What is cultural identity?
Answering this question requires a common understanding of identity, so let’s start there. There’s an enormous volume of literature addressing this question, and the full range of material is more than I can delve into here. With that being said, many would agree that identity is deeply informed by a pair of questions: “Who am I?” and “How do I fit into the world?”
The answers to these questions lay the foundation of identity throughout childhood. However, children lack the physical and cognitive development needed to reflect deeply on the full meaning of identity until adolescence, when our capacity for self-reflection and self-consciousness deepen.1 That’s when we’re able to ask questions like “Who am I?” and “How do I fit into the world?”
With the benefit of hindsight, many of us can see ways in which we experimented with answering identity questions as we progressed toward adulthood. Our teenage years in particular are dominated by attempts to figure out which social category we fit into and where we fall in the hierarchy of our particular social setting.
Like most teens, I was borderline obsessed with finding a sense of identity in my high school years. Like a kid sifting through outfits on the store rack, I tried on each one, desperately hoping to find a fit. In my school, the choices were basically limited to the jock, the brooding artist, the cheerleader, the skater, the Goth kid, the musician, the athlete, the punk rocker, the nerdy but interesting scholar, and the rebel without a cause.
Fortunately, everything changed for me when a new category suddenly emerged. A boy band by the name of New Kids on the Block burst onto the scene, and it was as if I had a revelation. Jordan Knight was the lead singer of NKOTB (yes, you had to use the acronym if you were truly cool), and he was the heartthrob of every teenage girl I knew. So my mission in life was finally clear: I needed to figure out how to become Jordan, and by proxy, to pass as a potential member of a boy band.
My wardrobe began to transform. Sleeveless denim vest? Check. Sports jacket wrapped around my waist? Check. Black button-down shirt with mesh sleeves? Check. The clincher was the silver hoop earring, though. That was Jordan Knight’s defining fashion contribution, and I was going to make it mine as well.
I knew this wouldn’t be easy, as I was a pastor’s kid living in a very conservative Christian environment. Any attempts at putting a hole in my body were going to be met with some Old Testament wrath, so I had to find a nontraditional route. Fortunately (if that’s the right word), I had a friend who taught me how to pierce my own ear with a cube of ice. (Hint for anyone considering the same: the ice doesn’t really help.) It was a high price to pay for being a self-declared member of a boy band, but I was committed to the course. Therefore I would pierce my ear before every major social event and then pray that the hole would close back up before I got home. What we do to fit into the world!
The story of my manic attempt to fit in as an awkward teenager illustrates the definition of identity in this book. Again, our identity is typically shaped by two fundamental questions: “Who am I?” and “How do I fit into the world?” While these questions apply to the formation of individual identity, they are also relevant to the exploration of cultural identity.
Before defining cultural identity, it might be helpful to explore a couple concepts of culture. Sherwood Lingenfelter, a Christian missiologist, notes in his book Ministering Cross-Culturally that all human behavior occurs within specific cultures, making it a particularly important idea to engage. Culture shapes the way we order our life, interpret our experiences, and evaluate the behavior of other people.2 Another take is the popularized definition from Richard Brislin and Tomoko Yoshida: “Culture consists of concepts, values, and assumptions about life that guide behavior and are widely shared by people. . . . [These] are transmitted generation to generation, rarely with explicit instructions, by parents, teachers, religious figures, and other respected elders.”3
These two descriptions help us understand the intersection of culture and identity. Brislin and Yoshida first note that culture consists of assumptions that we make; these assumptions are then transmitted from generation to generation. Lingenfelter notes that culture shapes the way we interpret our experiences as well as how we evaluate the behaviors of others. Taken together, I would summarize the most pertinent information regarding cultural identity as this: culture plays a direct and significant role in how we learn to see both our neighbors and ourselves. Culture shapes how and what we see, and how and what we see shapes our everyday behaviors and actions.
Therefore, when I use the term cultural identity in this book, I define it this way: how a person answers the questions “Who am I?” and “How do I fit into the world?” through the lenses of culture, race, ethnicity, and/or class.
