A Taxonomy of Church & Ethnic Engagement

As there is a fair pit of dialogue on twitter at the moment on multiculturalism in churches I thought I would post some material on the issue.

Some years ago in teaching on urban contextualization I came up with a taxonomy of how churches engage with the existential issue of living in a multi-cultural or multi-ethnic society (I use the terms synonymously). This is not to make a judgment on one approach or another but simply as an analytical tool. The taxonomy is based on two axes: the horizontal (x) axis on multiculturality and the vertical (y) axis on philosophy of engagement. This is what it looks like:

The table below shows how churches of the four types differ from each other.

	Pragmatic Monocultural	Pragmatic Multicultural	Idealistic  Multicultural	Idealistic  Monocultural
Affirmation of communal identity	û	ü	ü	ü
Communities meet separately in one local church	û	ü	ü	û
Communities gather in one congregation	û	û	ü	û
Translation in services	û	û	ü	û

Advantages of each type:

Pragmatic Monocultural	Pragmatic Multicultural	Idealistic  Multicultural	Idealistic  Monocultural
clear expectations of what is expected of everyone easy for majority community to accept outsiders from minority communities	all groups are encouraged to express themselves according to their cultural norms single local church expresses multicultural reality of universal church in relationships between congregations of one church	all groups are encouraged to express themselves according to their cultural norms single local church expresses multicultural reality of universal church in vivid public form	all groups are encouraged to express themselves according to their cultural norms relations between local churches expresses multicultural reality of universal church outsiders readily feel at home

Disadvantages of each type:

Pragmatic Monocultural	Pragmatic Multicultural	Idealistic  Multicultural	Idealistic  Monocultural
not easy for minority communities to adjust to culture of majority church for those from minority communities, bridges to unbelieving relatives and friends are broken, passively by neglect or actively by insistence on leaving former lifestyle	sense of unity of local church is threatened communication between congregations is complicated outsiders may still feel the congregation is not for them because the ownership of the wider group is multicultural, especially if the senior leaders are from the majority community	no community feels entirely at home in the congregation communication is complicated outsiders may still feel the meeting is not for them because the identity of the minority group is subsumed under that of the majority	image of unity of universal church is threatened postponement of ethical awareness communication between churches is complicated