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Jews and Gentiles Together in Christ? The Jerusalem Council on Racial Reconciliation · Reformed Thinking

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Imagine risking your life, you know, dodging A hostile
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government that wants to execute you just to attend a secret
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religious ceremony. Right.
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The stakes are literally life and death.
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Yeah, and then imagine that when you finally get to this
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dangerous underground meeting, the entire ceremony is conducted
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in a language you do not speak a single word of.
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You have 0 idea what is being said.
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Oh wow. But you risk your life for it
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anyway. It sounds absurd on its face,
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right? I mean, why would anyone put
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their life on the line for something they cannot even
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comprehend? Yeah, it makes no sense to a
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modern mindset. But when you add the layer of
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religious conviction, when you believe that ceremony is the
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sole mechanism of divine grace, well, the language barrier
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suddenly feels like a really small price to pay.
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Welcome to Reformed thinking. I am thrilled you decided to
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spend some time with us. Today we are zeroing in on an
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academic essay by theologian Ashish Varma.
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Yes, it's a fascinating piece. The piece is called Jews and
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Gentiles Together in Christ, the Jerusalem Council on Racial
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Reconciliation, and the reason we are tackling this deep dive
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is that Varma manages to connect 3 completely disparate things
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into one really brilliant line of thought.
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He really pulls from all over the place.
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He does. He starts with a Martin Scorsese
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film about 17th century Japan, moves back to a fierce debate
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among the apostles in the 1st century Book of Acts, and then
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fast forwards into modern sociology and racial identity.
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The through line connecting all of those eras is the human
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obsession with cultural gatekeeping.
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I mean, Varma is looking at how the early church worked through
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its first massive internal culture war, right?
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And by analyzing how they handled that fracture, we get a
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highly practical blueprint for looking at the divisions sitting
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inside our own local congregations today.
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So let's start with that cinematic imagery, because it
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sets up the entire problem. Varma points us to the movie
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Silence. Yeah, based on the novel by
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Shusaku Indu. Right.
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Scorsese adapted it. It is a grueling, visually heavy
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historical drama set Japan during the 1600s.
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The historical context here is critical to grasp.
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Japan is under the Tokugawa Shogunate and the government has
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instituted an absolute 0 tolerance policy for
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Christianity. They saw it as a threat, right?
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Completely. They view it as a foreign
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contagion. They're actively hunting down
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believers and they use a tactic called the fumi, where suspected
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Christians are forced to step on a carved image of Jesus or Mary
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to prove they have renounced the faith.
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Man, that is brutal. It is because if you refuse, you
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are tortured and executed. So into this terrifying
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environment walk 2 Jesuit priests from Portugal, Sebastian
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Rodriguez and Francisco Garupe. They have smuggled themselves
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into the country to find their mentor, who is rumored to have
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apostatized under torture. Yeah, that's the setup.
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And when these priests arrive, they're discovered by the Kakure
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Kurushitan, the hidden Christians of Japan.
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These local villagers basically whisk the priests away into
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hiding. The reaction of the Japanese
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villagers is incredibly telling. They are weeping with joy.
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They are celebrating the arrival of these two men.
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Because they finally have leadership.
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Well, their joy is not about having spiritual fellowship or
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getting counseling or even just having someone to talk to after.
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Oh, right, they are overjoyed because these priests can
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perform the Latin Mass. For years, these villagers have
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been operating in secret without authorized clergy.
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Under the strict ecclesial structure of that era, local lay
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people could not just decide to administer the sacraments, you
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needed an ordained priest. You had to have the official
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stamp of approval. Right.
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These hidden Christians felt they had been severed from the
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primary mechanism of God's grace.
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So to them, the arrival of these Portuguese priests means the
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drought is over. The pipeline to God has been
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reopened. Scorsese directs these beautiful
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tragic scenes. You see the priests sneaking
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from 1 mud Hut village to another in the dead of night,
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performing the Mass in secret. The tension is palpable.
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But the jarring reality of the situation is that the Mass is
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conducted entirely in Latin. The priests are speaking Latin
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and the Japanese villagers do not know what any of those words
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mean. Not a syllable, but the
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linguistic wall does not bother them.
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To the villagers, the performance of the ritual itself
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is the entire point. They just need it to happen.
