(**Note this is not a review but, rather, the first in a series of personal engagements with The New Conspirators by Tom Sine. My observations may not cover all points of interest along the journey but I hope you’ll share your experiences nonetheless). I’ve been absent from blogging lately. The summer has been busy and, honestly, even since I began blogging here, I’ve been a little disenchanted with what Sine calls the “emerging edge” of the church throughout the world. I bought this book (or was it given to me, I don’t remember) months ago and, unfortunately, it ended up sitting on my shelf collecting dust.So far, I’m thankful I decided to dust off my copy. What I’ve discovered in Tom Sine (a person previously unknown to me) is a fresh and humble voice that is able to cut through the fog of conflict and antagonism that often accompanies conversations about what is needed for the church to truly be the church in the 21st century.The first chapter is a highly charitable yet clear-headed overview of the various “streams” of the emerging edge in contemporary Christianity: the emerging, the missional, the mosaic and the monastic. While I’ve been mildly familiar with most of these streams, I must say that Sine’s engagement is able to provide the necessary overview thereof without much fluff (an approach that I can appreciate).
Although I was mildly familiar with the various streams, I must say that it was the Mosaic stream as characterized by Sine that was the least familiar and most challenging. Having grown up primarily in Rural North Carolina, I can say that I have lived a pretty sheltered life when it comes to substantive and authentic engagement with people of different ethnic and/or cultural backgrounds.
Let’s just be honest here, I’ve not had very many friends in my life who weren’t white, middle class protestants. My awareness of and desire to engage with people who might look, think and view the world differently than I do has, fortunately, expanded in recent years with my growing passion for the study of Christianity and the American civil rights movement. Authors of the movement such as James Baldwin and Howard Thurman have been incredibly challenging and formative with regard to the way I view both my own personhood as well as the ways that both I and “my people” relate to and engage with people who, for better or worse, have been “the other” for me. Other diverse thinkers such as John Hope Franklin, Tim Tyson (a teacher and friend), and Charles Marsh (among others) continue to force me to re-evaluate my complicity in racial and cultural discrimination and marginalization.
It is for these reasons that the Mosaic stream has been both encouraging and challenging. I currently live in a small rural community with a population of a little under 4,000 people. A large percentage of those who live around me are Hispanic and Latino. I am a minister in a predominately white church which is part of a predominately white denomination. Because I live in the south, I can say that racism and ethnocentrism are alive and well. In short, a large percentage of the people who live, work and spend their lives in the community in which I live are viewed by my brothers and sisters as less than human.
And while I’ve long been sheltered with regard to sharing life with those from different cultures and ethnic backgrounds, I’ve also always possessed a deep sense that the monolithic whiteness of Sunday mornings was not what God intended for the church. And the hard part is that - at least from my vantage point - this is what church has looked like for my entire life. Reading The New Conspirators has lighted a fire in me to work for racial & cultural reconciliation in my own community. I’m not sure whether it’s lack of creativity, lack of desire or simply lack of faith that has kept the church separated in the South. I do know (and so does Sine) that the wretched legacy of slavery and racial oppression is one large factor but I also know that the God that I worship is bigger than my ancestors’ sins. In The New Conspirators, I recognize the call for a multicultural church as the call to all people but especially the call to those of us who have the legacy of racial hatred and oppression running in our veins. And this is an urgent call. Sine writes,
By 2060 the United States will become the first non-European Western nation - a nation of Latinos, African Americans and Asians. Those of us from European roots will just be another group. Our churches need to help people prepare not only to live in this future, but to receive and celebrate the gifts from other cultures. (The New Conspirators, 45).
While this book isn’t only about the Mosaic stream of the emerging edge of the church, I clearly needed to hear God speak through Sine regarding the work that’s going on to build God’s multi-cultural, multi-gifted kingdom, not on some far-off future but in the here and now. In the lives of ordinary people living out humility and faithfulness by receiving and rejoicing in the gifts that God has given our neighbors.
The posture of reception and celebration of the gifts of our neighbors must, if we take Sine seriously, include also a posture of humility with regard to our use of language to communicate with one another. As an American of European descent, I can say that I’ve not given much thought to why my Asian, African & Hispanic/Latino brothers and sisters in Seminary are required to learn English. For now, at least, practical concerns regarding the transmission of information are likely at the forefront of those who develop curriculum guidelines for the Association of Theological Schools. HOWEVER, if what Sine tells us is true, Seminaries and Churches need to take seriously the possibility that English may not always be the “official” language of the Western Church.
In other words, Western (and particularly American) Christians need to learn to receive the gifts of others with a humility that is willing to learn how to hear them in their indigenous language. This, of course, becomes uncomfortable for some because it hits close to home with regard to the immigration debates that rage constantly in the South. And all of this makes the work of the church more difficult because of the ridiculous entanglements in which we find ourselves with regard to patriotism and discipleship. Should white American Christians pledge allegiance to the flag of (white) America or do we give our full allegiance to the kingdom of God without borders? These are hard questions and I don’t have the answers but I am thankful for Tom Sine and for The New Conspirators for forcing me to deal prayerfully with them and I look forward to the rest of the journey (This is, after all, only the first chapter). Please share your thoughts and your life in this space. Converse, create and imagine with me what God’s kingdom can be…