No writer has had a greater impact on my understanding of cultural identity than Dr. Beverly Tatum. A widely recognized authority on the topic, Tatum has a glittering résumé to underscore her expertise: she was the ninth president of Spelman College (the oldest historically black women’s college in the United States) and wrote the bestselling Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?, an expansive exploration of cultural identity. Tatum now lectures nationally on the connection between cultural identity and educational achievement.
When introducing cultural identity (or racial identity, a term she uses synonymously), Tatum tells a simple but poignant story of two eighth-grade girls, one black and the other white. The story serves as a parable of sorts for the cultural identity journey and reveals how even an everyday encounter can have dramatically different implications on people of different races.4
The story begins with a seemingly harmless interaction between a white schoolteacher, Mr. Smith, and the black eighth grader. Mr. Smith is one of the chaperones for the school dance coming up, and he’s telling the class how excited he is. He asks the young black woman if she’s planning to attend, and she says no. She informs him that the black students are bussed into the mostly white neighborhood, and one of the unfortunate results of this social inequality is their lack of transportation to extracurricular activities. If the event doesn’t happen during school hours, there will be no black students in attendance.
Sharing information like this is no small task for the young black woman. The daily commute from her homogeneously black neighborhood into this homogeneously white neighborhood is a constant reminder that she is an “other.” She often feels that she is an outsider looking in, and the inability to find transportation to extracurricular events only exasperates this feeling. It was courageous and vulnerable for her to discuss this with the teacher.
Despite the gravity of her statement, Mr. Smith misses its significance. He is fixated on the school dance and is determined to convince this young woman to attend. Ignoring the information she just shared, he does his best to persuade her to reconsider. When he sees that his efforts are failing to yield any change, he mutters one final comment: “Oh come on, I know you people love to dance.”
This final line drops like a bomb. While it’s unclear to this young woman the full extent of what Mr. Smith meant by it, that doesn’t change the sting of the statement. When he included her in the “you people” group, it struck at the heart of one of her deepest suspicions. Though she couldn’t prove it, she sensed she was an outsider in Mr. Smith’s class. It seemed he treated her differently than the other students, and she feared it could be due to her race. The careless use of “you people” has poured fresh gasoline all over the tinder of her fears.
On the verge of tears, she bursts out of the classroom, and there she serendipitously bumps into her best friend. The friend, who is white, responds immediately with genuine concern. She probes for what made her friend so upset, and the black student decides to recount the entire episode. She reveals that she has often felt like a cultural outsider in Mr. Smith’s classroom and shares how his “you people” comment shook her to the core.
Since they have been friends for a while, the black girl assumes that this will be met with empathy and understanding. But to her surprise, the white eighth grader skips right over the feelings of sadness, shock, shame, and anger. Instead she comes to the defense of the teacher, responding, “Oh, Mr. Smith is such a nice guy. I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that. Don’t be so sensitive.”
The young black woman wants to give her friend the benefit of the doubt, but the lack of awareness around what happened is more than she can bear. She realizes that though she loves her friend—and trusts that her friend loves her—it was unwise to share something so delicate in a crosscultural setting. Nursing her wounds from these back-to-back encounters, the young black woman goes to find someone that might understand her pain.
This is a brilliant story for introducing cultural identity because Tatum was able take an everyday occurrence and clearly juxtapose the experience of the black eighth grader with that of the white eighth grader. It wasn’t the first time the young black woman had seen something like that. By then she was already familiar with “two-ness”—the experience of operating in one America that’s white and one America that’s black. W. E. B. Du Bois, the famous sociologist, historian, and civil rights activist, coined the term double-consciousness to describe this experience of two-ness. In his seminal book The Souls of Black Folk, Du Bois described double-consciousness as the psychological challenge of “always looking at one’s self through the eyes” of a white society.5
Two-ness is exactly what this young eighth grader was wrestling with as she interacted with the foundational questions of identity: “Who am I?” and “How do I fit in the world?” In some of her circles, these questions were met with affirming voices, and her emerging sense of identity was celebrated and lifted up. But in other circles, she had to reckon with a different story. She was told that there was a different standard for white people than for black people. She was told that she needed to be on high alert in regard to her behaviors and actions whenever she was in all-white spaces. She was told that she needed to perform at a higher level than her white peers if she hoped to overcome prejudices and implicit biases. If she hoped to develop a stable cultural identity, she would have to find a way to reconcile those opposing messages.
