The Challenges of Multiculturalism for the American Church

Malcolm Webber, Ph.D.

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America is Changing

From 1980 to 1990, the United States experienced the largest amount of immigration since the turn of the century, as well as the most racially and ethnically diverse ever. In that decade, 9.5 million documented and undocumented immigrants arrived in this country (Rhodes, 1998, p. 15). In describing this new immigrant population, Ruben Rumbaut notes that

today’s new and rapidly accelerating immigration to the United States is extraordinary in its diversity of color, class, and national origins. The 1990 census counted 19.8 million immigrants, an all-time high. In terms of color, most new immigrants reported themselves to be non-white in the census…In terms of class, today’s immigrants include by far the most educated groups (Asian Indians, Taiwanese) and the least educated groups (Mexicans, Salvadorans) in American society, as well as the groups with the lowest poverty rates in the United States (Filipinos) and the highest (Laos and Cambodians) – a reflection of polar-opposite types of migration embedded in very different historical and structural contexts. (p. 121)

Although Whites still maintain a clear majority – with 76 percent of the population – other racial and ethnic groups are achieving increasing numerical significance in specific parts of the country (Ortiz, 1996). The United States now has the second largest Black population (after Nigeria), and the fourth largest Spanish population of any country in the world (Appleby, 1986). "The year 2056 is the magic date cited by sociologists as the moment when the majority of the US American population will be nonEuropean, nonwhite. As it is now, Asians, Africans and Hispanics make up one-fourth of the population." (Sweet, 1994, p. 176) Consequently, in the new millennium, Anglo-Americans will be just another, albeit important, cultural group in this nation.

If the American church is going to reach this vast and diverse world at her door, her structures must change. Manuel Ortiz (1996) wrote,

We live in a racist and ethnocentric society that wants us to ignore our neighbors, especially if they are different from us, and to believe that in some way or another that our culture is superior. At the present time in our history we are asking the question, How do we come together as diverse people in a manner that honors the Lord and his Word? The homogeneous unit principle (HUP) has been the paradigm for missions and church planting for so long that it is difficult for Christian institutions, Christian colleges and seminaries to get away from it…[However,] HUP has been a hindrance to race relations and to racial and ethnic reconciliation in the Christian community. (pp. 42-45)

As Stephen Rhodes (1998) contends, we must not pursue racial or cultural diversity simply because it is politically correct, or because it is the latest theological fad. We should do it because it is the gospel. In a day of increasing ethnic and cultural diversity in America, congregations that are multicultural, rather than homogeneous, will be in a "unique position to reach the rich diversity of God’s people who live in our communities, and also to model for our culture what it means to live in unity amid diversity" (Rhodes, 1998, p. 17). Jesus called us to "make disciples of all nations" (Matthew 28:19, New International Version), and there are many biblical injunctions for multiculturalism in churches.

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America is Changing

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© Malcolm Webber, Ph.D., www.healthyleaders.org.

Reproduced on this web site by permission.