North American culture is increasingly “ghettoized.” Although North America is increasingly diverse, the individual microcultures that contribute to diversity live in cultural silos.
So, for example, Shane Claiborne, founder of an intentional Christian community in inner city Philadelphia, notices that it isn’t so much that wealthy Christians don’t care about the poor. It’s that wealthy Christians don’t know any poor people. (See Shane’s book, “The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical,” 2006, Zondervan.) And, vice versa, I commonly find that poor Christians do not know very many wealthy people, and many middle class people live in middle class communities and have very little daily connection to people of other economic classes.
I was not surprised to read recently that many non-Christians in North America simply do not know any Christians.
Christianity Today reports, based on a recent study by the Gordon-Conwell’s Center for the Study of Global Christianity, about 13 million North Americans do not personally know a Christian. Some of the individual percentages are striking: 81 percent of Sikhs don’t know a Christian personally; 77 percent of Hindus don’t either.
I wonder if there is a general apathy on the part of people of all types to venture out and meet people diff erent from themselves. We settle into cultural enclaves, migrate into communities in which we feel comfortable and then stay put.
This is one reason I am incredibly excited our congregation has called a pastor of New Communities who will begin her work next week in Fayetteville.
The congregation knows we reach certain groups of people fairly well: We’re good at connecting to Lutherans who migrate to Northwest Arkansas, and we have certain kinds of cultural cohorts who feel comfortable joining our congregation where it is, coming to us.
But the congregation feels called to venture out, to make friends with cultures quite diff erent from our own. With our faith tradition, we do this not because we desire to “convert” the cultures or groups we meet, but because we believe friendship across cultural barriers is important. We believe reconciliation is at the heart of the Christian faith, and the only way people different from each other can be reconciled is if they actually meet and spend time together.
Personally, I’m thrilled to have Abigail joining us in ministry because having a talented, vibrant young pastor serving in downtown Fayetteville - an extension of our congregational ministry - will cross all kinds of barriers I can’t even anticipate. I think this is exactly the way we can be faithful Christians in our community.
We live in a culture of polarization. If your friend on Facebook posts a conservative political comment and you are a liberal, you unfriend him.
Increasingly, even individual faith communities split along various party lines.
We retreat into smaller and smaller cohorts of the like-minded. When we do this, we fail at a basic Christian - and I would argue human - value: Breaking down barriers between us to recognize our common humanity. (What Christians would say is our shared unity as the people of God created in the image of God.)
I see intimations of how people of faith could reverse North American “ghettoization.” It starts with small but significant steps. I know people who volunteer with the Ozark Literacy Council. Spend time each week tutoring someone in the English language, and you will get to know him,and they will get to know you. Similarly, I am proud to say I pastor a church that includes members who are Democrats, Republicans and others. As dift cult as it is to find a way to be the people of God together in God’s world, I want us to be the reconciled people of God. So I try - and often fail - to make the Christian community in our congregation a space where people of all political persuasions feel comfortable to be themselves, together.
We live in a signifi cant moment, when political and cultural forces are pushing us to polarize, separate and demonize. It takes some work, a lot of conversation and more, to make sure scientists get to know Christians in the parish who actually believe evolutionary theory is consonant with Christian faith. It takes time and intentionality to ensure the agnostic in the tattoo parlor gets to know a Christian who also is there - and discover together their common humanity.
If you want to know what you can do personally about the government shutdown - or peace in the Middle East, or the plight of the poor - I have a simple answer: Go meet someone very diff erent than you - someone of another economic class, another race, another religion, another political perspective - and spend enough time together so you can call that person “Friend.” This will not be easy. Most of us have already filled our calendars with meetings, social events and family time - time in our own ghettos, with our own people. It will take quite a bit of work for most of us to befriend someone quite different. We might even need to learn a new language or spend time in places uncomfortable and foreign to us. It’s the only way to truly change the world.
THE REV. CLINT SCHNEKLOTH IS PASTOR OF GOOD SHEPHERD LUTHERAN CHURCH IN FAYETTEVILLE. HE LEADS A LITERARY FICTION BOOK DISCUSSION AT 5:30 P.M. THE FOURTH TUESDAY OF EACH MONTH AT NIGHTBIRD BOOKS IN FAYETTEVILLE. HE BLOGS AT LUTHERANCONFESSIONS.
BLOGSPOT.COM.
Religion, Pages 10 on 10/12/2013