If two-ness was the lens by which the black eighth grader viewed this encounter, then what about the white eighth grader? What did she see? Based on her response, the answer is “not much.” She certainly didn’t see the deeper meaning behind her friend’s pain. And if she had any vantage point at all, it was fixed on the need to defend Mr. Smith’s motives from being misinterpreted.
So why was the sight of this white eighth grader so limited? Why was she unable to see the deeper meaning behind Mr. Smith’s statement?
Let’s pause to allow the weight of those questions sink in, because the answers are directly relevant to you and me as well. One aspect of this story should provoke us: while the white eighth grader had sincere intentions, it didn’t change the fact that the consequences of her actions led to pain for her friend. A lack of vision often places us in the same position: sincere intentions but harmful consequences.
So let’s reiterate this important question: Why was the white eighth grader unable to see the deeper meaning of this encounter between her black friend and Mr. Smith? And what does that reveal to us about dimensions of the cultural identity journey that we are often blind to?
I would suggest that first we must contend with the normalization of white culture. While that phrase may sound like a mouthful, it reflects a reality that powerfully shapes our daily interactions, so we must look at it carefully.
Let me start with an academic description of the phrase before moving to some everyday illustrations. British sociologist Alistair Bonnet conducted extensive research on white culture in both America and Britain, and he noted that there was something unique about white culture, especially when observed in relation to nonwhite cultures: in both countries white culture is the “norm” by which all other cultural identities are evaluated. White culture is an “unchanging and unproblematic location, a position from which all other identities come to be marked by their difference.”6 In plain language, he said that when we attempt to categorize culture internally, we almost always treat white cultural as “normal.” With white culture serving as the baseline, we then evaluate everyone else’s culture based on the norms we associate with white culture.
I took a seminary class with a white, racially conscious professor years ago, and he was convinced of this hypothesis. He regularly challenged his students to engage in self-examination of what we assumed to be culturally “normal” and illustrated the prevalence of white normalization in as many ways as possible. During one class, he pulled out a census form to make his point, and asked, “Have you ever noticed how every cultural group on the census is defined in proximity to white Americans? You have Native American, African American, Asian American, Latino/a American, and so on. What is not overtly stated is how normalized white American culture is. All of these identities are labeled relative to the location of white culture.”
He would then urge his students to consider the way the normalization of whiteness also revealed itself through everyday vocabulary. He asked, “Have you ever heard a person’s first name described as ‘weird’ or ‘unusual’? White people calling it weird or unusual don’t necessarily mean to overtly appeal to race; yet that’s almost always what they mean.
“Many names are considered ‘normal’ within white culture, and when a name is seen as weird or unusual, it’s usually because the name doesn’t fall within that standard. The same is true when we describe an individual’s personal fashion as ‘weird’ or ‘unusual.’ It’s weird or unusual in comparison to the white default.”
Since these were all seminary students, he delighted in showing us the way this normalization of whiteness was reflected in our own institution. He said, “Each of you will be required to take a handful of core theology classes before you graduate. That’s good—you should. But I want to show you something interesting.” He powered up the projector and brought an online catalog of classes up on the screen. “Watch this,” he said. “There are core, required classes that are just called theology. But when you go to the electives, you will see that, in the spirit of diversity, we offer an array of additional theology classes: black theology, Latin theology, Asian theology, etc. A question begs to be asked: Why do all of those theology classes have a modifier before them? Where is the category of white theology? I will answer it for you: you won’t find one. The theology passed on to us from white forefathers is considered to be the normal, default standard for theology. It is the assumed cultural norm. Everyone else’s theology is defined in relation to whiteness.”
In time I began to see how this was far more than a theoretical exercise. The normalization of white culture dramatically affects cultural identity development, and both white people and people of color feel its effects.
Consider my friend Samuel as example of this effect. He was raised by a white father and Chinese American mother, and they lived in a wealthy suburb just outside of Chicago. Despite living in a mixed-race home, Samuel never thought much about race or culture growing up.