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Yeah, they operate under the belief that the grace of God is
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dispensed to them through this specific formal European
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ceremony. Think about the implication of
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that for a second. The villagers are partaking in
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the body of Christ, sure, but there is absolutely nothing
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Japanese about the gathering. I think though, they're not
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bringing their own cultural identity to the table, they are
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participating linguistically and ceremonially through a
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completely Latin framework. The European identity has become
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the necessary mediator. The underlying assumption is
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that purity belongs to the Europeans.
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Like they hold the keys. Yes, the Portuguese priests can
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approach God directly through their native Latin rituals,
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while the Japanese believers are forced to partake through the
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mediation of that European body, the Japanese identity is
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completely swallowed up. You know what this brings to
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mind? It is like having a person dying
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of a terrible disease and you hold the life saving medicine.
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You bring it to them and they are weeping with gratitude.
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OK. I track with that.
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But then you hold up your hand and say, wait, you can only
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drink this medicine if you learn how to hold this highly specific
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imported European crystal glass. You have to sip it precisely
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like this, using these specific hand gestures.
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That is a brilliant way to visualize the dynamic.
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The dying person does not care about the crystal glass, they
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just want the cure. Right, but you, the person
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holding the medicine, have completely convinced yourself
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that the medicine only works if it is consumed from your
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preferred vessel. The grace of the medicine
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becomes hopelessly linked to the cultural vessel.
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And this tragedy comes to a head later in the story.
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Father Rodriguez gets captured by the authorities.
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Which was inevitable. Yeah, he is sitting face to face
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with the Japanese grand counselor, Inuima Sashish, who
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is the main architect behind the torture and executions I know.
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He tells the priest that Japan is a swamp and Christianity will
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never take root in that soil. Rodriguez tries to defend his
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mission right. He points out that thousands of
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Japanese people had converted before the shogunate started
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executing them. He does, but I knew he delivers
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this crushing sociological critique.
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He looks Rodrigue in the eye and says, You did not make them
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Christians, you made them Portuguese.
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Wow, that line should stop any church leader in their tracks.
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It really should. Inui is pointing out that the
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missionaries failed to separate the gospel from their own
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cultural baggage. Now we should acknowledge that
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Inui might be exaggerating slightly.
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The local converts demonstrated a genuine radical love for
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Christ. I mean to the point of
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martyrdom. True, but Inui is not entirely
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wrong either. The Japanese villagers had
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converted to a distinctly Portuguese iteration of
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Christianity. Because the missionaries
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believed their European expression was the pure,
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unmediated version of the faith. Precisely, they could not
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imagine a Japanese version of Christianity that did not
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require European filters. The urge to tie divine grace to
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a specific cultural identity is a massive human flaw.
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And it is not a new issue. The tendency to confuse the
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cultural vessel with the divine medicine was actually the very
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first major theological crisis in the early Christian Church.
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Which means we need to leave 17th century Japan and travel
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back to 1st century Jerusalem. Back to the beginning.
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Let's look at the book of Acts chapter 15, which gives us the
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famous Jerusalem Council. Let's establish the context for
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what is happening here. Up until this moment, the story
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of redemption had been exclusively tied to the nation
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of Israel. For centuries, if you were a
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foreigner, a Gentile, and you wanted to participate in the
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covenant with the God of Israel, you had to adopt the physical
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and cultural markers of the Jewish people.
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You had to assimilate. Completely.
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You had to obey the dietary laws, the purity laws, and most
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crucially for males, you had to be circumcised.
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Circumcision was the non negotiable physical sign that
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you belong to the story of God. Even during the three years
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Jesus walked the earth, that boundary line was heavily
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guarded. Jesus ministered almost
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exclusively to the Jewish people.
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But after the Resurrection and the Ascension, the geographic
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and ethnic boundaries start to shatter.
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The book of Acts chronicles this outward explosion.
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The message moves from Jerusalem out to the Samaritans and then
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to the Gentiles. And the shocking part for the
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early Jewish believers is that the Holy Spirit is falling upon
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these non Jewish people in the exact same manner he fell upon
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the Jewish believers at Pentecost.
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For a while the church handles this transition OK, but
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eventually the friction boils over.
