So this multi-ethnic issue has an intimate connection with Asian-Americans. The reason for this? I believe it is because of the general lack of health in Asian American churches and Asian Americans are seeking a solution to that within their churches. In otherwords, ethnic churches aren’t working for Asian Americans, therefore they see the biggest problem in their churches is the ethnicity. Solution… multi-ethnic.

I believe THAT is the true motivation behind many multi-ethnic congregations rather than a true heart to worship with other ethnicities as in Revelations.

Also, looking at the New Testament church and prescribing their actions as normative is not helpful. Paul and Peter dividing up and serving the Gentiles and Jews respectively is not normative for us. The fact that many NT churches had both Jews and Gentiles and that Paul told them to be unifiied is not necessarily normative for us either.

Therefore, I believe the Pan-Asian/Asian American demographics is what is needed in the Asian American Church. It took nearly 400 years for the Afro/African American Churches to develop their own unique culture in American soil. While most Afro-Americans today would admire their particular tribal ancestry in Africa, they understand that an Afro-American will never be the same as a Native African. Same goes for the Hispanic Churches in America. Honestly, it will take time for Asian American community to development their own, unique, cultural identity. It is much more complicated than just picking and choosing what we like and don’t like today.

And honestly, I think it will happen anyways (regardless of what praxis we would like to innovate and implement today) as the “Yellow” people bond together by becoming primarily an English-speaking community with shared experiences of oppression and exclusion (we all look the same to Hispanics, Blacks, and Whites). It will just be a matter of who is more aware of this inevitable, traditioning process and be able to deal withit accordingly.

With that said, I believe God does want a colorblind Church as we all grow closer into the image of the objective Christ (which we will see “as He is” at the Final Day). Paul clearly told us that their is there is “neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female in Christ (Gal 3:28).” Those passages about singing in various “tongues and languages” isn’t about what Heaven will look like. It is a rhetorical device used by John to instill in us a picture/heart of unity given the present reality of diverse cultures. We really don’t know what the exact nature or essence of our state of being will be like in Heaven. Any speculation on that, is just that, a speculation – just like the Pharisees who wondered whose wife the widowed woman would be in heaven as she meets the 7 dead brothers (Mark 11:18-27).

Your last comment that these ethnic “churches are built around the idea that Christ is not enough to unite us” I feel reveals a Western bias. Asian cultures are founded upon community, you can criticize it for not being Christian enough, but when revival comes, it will be wholesale. What you see as a structural weakness comes out of a highly individualized, Western mindset. Many Asian friends that I respect and admire have a much longer, patient, and communal point of view that I feel is healthy when looking at how God is working in the world and in our lives. God is a God of erosion just as much as he is a God of earthquakes.

The article implicitly confuses two things: an evangelistic ministry which can indeed “by all things to all people” (as Paul says) and the church in which the only factor that can divide is sin, not food preference or race. Unity was a major value in the NT church, so much so that divisiveness was considered so serious that it was one of the few specific sins described as grounds for excommunication (Titus 3:9-10). And yet today we think it is acceptable to divide over styles of music or ethnicity. The article frankly misleads when it states that the early church allowed for division on the basis of ethnicity. Paul may have targeted Hellenestic people for out-reach and Peter Jewish people but in the church they expected no divisions. And neither should we.

If someone has to always have their food preferences in order to attend a particular church, their reasons for attending church is very poor. That is probably why I’ve never seen a healthy “Chinese church”. If the people wanted to go to a church where Christ was at the center and His Word was preached, they’d go to that church even if it meant spaghetti was served at fellowship meals. “Chinese churches”, sadly, are built around the idea that Christ is not enough to unite us. I still haven’t seen an exception to that.

I believe edlerj and David hit the nail right on the head. The challenge of the church is not so much its tendency toward cultural coalescence, but rather, to borrow a phrase from Miroslav Volf, one of “exclusion or embrace.”

It is undeniable that God appreciates ethnic diversity. Scripture says that God gives to each “gifts… as He pleases.” I’ve always considered my ethnic heritage and cultural experience a gift (I’m Black), even with all the hurt and baggage it brings. Still, it’s difficult to make a universally applicable argument for or against a multi- or mono-ethnic manifestation of the church in a specific context. However, the one thing I am suspicious of is the idea that the church can somehow exist as a spiritual oasis disembodied from any particular cultural context. Church always expresses itself with the tools of one culture or another. There’s no way for it not to. Thus, there is no such thing as ‘color-blindness.’ Those who argue for a more ‘color-blind’ or ‘biblical’ approach are simply coalescing around a de facto expression of the dominant culture, which in the formerly colonized world is Whiteness.

The kingdom concern, however, is one of radical inclusion that is willing at a moment’s notice to sacrifice ethnic affinities and cultural commonalities for the chance to embrace a neighbor. Anyone can be nice to each other, but how can we embrace one another, give power away to one another, prefer another over ourselves—that’s the myth of kingdom-come.

Thank you so much for this conversation and for your willingness to embrace your Asian heritage so openly. The rest of us need you to as we learn to appreciate each other for who we are and not for who we want each other to be.

I don’t have anything really to add directly, but I guess I’ll be passing by again.

Thanks to all.

Peace & Blessings

J