” life. Rather than defining culture and life for many whites, church is only one thing among many. This segmentation is what made it possible for good Christians to attend church AND oppress slaves, colonize around the world and kill off indigenous people (I oversimplify of course). The fact is, church simply does not define life for Whites like it does for some of us ethnic majority folks.

The big challenge I think is not to downplay the role of AA churches and Black churches as cultural centers, but allow the gospel that is presented there to be more holistic so that everything: from owning a business, to doing well in school, to loving the poor, or just living life – becomes “about Jesus.” If we (I speak in the ethnic solidarity here) can do this, I think we have much to teach the White church about what it means to actually follow Jesus in a real way rather than as a sideline to other things. This would necessitate an intentionality in preaching, teaching, administration etc,. that is currently not in place