When he was twelve, that began to change. He had been in the same elementary school from grades pre-K through sixth grade, so his friendship circle had remained steady during those years. When seventh grade came, everyone went to different junior high schools, and with that came the prospect of having to form new friendships. Samuel felt nervous, as all young students do when moving into new circles. But with a naturally outgoing personality, he figured he’d be able to make new friends easily.
When he began attending classes at the new school, which was predominantly white, he was bombarded with a new question—one he had never been asked before: “What are you?”
In some ways, that question could be interpreted as innocent and even expected from adolescents. Samuel’s peers were engaging in identity development in a more thorough way than they had in their childhood years, and with increased enlightenment came new levels of curiosity. But at another level, we expect this question from any young person growing up in a society that normalizes white culture. These seventh graders had never taken a class on being white. They had never been explicitly indoctrinated about what is acceptable in white culture and what is not. And yet, by the time they were twelve, they had developed a keen sense of what is considered culturally “normal.” They had inherited a racial classification system that normalized whiteness, and based on that, were attempting to categorize Samuel. This “what are you?” question wasn’t just in the bad manners category; it was in the “ I’m measuring you against my culturally normal” category.
Let me tell one last story, with the hope of driving home the relationship between cultural identity and the normalization of white culture. I recognize that mentioning politics may pull unnecessary triggers, but I bring it up to raise a point about race and culture, not about politics. In November 2016, Donald Trump was elected to be the next president of the United States, and the aftermath sent shock waves along racial lines through the American church. Though it isn’t unusual for Christians to fall on separate sides of the political spectrum, there was something unique about Trump’s campaign. A majority of Christians of color viewed the rhetoric that marked his run for president as racist, sexist, and xenophobic, and they felt it was a matter of moral conscience to stand against his campaign in a spirit of resistance. Their assumption was that their white counterparts held to this conviction as well, but the election results told a different story. Eighty-one became a regularly referred-to percentage of white evangelicals who voted for Trump.
The already-present racial divide in the church became further enflamed by the election, and it manifested in some concrete ways. That divide was on display in the betrayal and anger many Christians of color communicated toward white Christians. Some of the respected bridge-building leaders went so far as to publicly question whether there could ever be genuine unity across racial lines in the American church.
On the other side were white Christians, many of them displaying shock at the outrage from their brothers and sisters of color. To them the election was about something very different from race, and they were perplexed about why the results had landed so hard on people of color. What became clear to everyone during this time was that regardless of where one’s political views landed, the result was that the racial breach between Christians had grown qualitatively worse.
Social media was the universe in which conversations on race ignited. It seemed that I was pulled into an intensely charged conversation daily during that era, and one in particular elucidates the intersection between cultural identity and the normalization of whiteness. It happened on one of my social media pages and involved three friends with whom I had worked closely in a previous ministry setting. Two of them were white, and they were part of a group that was attempting to understand why people of color felt so betrayed by the election. The third friend was a man of Filipino descent (I will call him Jonathan), who was doing his best to engage in a way that might help them understand the collective heartache.
The conversation began at a theoretical level as the three of them volleyed political ideas back and forth. But the disposition of the conversation quickly changed when Jonathan shared that the pain he was feeling was not tied to political differences or partisan alliances. He said,
This has nothing to do with Republicans or Democrats. I love America. I grew up in this country. I appreciate the democracy we have, and typically I don’t care much about whom my friends vote for, as long as they vote their conscience. But this election was different. This election changed my daily reality. For the first time in my life, I am waking up every morning scared. I feel like the tenor of this election gave those with hate in their hearts permission to speak it out loud—maybe to even act on it. I feel like I don’t know whom I can trust anymore, and I am anxious all of the time. That’s the bottom line—as a person of color, I feel genuinely scared. That is what I wish you guys would see and understand.
This was a courageous thing to share, and I was moved by his words. It was an act of vulnerability, and I found myself praying that the three of us white friends would have the eyes to see what he was sharing.
William, the most outspoken in this dialogue, was the first to respond. His initial words gave me hope that he was indeed beginning to see things in a new way: “Wow, Jonathan, thank you for sharing that. I had no idea you felt so scared. I am really sorry that this is your experience.” But then he added,
I can’t believe you said you are a person of color though. Are you really a person of color? You and I have been friends for years, and I have never heard you say that. Why are you all of sudden saying things like that? I would be cautious to talk about race too much right now—that’s not going to help any of our situations. I really don’t think you have anything to worry about. I’ve never once thought of you as any different than me, and I’m sure nobody else will see you any different either. You are going to be fine bro—just trust in God.
