Politics and faith

Being a Baptist pastor places me on interesting footing with regards to speaking publicly about politics. To begin with, I believe firmly in the separation of Church and State that our Baptist ancestors fought so hard for. As such then I am not speaking here for my church or any other Baptist group in an official way. However, I do want to speak from the inside looking out as it were, I want to speak on the subject as a person of faith who is interested in more than a few talking points meant to herd us in a specific direction. So, I will NOT be writing about abortion or Homosexuality. What I do want to say about these two very important issues that have been so effectively used to manipulate us is that I do NOT want to live in a theocracy and true democracy demands we respect the rights of others. The freedom we have here requires us to respect the opinion of others, even if it makes our blood boil, as long as it does not infringe in our or others freedom. Imposing our beliefs on others through legislation or government action, whichever side one is in, goes against the principles of freedom we profess to believe so firmly. It also goes against Christ's relationship with humanity as I understand it.

Closer to God

Philippians 2:1-13
This sunday my theme is Coming closer to God. I think my sermon will be based on the text above and use those admonitions as tangible steps towards closeness with God.

"be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind." God's relationship with us all is communal. There is something very special about coming to the worship experience as a community. If we add coming together with a similar goal to that experience we are already well on our way towards a very special experience.

I just found this, wrote it a while back

I thought this an interesting bit of thinking. So, I am posting it in the knowledge that I can very well be the only person who reads this blog as it is so rarely updated...

What does your accent say about you?

I attended one of the nights of the Justice preaching series. The preacher for that night was Hector Cortez. I cannot do justice to the sermon here but I'll just paraphrase the beginnning of the sermon, which I then quoted during one of mine. I should also add that this could be one of my own conversations when meeting new people.

When I meet people the conversation often moves to, so where are you from?
when I answer, Chicago there's a puzzled face and they then say, where are you REALLY from?
my accent, in spite of my best efforts, betrays my Latino origin.

This particular sermon has tremendous relevance to what our country is going through with regards to the immigration issue. This past Sat. I was at an immigration information session. It was supposed to be an informational session but in the back there were two women who always go to any immigration forum around this area and heckle panelists with gross generalizations about the "illegal immigrants" who are ruining our country. I mention this here because it is related to the issue of one's accent. To these women the majority of the evils in our society are because of these illegal immigrants. Now, these people do not have the means to check on the indentification of those they are accusing. So, how do they know who these "illegal immigrants" are then? "my accent, in spite of my best efforts, betrays my Latino origin".

Living it

So, my previous blog pointed towards the importance of living multiculturalism. I believe that a living experience is the most effective way of experience multiculturalism in a truer form. Of course this does not mean a short trip during which we simply adjust to the current condition and perhaps even enjoy it, safe in the knowledge that it is not permanent. I would count most experiences abroad in this category, missions trips, NGO years or things of that nature. I should add that we should not let the brush get too broad as within experiences abroad there does exist an actual experience of my intended result. However, it seems to be that there is a difference between agreeing to a situation for a limited span of time in a place that is not home and having a similar situation happen at home without end in sight. My church is engaged in the latter, we are seeking to live multiculturalism at home and with no end in sight.

In my process of thinking of ways to explain this to my church I found myself looking inwards. I live different worlds within me as a by-cultural person with parents from different countries and cultures. My world flows easily between universes that seem so very foreign to each side. To many people I encounter my world seems to be exciting, broad, full of interesting adventures. The essence of the positive aspects of a multicultural world right? However, in my life at my church I have found that my experience in encountering and living with different cultures is such a part of who I am that I too have a lot to learn with regards to encountering the other. It takes effort for me to get close enough to the "new world" to live it in the way that I may be asking my church to do, and I have been living it all my life!

The beginning of the answer

A good beginning to the process of exploring the answer to what is multiculturalism would be to say that it is much more than being aware and respectful of other cultures around us. Being culturally aware/sensitive is a great way to broaden one's world views and opinions. As humans we owe ourselves at least the minimum of learning how to approach different cultures with interest and curiosity. Approaching those different than use with interest and hopeful curiosity would help us moderate a common problem of dominant cultures throughout history, a sense of superiority that can easily denigrate to uncontrolled arrogance. Unchecked arrogance has been an influential and contributing factor on the demise of nearly all great cultures in the history of humanity. The influence arrogance has had in hurting great cultures is partly due to the problem that it tends to foster complacency, apathy towards those different than "us". The resulting problem is that the more we believe in our superiority the easier it becomes to dismiss the "other" and their culture. It is in this state that the practice of "awareness" becomes very appealing, it is a great way to feel like one is contributing while avoiding all the pesky stuff such as actually living with a different culture. However, awareness is not all bad, it can be the beginning of an amazing journey that can enrich anyone's life in more ways than can be imagined.

A new beginning

It has certainly been a while since I've written anything here. I did make one attempt to make myself blog by asking my friends to send me questions which would require a response from me. Unfortunately I was not able to make myself blog on a regular basis. So, here I am now giving this blogging things one more shot. I am now assuming nobody reads this other than me and if you've stumbled onto this rambling, I apologize if it is boring.

What is multiculturalism?
My church is dealing with the reality of seeking to become multicultural. Of course, as we get deeper into it I realize how little the members of the church really know about the subject. This makes me wonder how prevalent this problem is in the "church world". My assumption is that very few churches know what multiculturalism is much less what it means to live with it.

I think the first major misunderstanding I have come across is the thought that awareness is the same as action. This is something our American society is very well versed in and something we see as the appropriate way to respond to problematic issues. We are very good at bringing awareness to our worlds. Please click on awareness to see a very good explanation of what I mean by that word as something we love. Awareness has become the best way we have to feel as though we are "doing something" without having our lifestyles suffer in the least. Awareness as action is the reason we buy bracelets or ribbons, etc. Of course, many would say that they do the "cancer walks" and various other activities related to that. However, these are things that are very rarely inconvenient and for the most part benefit us much more than the people actually suffering.

So, we are still left with the question of what IS multiculturalism.