Review

• Unconventional series
• Mental and emotional preparation for the subject matter.

The Importance of Context

Jesus Needed John the Baptist

• The whole purpose of John’s ministry was to mentally prepare people for what Jesus had to say.
• Remember that What Jesus had to say was provocative.

Dr. King’s Provocative Words

• We forget how much Dr. King’s words stirred people to anger.

The Importance of Provocative Statements

• The potential will exist for people to be provoked.

The Fear of Provocative Statements

• Romans 14:16 (ESV): ¹⁶ . . .do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.
  + Click to add your own note
• Ephesians 4:15 (ESV): ¹⁵ . . . .speak. . .the truth in love. . . .
  + Click to add your own note
• Matthew 10:16 (ESV): ¹⁶ “. . . .be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.”
  + Click to add your own note

Fear is the Enemy of Love

• 1 John 4:17–18 (ESV): ¹⁸ There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 

The Fear of Disapproval

• You are afraid of the disapproval of white people.
• Overly concerned about what white people think
• Not expecting me to speak, act and talk from a white cultural perspective.
• Mature and discerning enough purity of motive behind what I am communicating.
• You are afraid of the punishment and retribution that will come to you if I keep talking like this.
• Putting white people on a pedestal.

The Following excerpts are from Estranged Pioneers: Race, Faith, and Leadership in a Diverse World by Korie Little Edwards and Rebecca Y. Kim:

The Latino Pastor Experience

“Some Hispanic American pastors dissed their home church communities, preferring the cultures of white churches. Pastor Luis Montoya is one of these pastors. He is a bilingual 1.5-generation Mexican American who. . .lead[s] a small multiracial church.”–Estranged Pioneers (pp. 81-82)

“When pastor Montoya was asked why Hispanics would come to his church rather than a Spanish-speaking Mexican church, he described the shortcomings of the ‘ethnic church’ as a remnant of the old country and a hard immigrant life.” —Estranged Pioneers (p. 82)

He continues: “Successful Hispanic Americans who have assimilated and have been educated in mainstream institutions don’t want to go back to where they came from. They won’t go to Spanish-speaking immigrant churches that are typically under resourced and have ‘immigration issues.’ Instead, they want to go to the predominately white churches in the mainstream. . . .” —Estranged Pioneers (p. 82)

The Asian American Pastor Experience

Another pastor “who took this approach is Pastor Park, a second-generation Korean American pastor who planted a multiracial church on the West Coast. . . .One of the main strategies he employed when planting his church was to minimize his racial and ethnic identities.” —Estranged Pioneers (p.74)

“Pastor Park intentionally omitted any photos of himself on the church advertisements so as not to signal to people that the pastor of this new church in the community was Asian. He reasoned that if he included a picture of his face in church advertisements, people would quickly pin the church as an ‘Asian’ church and lose all interest” —Estranged Pioneers (p.74)

“Pastor Park made it clear he was not omitting his face because he was ashamed of who he is. Instead, he was simply accepting a reality that non-Asians, mostly white people, who predominate in the neighborhood would have trouble picturing themselves in a church led by an Asian person” —Estranged Pioneers (p.74)

The African American Pastor Experience

“Like Pastor Park, Pastor Jackson [and African American pastor] planted his church out of a predominantly white religious network. He too omitted any photos of himself on church materials. The church, he says has ‘been very intentional to keep my face off of anything, because there is a stigma that comes along with an African American.’ The stigma associated with his Blackness could negatively impact his church.” —Estranged Pioneers (p.75)

“Pastor Jackson was so committed to this belief that it was not until the lay leaders affirmed him. . .that he. . .agreed to have his face on church materials. . . .[But] even with this assurance from his leadership team, Pastor Jackson is still reluctant to make it evident that the audio sermons available to the public online are by him, a Black man.” —Estranged Pioneers (p.75)

“Like Pastor Park, Pastor Jackson emphasizes that he is not hiding his race because he is personally ashamed. Rather, it is simply a practical strategy to draw people to his church, which is located in a ‘white neighborhood’ that is not comfortable with having even a ‘marginal percentage of Black people.” —Estranged Pioneers (pp.75-76)

Conclusions from the Research

“Pastors of color [in multiracial churches]. . .reject, minimize, or hide their racial identity, particularly in their roles as head clergy, often because they see embodying and embracing their ethnoracial identity and culture as a threat to the stability of their racially diverse churches” —Estranged Pioneers (p.152)

“Multiracial churches. . .maintain. . .diversity at the expense of people of color. They are also about ensuring white people are sufficiently comfortable so they won’t leave and the church can stay racially diverse.” —Estranged Pioneers (p. 154)

The Social Realities of Race

Multiracial Churches and the Myth of Equality

While we believe in equality in the biblical sense, we don’t in equality in an absolute sense.

1 Corinthians 12:4–7 (ESV): ⁴ Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; ⁵ and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; ⁶ and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. ⁷ To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

Genesis 48:17–19 (ESV): ¹⁷ When Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him, and he took his father’s hand to move it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. ¹⁸ And Joseph said to his father, “Not this way, my father; since this one is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head.” ¹⁹ But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great. Nevertheless, his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations.”

Genesis 49:1 (ESV): ¹ Then Jacob called his sons and said, “Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in days to come.

Genesis 49:28 (ESV): 28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel. This is what their father said to them as he blessed them, blessing each with the blessing suitable to him.

Genesis 49:8–9 (ESV): 8 “Judah, your brothers shall praise you; your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; your father’s sons shall bow down before you. 9 Judah is a lion’s cub; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down; he crouched as a lion and as a lioness; who dares rouse him?

Acts 17:26–27 (ESV): ²⁶ And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, ²⁷ that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

Revelation 7:9–10 (ESV): ⁹ After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, ¹⁰ and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

References

Du Bois, W. E. B. The Souls of Black Folk. Oxford UP, 2008.

Equiano, Olaudah. Interesting Narrative and Other Writings. Penguin Books, 2003.

Franklin, John Hope and Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham. From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, 9^th Edition. Harvard UP, 2011.

Jordan, Winthrop D. The White Man’s Burden. Oxford UP, 1974.

Patterson, Orlando. Slavery and Social Death. Harvard UP, 1982.

© Joshua D. Smith, Ph.D., 2025