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I mean anytime you take a community score social
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boundaries and tear them down, people are going to panic.
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The panic solidifies in Acts 15. A group of Jewish believers
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belong to the party of the Pharisees.
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Stand up and draw a line in the sand.
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What do they demand? They argue that it is wonderful
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these Gentiles believe in Jesus, but belief is not enough.
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They demand that the Gentiles must be circumcised and they
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must keep the law of Moses. Let's try to understand the
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mindset of these Christian Pharisees, because they aren't
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just cartoon villains trying to ruin everyone's day.
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No, not at all. They are operating from a place
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of intense theological logic. From their perspective, Jesus
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was Jewish. He was the Jewish Messiah
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fulfilling Jewish prophecy sent by the God of Israel.
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Their assumption is that participation in Christ
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inherently requires participation in the Jewish
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covenant. They felt the Gentiles owed them
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a debt. A debt of gratitude.
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Yeah, the Jewish people had suffered for centuries.
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They had preserved the Scriptures.
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They had maintained the lineage to prepare the way for the
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Messiah. So the Pharisees reasoned that
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this debt required the new Gentile converts to conform.
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They needed to adopt the Jewish liturgical expressions and
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cultural habits. It is the identical dynamic to
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the Portuguese missionaries. The Pharisaic Christians believe
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their cultural identity was the required mediator for the grace
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of Jesus. They were telling the non Jewish
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believers you cannot just be a gentile Christian, you must
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become a Jewish Christian. This sparks an absolutely
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massive debate in Jerusalem. The Apostle Peter finally stands
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up to address the room, and Peter issues a three-part
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defense of the Gentiles that fundamentally alters the
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trajectory of the church. Let's walk through those three
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parts. So Peter starts with the
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tangible, undeniable evidence of what God was already doing.
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He reminds the Council that God gave the Holy Spirit to the
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Gentile believers just as He did to the Jewish believers.
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And he did that without them being circumcised first.
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Right. Peter's logic is bulletproof
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here. He is saying God himself has
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already eliminated the tears of purity.
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If God accepts them as they are, who are we to demand they jump
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through additional cultural hoops?
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Then Peter moves to a second point and he cut straight to the
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heart of Jewish pride. This is the bold part.
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He looks at his fellow Jewish leaders and asks why they are
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trying to place a yoke on the necks of the gentiles that
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neither they nor their ancestors had ever been able to carry.
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He is talking about the Law of Moses.
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This is a stunning admission. Peter is standing in front of
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the most devout men in Jerusalem and admitting that the Jewish
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people have historically failed to keep the Law.
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By saying that Peter establishes a shared baseline of impurity.
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He completely strips away the illusion that the Jewish
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believers are operating from a platform of superior moral
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purity. He levels the playing field.
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Both groups are impure and both groups are desperate for grace.
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Which sets up his Third Point beautifully.
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Peter declares that salvation comes strictly through the grace
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of the Lord Jesus. For both groups, the cross
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eliminates the need for a cultural mediator.
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It is a brilliant argument. I have to pause and push back on
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this though. If I put myself in the sandals
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of a 1st century Jewish believer listening to Peter, my head is
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spinning. Why is that?
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Well, the covenant of circumcision was not just a fun
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cultural tradition. It was commanded by God to
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Abraham in Genesis 17. God explicitly called it an
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everlasting covenant. That is a very real tension.
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So why is Peter tosssing out a historical covenantal marker?
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Isn't continuity the logical expectation?
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Why abandoned a direct command from God just to accommodate the
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new people? That is the absolute crux of the
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issue. The Pharisees were not arguing
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from a place of malice. They were arguing for biblical
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continuity. They read the text.
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The text demanded circumcision. End of story.
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Right, it seems so clear cut for them.
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What Peter is doing is articulating a massive, paradigm
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shifting change in redemptive history.
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He is arguing that the arrival of Jesus changed the math.
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Jesus did not come to prop up a specific cultural system or to
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validate an ethnic tyranny. He came to fulfill the law and
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gather a completely new mixed humanity.
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So the law was pointing to something else.
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Yes, the covenant of circumcision was a signpost
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pointing forward to the ultimate covenant in Christ.
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Once the reality of Christ arrived, the signpost was no
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longer the required entry point. The requirement shifted from
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physical surgery to faith in Jesus.