My heart sank when I read these words. I had known William for a number of years, and I trusted that the motives behind his misguided attempt at comforting Jonathan were sincere. But I could also see how William had just embodied unprocessed, normalized whiteness. As a highly educated, white man, he had never felt the danger that comes with being seen as the racial or cultural “other.” All he’d ever known was being culturally “normal.” This made it exceedingly difficult for him to empathize with the daily risks that Jonathan was facing in this climate, and it placed a limit on his ability to be a good and faithful friend in that moment.
Furthermore, William’s response showed that he did have some idea of how powerful white culture is. By letting Jonathan know “I’ve never once thought of you as any different than me” and then reassuring him that “nobody else will see you any different either,” he was making a direct appeal to race and culture. His logic was likely formed at a subconscious level, but he was nonetheless basing his reassurance on Jonathan’s proximity to whiteness. And though my translation may come across as more direct than what William said, the logic of what he was arguing sounded something like this: “Jonathan, there is nothing for you to be afraid of. When I see you, I don’t see a Filipino man. I see someone white, or at least acceptable to whites. I am confident that other white people will see you like this as well. So don’t worry anymore—you are all good.”
I don’t tell this story to disparage William. To be white and to step into unchartered waters around race and culture is to guarantee that moments like this will arise in each of our journeys. If we place too much emphasis on being politically correct or on the hope of avoiding mistakes, we miss the chance to learn humbly from moments of revelation.
I hope this story and the others explored here bring into sharp focus the point of this section: each of us who are serious about a deep and authentic engagement with cultural identity need to contend with the normalization of white culture. No person is exempt.
As for the hope of staying strong on this journey, I believe it’s helpful to name a couple of the tensions felt by white people and contending with the normalization of whiteness. For one, we confront the confusion that comes with trying to describe what has always been normal to us. Though a white person could clearly be an outsider in another social category (such as gender, religion, sexual orientation, age, or physical or mental ability), it isn’t possible to be a cultural outsider when it comes to race. When the time comes for us to engage whiteness, we feel disoriented, because we aren’t practiced at it.
A metaphor I’ve heard to describe this confusion is that of fish trying to analyze the water they live in; they’re surrounded by it, and it’s impossible to see. I would take it even further: If you take a fish out of the water, it immediately gasps for air and does whatever it can to stay alive. Though there’s no reason for a human being to view the cultural identity journey in as dramatic of terms as a fish out of water, my experience suggests that this is what it often feels like for white people. There are moments when it feels so uncomfortable we gasp for air.
That leads to a second tension that white people must learn to manage when contending with the normalization of whiteness: privilege. Privilege can be a loaded word, but to simplify it for the journey of cultural identity, I appeal to the definition of Rev. Julian DeShazier. Julian is a pastor who does a lot of great work with racial reconciliation in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago and is also known as the successful hip-hop artist J. Kwest. One of the concepts he frequently talks about in crosscultural settings is privilege, which he simply defines as “the ability to walk away.”
This is one of the essential truths we as white people need to remember (or become aware of, if it’s new) as we contend with the normalization of whiteness. When the journey begins to feel like any combination of scary, confusing, disorienting, or even painful, we have a privilege that people of color do not: we can walk away; we can go back to “normal,” if we choose.
Before wrapping up our exploration of cultural identity, let’s look at a couple of important conversation points that are distinct to the Christian journey. In the last chapter I shared some of the story of my unsuccessful attempt to start a culturally diverse ministry in the city of Chicago (Metro 212). There were many lessons that I learned during that era, but the need to have a theologically informed approach to cultural identity was at the top of the list. I would eventually go on to plant a new faith community called River City Community Church (a name inspired by Revelation 22:1-4) in Chicago with a group of people in January 2003, and this time we were ready to integrate the need for cultural identity development into our overall understanding of Christian discipleship.
