WEDNESDAY'S WORD - WHITEWASH - Sadell Bradley - 07/20/16 New Life Covenant Cincinnati

A WHITEWASH is a solution of lime and water or of whiting, size and water used for painting walls to make them white.  Figuratively, whitewashing is a deliberate concealment of someone's mistakes or faults in order to clear their name. My church upbringing has been in African-American congregations. For the last decade or so, God has called me to multi-ethnic situations, which is great but has its positives and negatives. One thing that disturbs me is when churches are multi-ethnic (visually from different groups), but not multi-cultural in expression. They mostly reflect the style, social mores, and practices of the dominant culture. Maybe this is because most multi-ethnic churches are led by Caucasian men, or that we in the US have implicit bias. Still, it's like we're saying, "We want this smorgasbord to look great, but let's have all the food taste like cheeseburgers." As African-American leaders of a multi-ethnic church, what has to be yielded to truly reflect multi-culturalism is challenging, and sadly the culture that suffers most is ours.  

I read an interesting pop culture article on Hollywood whitewashing. "It's a kind of casting where film studios have placed white actors in lead roles under the assumption that the majority of Americans would rather see a white face than a non-white one-despite what the role calls for." (e.g. Jake Gyllenhaal playing a Persian, John Wayne playing Genghis Khan, or Liz Taylor playing Cleopatra) The author, Tanya Ghahremani goes on to say, "The major problem with race-bending and whitewashing-aside from, you know, it being deeply offensive-is that it takes roles from actors who actually are of that ethnicity/race. In turn, they get stuck with minor roles that only serve to supplement the story of the white lead, or with stereotyped roles. For instance: If you're Middle Eastern, you'll be cast as a terrorist." I am concerned that the same thing is happening in our churches. Are those of color an integral part, or are we just supplementing the white lead? Is it possible that a particular song should be sung or statement made by a person of color?

There is great debate over what the multi-national and tribal expression of the Church Like Heaven in Revelation 7:9 actually looks like today: 

"After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."

The beauty of cultural identity was somehow important enough for John to mention in this context.  Multi-ethnicity should not turn into mono-ethnicity. If a particular culture must dominate over all others no matter the side, then the higher question is... Is Jesus really playing the lead role?

   

 

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