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OK, so Peter establishes total equality.
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No cultural mediators equal grace.
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The Gentiles win. But then the narrative throws a
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major curveball. It really does.
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After Peter finishes, James stands up.
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James is the brother of Jesus and he is a highly respected,
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authoritative leader in the Jerusalem church.
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And he is known for being super strict about the law himself.
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Yes, he is, and James suggests a compromise.
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If Peter just proved that no one needs to follow the law to be
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saved, the logical next step is to adjourn the meeting and send
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the Gentiles a letter saying you are completely free.
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But he doesn't do that. No, instead, James says let's
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write them a letter and ask them to abstain from 4 specific
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things. Food offered to idols, sexual
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immorality, meat of strangled animals and blood.
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This naturally raises an alarm. Does James's request undermine
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everything Peter just argued? Has the council just caved to
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the Pharisees and re established A cultural hierarchy by
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demanding the Gentiles follow these Jewish rules?
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Scholars have debated this for centuries. 1 prominent theory
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comes from Richard Bochum. What is his take?
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He suggests this was purely A pragmatic move to enable table
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fellowship. The Jewish believers kept strict
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kosher diets while the gentiles ate whatever they could afford
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in the Roman markets. Ah, so just keeping the peace at
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dinner. Yeah, Baucom argues that if
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these two groups are going to share communal meals, they
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needed some basic ground rules so the Jewish believers would
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not be constantly offended or rendered ceremonially unclean.
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The issue of table fellowship was certainly real, but the idea
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that this was just a pragmatic, functional compromise fall
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short. The theological stakes at this
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council we're way too high for a simple, practical workaround.
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To really grasp what is happening, we have to look at
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the canonical context. We have to look at how the
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Apostle Paul handles a similar issue later on in his letters to
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the Corinthians, specifically chapters 8 and 10.
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That is a great parallel. Paul addresses the controversy
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of eating meat that had been sacrificed to Pagan idols.
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In the Roman world. The local temples functioned as
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the town butcher shops. So the meat you bought in the
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market had likely been dedicated to a Pagan God.
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Exactly. Paul tells the Corinthian
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believers that theologically speaking, idols are fake.
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They do not exist. Therefore, the meat is just
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meat, and you have total freedom in Christ to eat it.
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But Paul adds a massive caveat to that freedom.
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He says that if you exercise your freedom to eat that meat
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and it causes a fellow believer who has a more sensitive
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conscience to stumble or feel alienated, then you should
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choose not to eat it. The mechanism Paul is describing
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is the protection of the other person's conscience.
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You voluntarily limit your own legitimate freedom for the sake
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of relational charity. This is the true ethic driving
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the decision at the Jerusalem Council.
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It is about mutual relational charity.
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James and the Council are not forcing the Gentiles to become
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Jewish to earn their salvation. No, they are asking the Gentiles
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to willingly sacrifice some of their cultural freedoms out of
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love. Specifically, to avoid
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scandalizing their Jewish brothers and sisters who have
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lived under these strict dietary laws since birth.
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And the sacrifice goes both ways.
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We cannot overlook the mutual nature of this arrangement.
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The Jewish believers are giving up their ultimate cultural
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gatekeepers. Circumcision.
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Yeah, they are dropping the requirement of circumcision, the
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very thing that defined their national identity for thousands
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of years. They are sacrificing their
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primary boundary marker to welcome the distiles into the
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family. Meanwhile, the Gentiles are
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asked to sacrifice a few daily conveniences and culinary habits
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to honor the Jewish believers who preserved the Scriptures and
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brought them the gospel. Think about your own local
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church for a second. Imagine a new family moves into
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your town and starts attending your congregation.
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They come from a completely different cultural background.
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Do you expect them to adapt to all of your unwritten rules?
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Or do you let them alter the environment?
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It is like two different families deciding to move into a
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shared house to save money. OK, I like this analogy.
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The first family has lived there for a decade and has a rigid
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routine. The new family moves in with
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completely different habits. You do not force the new family
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to adopt the original family's daily schedule, cook their
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recipes, and wear their style of clothes.
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That is assimilation. That is the Portuguese
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Christianity model in new called out.