It is worth noting that the dynamics that come with the cultural identity journey shift as you work with individuals of diverse cultural backgrounds, and that must certainly be taken into account for anyone leading in a multicultural context. Since the focus of this book is exclusively on the cultural identity journey of white people, I would like to address some of the specific dynamics that tend to arise for those of us who are white.
I have worked with hundreds of white Christians over the years at River City who are actively seeking to deepen their understanding of cultural identity. I also have had the opportunity to engage with white Christians on this topic in a variety of contexts, including groups ranging from pastors to college students and social settings ranging from rural to suburban to urban. While each of those environments creates a different backdrop for the conversation, I consistently find that the questions, objections, and sticking points remain remarkably similar. Much of what I’ve learned from these conversations will be shared in the next few chapters. For now, here are two themes that have become foundational for my conversations in these groups and that need to be mentioned in this chapter on cultural identity:
The biblical motivation for engaging in cultural identity. One of the distinctive traits of Christianity is a commitment to God’s revelation of truth in Scripture, so that should be the starting point for a Christ follower’s journey toward cultural identity. While there is much worth saying about the theology of cultural identity, I typically begin by focusing on the material throughout Scripture that emphasizes the centrality of identity transformation. Consider as a small sample some of the foundational terms and concepts from the Christian vocabulary and the way they highlight identity transformation.
Born again. We explored this phrase in the last chapter, and it’s one of the most comprehensive identity terms in the Bible. Being born again requires recognition that one can’t become a mature Christian by just attending a class, reading a book, or doing good deeds. Instead there must be a complete overhaul of how we understand our identity. Like a baby entering the world for the first time, we enter into a new way of life in Christ. The deep-water questions of identity—“Who am I?” and “How do I fit into the world?”—are now to be answered exclusively through our new status in Christ.
Baptized. As the sacrament most closely associated with Christian conversion, baptism is saturated with the language of identity transformation. To be baptized is to make the decision (or have your parents make it for you) to be permanently and eternally identified with the person of Jesus Christ. Even more importantly, to be baptized is to accept the gift of having God identify with us. When Jesus got baptized, God the Father affirmed the precious gift of belovedness: “This is my son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).
Child of God. In Romans 8:14-17, the apostle Paul points us to the mystical reality that through the Spirit of God we have been adopted as sons and daughters, and therefore we are now heirs of God and coheirs with Christ. Everything we do is to be informed by this reality; our family relations now shape our identity. We are to take on the character of Christ (our older brother) and to pursue what is core to the heart of God (our heavenly Father).
Disciple of Christ. Translated most frequently as a learner or student, a disciple is someone whose identity is now fully defined by his or her relationship to the master Rabbi. Our will, our attitude, and our behaviors are then all informed by our identity in Christ. The word Christian is virtually synonymous to this, as those who were outside the faith created and applied the term to those whose identity was then wrapped up in the person of Jesus (Acts 11:26; 26:28).
Theology is one of my greatest passions, and I particularly enjoy studying what the Bible says about this topic. For the purpose of this chapter, and for the overall defining of cultural identity, let me simply emphasize this: the Bible provides us with a unique and powerful motivation for pursuing wholesale, identity transformation in Christ.
Identity transformation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It requires honesty, reflection, and acknowledgement of the significant forces that have helped shape who we were prior to devoting our lives to Christ as well as who we are moving forward. Because culture plays such a major role in shaping our identity, Christian discipleship requires us to engage deeply with cultural identity as well.
Though the Bible presents us with a unique motivation for pursuing cultural identity, we’re immediately at risk of having that motivation undercut by a persistent misconception within many Christian circles: colorblindness. Religious people don’t have a monopoly on colorblindness, as there are people of every background who have it. Colorblindness minimizes the racial-cultural heritage of a person and promotes a culturally neutral approach that sees people independent of their heritage.
Though you can find the presence of colorblind ideology in all sectors of society, a uniquely powerful version is circulating in the Christian context. The ideology of Christian colorblindness is fortified by theological truths that are unfortunately misapplied to cultural identity. The short form usually sounds something like this: “God did not create multiple races; there is just one race: humankind.” As human beings, we share more in common than difference. We have all sinned, we are all in need of redemption, we are all equals at the foot of the cross, and through faith we are all one in Christ.