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Right, but on the flip side, the new family willingly agrees not
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to blast heavy metal music at 60 AM because they know the
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original family prefers quiet mornings.
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So both sides give a little. Both sides transgress their own
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comfort zones. They give up a little bit of
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their preferred way of living to create a functional life
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together under one roof without railroading the other side.
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The Council's decision is a master class in establishing
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unity without demanding uniformity.
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It demonstrates that cultural differences do not need to be
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eradicated, but they must be submitted to the higher law of
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love and charity. So we have this beautiful mutual
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sacrifice modeled in the 1st century, but looking at history
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it is obvious the Western church lost this perspective.
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We definitely lost the plot. How did we get from the shared
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House of Acts 15 to the Portuguese missionaries
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demanding total conformity in Japan?
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To understand that shift, we have to look at the historical
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development of modern racial categories.
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The theologian Willie James Jennings outlines this in his
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book The Christian Imagination. We have to Fast forward to the
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Renaissance and in the era of European expansion.
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Right as European nations began sailing across the globe,
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discovering lands and peoples they never knew existed, their
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colonization efforts were tightly bound to the exportation
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of Christendom. Jennings argues that during this
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era, a devastating psychological and theological shift took
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place. European Christians began to
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view themselves as the new Israel.
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Let's unpack the weight of that. In the biblical narrative,
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Israel is the specific chosen people group tasked by God to
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bear his revelation to the world.
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But Jennings shows how European Christians effectively replace
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the biblical nation of Israel with themselves.
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They reduced historical Israel to an ethnic group that they,
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the Europeans, had superseded. The consequence of this theology
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is catastrophic. By positioning themselves as the
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new chosen people, the white European body became the new
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required mediator of Christ to the rest of the globe.
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It is the exact opposite of Peter's argument in Jerusalem.
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Peter recognized that Jesus alone is the mediator.
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But the Europeans decided that their specific culture, their
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civilization and their racial identity was the necessary
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filter for divine truth. To see how chilling this mindset
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became in practice, we can look at a quote from a Spanish priest
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named Jose de Acosta. He was writing in the 16th
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century about the indigenous peoples of the Americas and
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individuals from Ethiopia. What does he say?
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Listen to the sheer arrogance in Acosta's logic.
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He looks at these non European peoples and argues that they
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lack the intellect and the human capacity to understand complex
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theological concepts like the Trinity.
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He literally compares them to wild beasts.
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Yes, and yet his conclusion is that they should be forced to
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believe the doctrines anyway, even if they are physically
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incapable of comprehending them. Wait, he he actually argues for
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forcing it on them? Acosta writes that he is not
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obliging them to understand the mystery of Christ, he is
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obliging them to believe it. Honestly, that quote makes my
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stomach turn. The horrifying irony is that
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Acosta is doing a complete inversion of Peter's speech in
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Acts 15. It's total flip.
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Peter stood up, looked at his own people and admitted their
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shared impurity. He said no, we failed to keep
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the law. We are equal with them.
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We all need grace. Acosta does the reverse.
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He claims superior intellect, superior civilization, and
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situates his own European identity as the gatekeeper to
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God. Acosta is acting just like the
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Christian Pharisees in Acts 15, demanding that the new believers
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conformed his parameters. But Acosta has added a vicious
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layer of racial superiority that the 1st century Jewish believers
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never imagined. Acosta is looking at the people
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he wants to convert and saying you are intellectually inferior,
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but I will graciously allow you to adopt my religion if you
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submit to my authority. This is the birth of the racial
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imagination that Jennings is critiquing.
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It fundamentally ties the person of Jesus Christ to whiteness.
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It mandates the participation in Christ, requires passing through
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the process of becoming culturally white.
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So if claiming a false cultural purity, whether is the 1st
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century Jewish Christians demanding circumcision or early
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modern Europeans demanding assimilation is the root of the
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division, where do we look for the remedy?
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The answer lies in the actual nature of Jesus himself.
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To articulate this, we bring in theologian Brian Bantam and his
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book Redeeming Mulatto. Bantam is searching for a path
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forward for racial reconciliation in the church
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right. Yes, and he identifies 2 extreme
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approaches that he wants to avoid.
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The first extreme is the approach of theologian James
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Cone. Cone's work was highly
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reactionary against the colonial oppression we just talked about.
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Understandably so. In his effort to decolonize
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theology, Cone tends to relocate Jesus purely within the
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oppressed community. Is a completely understandable
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reaction to the horror of men like Acosta, but the theological
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risk with cones vision is that it encloses the image of God
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within only one specific community, which cuts off the
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continuity of the wider biblical story.
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The second extreme Bantam wants to avoid is represented by John
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Milbank and the Radical Orthodoxy movement.
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This approach involves a heavy reaffirmation of traditional
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historical forms of the Church. The problem with Milbank's
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approach is that while it theoretically allows for the
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presence of new, diverse believers, it refuses to let
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their presence actually alter the practices of the
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congregation. They want diversity in the pews,
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but they demand that the liturgy, the music, and the
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leadership structures remain entirely rooted in the dominant
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tradition. Think about the shared house
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analogy again. But let's change it to a museum.
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Oh, this is good. The Millbank approach is like
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owning a beautiful historic home.
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You have meticulously preserved the original 18th century
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floorboards and the antique wallpaper.
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You love this house. You run it like a museum.
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Exactly. You invite a real messy family
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to come live inside it, but you tell them they cannot rearrange
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the furniture, they cannot put their own pictures on the walls,
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and they certainly cannot change the paint colors.
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You welcome them into the space, but you refuse to let them
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actually make it their home. The structure remains rigid.
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The new people are assimilated into the existing environment
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rather than Co creating a new environment.
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So Bantam rejects both Cone's isolation and Milbank's rigid
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traditionalism. Instead, he looks to the
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hypostatic union as a model for a reimagined humanity.
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We need to slow down and explain the hypostatic union, because
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this is heavy critical theology. We were talking about the
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Council of Chalcedon in the year 451.
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What did they decide? The Orthodox view of Jesus is
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that he is one person with two distinct natures.
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He is fully God and fully human. And the crucial part of the
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Chalcedonian definition is that these two natures exist
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together, without confusion, without change, without
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division, without separation. To understand why this matters
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for racial reconciliation, you have to contrast it with an
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early Church heresy called Apollinarianism.
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Apollonaris argued that Jesus had a human body, but his mind
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was purely divine. It was like a divine alien
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wearing a human meat suit. Yeah, that is a graphic way to
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put it, but accurate. Apollinarianism view Jesus as a
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compromise mixture, A 5050 split.
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Why is that a problem? Because, as the early Church
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Father Gregory of Naziansis argued, that which he has not
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assumed, he has not healed. Right.
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If Jesus did not have a real human mind, then he did not
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redeem the human mind. If he's just a watered down
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hybrid, the mechanics of salvation fall apart.
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Theology insists that Jesus unites God and humanity
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completely. Bantam uses this Orthodox
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framework to describe Jesus as a holy mixture.
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By uniting the divine and the human so intimately, Jesus
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challenges all human notions of racial or ethnic purity.
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Bantam reclaims the term ulato. He is not using it as a racial
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slur, but as a provocative theological descriptor for
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Christ's crossing of boundaries. Jesus transgresses the ultimate
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boundary between the Creator and the created.
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Varma provides a intensely personal illustration to help
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grasp this logic. He talks about his own children
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because of his and his wife's backgrounds.
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His children are Canadian and Indian.
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The. Standard mathematically driven
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way society views mixed race children is to say they are 50%
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Canadian and 50% Indian. They are viewed as a compromised
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mixture stuck halfway between two poles of purity.
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But Varma applies Bantam's Christological logic to his
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children. He argues that they are not
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5050. Christologically speaping, they
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possess 100% of the resources to live imaginatively into both
26:02
identities. They are fully capable of
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expressing both cultures simultaneously.
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They embody a new reality that contains all the possibilities
26:09
of both lineages. What Bantam and Varma are
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exposing is that the assertion of cultural purity is an
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absolute illusion. Everyone is a mixture.
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The early Jewish Christians were a mixture, living under Roman
26:20
occupation and Hellenistic influence.
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The Gentiles were a mixture. The Portuguese missionaries were
26:25
a mixture. And the ecclesial application
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here is massive. Being in Christ demands that we
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abandoned the illusion of purity.