Every part of that sentence is theologically accurate; sin, salvation, and redemption are equally applicable to people of every race and creed. The problem is that those same truths are incorrectly applied to cultural identity, leaving us with a dangerous form of colorblindness. Consider just a handful of reasons why colorblindness is a dangerous ideology for Christians to subscribe to and why it can thwart authentic engagement with cultural identity.
Colorblindness minimizes the role cultural identity played in the story of many Old Testament heroes. Once you begin to view the Bible through a lens that includes cultural identity, you discover the major role it played in the mission of so many of the “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1).
Colorblindness minimizes the incarnation of Christ. As theologically significant as it is that God incarnated into humankind, we must be careful not to miss that Jesus came to earth embodied within a specific cultural identity. While he transcends skin color and racial divisions, Jesus the human being was a Jew, and one who most likely had somewhat dark skin.
Jesus was also born within a specific genealogical line that was culturally significant, and that established him as the son of David (Matthew 1:1). He was a Jewish boy who learned the customs and norms of his culture growing up: he worshiped in synagogues and observed the annual Passover and other feasts in the temple in Jerusalem. He was a Jewish adult whose mastery of the Scriptures in his local synagogue earned him a title of respect: rabbi. He was regularly seen and recognized as a Jew from both outside of his culture (such as the Samaritan woman in John 4) and within (at multiple points both his disciples and Jewish leaders reminded him of cultural obligations, ranging from Sabbath observance to ritual washings). Just before Jesus’ death, Pilate had inscribed over his head the words “King of the Jews.” To be colorblind would be to risk missing some of the deepest meanings of Christ’s incarnation.
Colorblindness minimizes the overtones of cultural identity throughout the early church. In Matthew 28:19, Jesus sent his apostles to “go and make disciples of all nations [ethnos],” and their endeavors are recorded in the book of Acts. From the very start, we see cultural identity manifesting as a critical dimension of the church:
Colorblindness minimizes the ways God recognizes and celebrates cultural diversity. In Revelation 7:9, we get a glimpse of heaven, and in this glimpse we see a culturally diverse group of people worshiping Christ. This affirms that even in heaven, colorblindness is not an option. Then, in Revelation 21, we see that in the eternal city of God our final state will be enriched because “the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it” and “the glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it” (vv. 24, 26). God recognizes that different cultures reflect different honors and gifts, and these gifts are for the glory of God.
Each of those four points gives a strong theological case for eliminating Christian colorblindness, but let me finish with the most important of all: sin. Christians of every background agree that there is a need to account for the reality of sin. Our “old self” was ruled by sin, and Jesus’ death and resurrection both atone for that sin and lead us into a new, resurrected life (Romans 6:5-11). The ongoing work of Christian growth is to pursue redeemed life in God and to participate in the life of Christ in such a way that we no longer allow sin to reign the way it did in our old self (Romans 6:12-14). Therefore, to move forward with Christ means to acknowledge the power of sin. We must name it, confess it, and do all that we can to break free of its former power.
Christian colorblindness is dangerous for many reasons, but the power of sin is at the top of the list. The system of race that we’ve created in America is fraught with sin, and it has played a powerful role in shaping the sense of identity of every human being who has lived here. Therefore it would be naive for devoted followers of Jesus to believe they can pursue the transformation of identity in Christ without also acknowledging the power of sin as evidenced by the impact of race. Our old self has been profoundly shaped by race, and we can’t grow into the new and redeemed self without naming the presence of that sin, confessing the ways it has impacted us, and doing all we can to break free of its former power.
That’s why I believe that choosing to remain colorblind is willful ignorance. We would never tolerate a form of Christianity that minimizes sin as it relates to conversion or discipleship; we should therefore never tolerate Christian colorblindness either.
Most of what shapes our initial sense of identity is beyond our control because it includes our time in history, our families of origin, our gender, and our cultural heritage. But in the human journey, we are able to make choices and to alter our future reality. We can choose to engage in self-reflection. We can choose to engage in theological reflection. We can choose to expose ourselves to perspectives outside our comfort level. We can choose to pursue growth, knowledge, and transformation. When we do, we participate with Christ, who declared, “The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).