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The Church expands by incorporating different groups
26:35
of mixed people. Therefore, it is absolutely
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necessary that the culture of the Church shifts to welcome
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them. You cannot invite the new family
26:45
into the historic house and refuse to let them move the
26:47
furniture. The structure must adapt to
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reflect the new mixed reality of the body.
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To actually pull this off in a modern church setting requires 2
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specific virtues, courage and humility.
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To see these virtues in action, we can look back at the Apostle
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Peter and trace the trajectory of his life.
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Peter did not arrive at his courageous stand in Acts 15
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overnight. He had a very rocky track
27:09
record. Look at his misguided violence
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in the Garden of Gethsemane. When the Roman guards come to
27:14
arrest Jesus, Peter pulls a sword and cuts off a man's ear.
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He has zeal, but it is the wrong kind of courage.
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He is trying to protect the boundary with violence.
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Jesus rebukes him and heals the man, literally undoing Peter's
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violence. Then you see his total failure
27:29
of courage shortly after denying he even knew Jesus to save his
27:33
own skin. Even after the resurrection, he
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struggles. In the Book of Galatians chapter
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2, Paul calls Peter out publicly for a massive failure of
27:41
courage. Peter was in Antioch happily
27:43
eating meals with Gentile believers.
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But when a group of strict law keeping Jewish men arrived from
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Jerusalem, Peter panicked. He was scared of their
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judgement, so he withdrew from the Gentile tables.
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He retreated back into the illusion of purity out of fear
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of his own cultural gatekeepers. So when we finally arrived at
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the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, Peter's decision to stand up
28:03
and defend the Gentiles is a moment of hard 1 Grueling
28:06
courage. His courage required risking the
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absolute rejection of his own people.
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He stood up in front of the elders and denounced their
28:13
illusion of purity. He said, you know we couldn't
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keep the law, so let's not force them to.
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That takes incredible bravery to critique your own culture's geek
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keeping mechanisms from the inside.
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This brings us directly to the modern implications we have to
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address the functional segregation that is still
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glaringly present in the modern church, particularly in the
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United States. It is the old cliche, but it
28:35
remains true. Sunday morning is the most
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segregated hour of the week. The call to action here is
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directed heavily at the Majority Culture Church.
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The majority church needs the humility to admit that it's
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historical forms, it's worship styles, it's theological
28:50
vocabulary, it's leadership models are not the pure
28:54
unmediated version of Christianity.
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They are a translation. They are the crystal glass, not
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the medicine itself. And it requires immense courage
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to allow ethnic, cultural and linguistic mixtures to actively
29:06
alter those church traditions. Rather than demanding the new
29:10
arrivals simply assimilate to the existing norms.
29:13
It requires the courage to say our way is not the only way and
29:16
we are willing to change the furniture in the house so that
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everyone feels at home. We have tracked a massive
29:21
theological arc. Today we started with a Japanese
29:23
believers in silence, desperately wanting the Latin
29:26
Mass because they confused the European vehicle with the grace
29:29
of God. We tracked that same human flaw
29:31
back to the Pharisee at Christians in Acts 15 who
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demanded the Gentiles adopt Jewish cultural markers.
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We saw Peter's courageous defense of equal grace and the
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Council's beautiful compromise of mutual relational charity.
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We looked at the devastating theological error of the
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colonial era, where European Christians claim to be the new
29:51
Israel, demanding assimilation based on racial superiority.
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And we countered that with the reality of Jesus as the ultimate
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boundary crosser, the holy mixture who unites humanity.
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It all comes down to humility and courage.
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The humility to admit our culture is not the center of the
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universe and the courage to let the presence of others alter the
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way we live in worship. It is the only way forward if we
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want to reflect the true, beautifully mixed reality of the
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Body of Christ. I want to leave you with a final
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lingering question to ponder as you go about your week.
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It's a challenging 1. Think about your own spiritual
30:24
background. If your preferred style of
30:27
worship, your specific theological vocabulary, and your
30:30
cultural norms are all just a translation of the gospel and
30:34
not the original text, what parts of God's character are you
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totally missing simply because you refuse to read someone
30:40
else's translation? Thank you so much for joining us
30:42
for this deep dive on Reformed thinking.
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We appreciate you spending this time with us and we will catch
30:47
you on the next one.