Multiculturalism

A Shalom Motif for the Christian Community

Chinaka S. DomNwachukwu, HeeKap Lee

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN:
  9781620329917
  9781498267335
• eBook ISBN:
  9781630873011
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

Multiculturalism: A Shalom Motif for the Christian Community is an attempt to engage the Christian community on the ongoing discussion of cultural diversity and its implications for the church and the entire Christian community of the twenty-first century. Written for Christian schools and churches, this book confronts the fact that, for the Christian church in North America to remain vibrant and relevant in the twenty-first century, it must engage with the idea of multiculturalism and all other forms of diversity that now characterize the contemporary society. While the nature of this engagement will vary from case to case, cultural diversity must become a growing face of the church in America. This book uses a combination of philosophy, educational theories, and biblical theology to provide Christian educators and churches with a critical understanding of multiculturalism, as well as practical steps for engaging this issue within the Christian community.

1

The Prevailing Philosophies and Ideologies that Inform Contemporary Christian Worldviews Today

Multiculturalism is an idea, a dynamic movement, and a reality that the contemporary American Christian community must not only come to terms with, but must embrace for her to remain relevant for twenty-first century society. This embrace does not necessarily mean compromise, rather a deliberate effort to understand and constructively engage the changing dynamics of our twenty-first century society so as to continue being light to the darkness of this world and salt to its decay and rottenness. Multiculturalism has been identified by some within American evangelical Christian communities as a secular humanistic endeavor, which stems from Marxism and related concepts.1 For this reason, multiculturalism as an idea has not enjoyed much reception within Christian communities, whether in academic circles or practical settings like churches and fellowships.

The America way of life assumes that “All men are created equal . . .”

The fact that some of the main philosophies and ideologies that have historically stood in opposition to the Christian worldview may be the precursors of this ideology have tended to disenfranchise Christians from any meaningful engagement with it.

We live in an age and a time when Christianity is confronted by a growing opposition from secular humanistic worldviews and other opposing worldviews, which has led the church to become defensive in the face of new and pragmatic thoughts and ideologies such as multiculturalism. Noebel and Edwards present a number of these opposing ideologies and worldviews as Secular Humanism, Marxism-Leninism, and Cosmic Humanism. They argue that these philosophies consist of New Age pantheism and neo-paganism.2 In order to meaningfully engage the idea of multiculturalism, we must define and understand these three ideologies and see them as the forces that have provided the basis for the arguments that have shaped Christian responses to multiculturalism. We must also explore some political ideologies that may play roles in making multiculturalism unappealing to some people within the evangelical community.

Secular Humanism

Humanism is a school of philosophy that presupposes that human beings rule their own destiny. This worldview is largely to blame for the contemporary spiritual chaos and purposeful departure from God, which currently characterizes many Western societies. It often assumes the nonexistence of God and underlies many anti-Christian philosophies and theories like the death of God theology, the theory of a distant and uninvolved God, and other forms of reasoning that remove the idea of God from people’s everyday reality. To the secular humanistic mindset God is either dead or nonexistent or he is far removed from the earth and detached from whatever we do with our lives, leaving us the masters of our destinies.

The history of humanism can be traced back to a Greek philosopher of the fifth century named Protagoras, who proposed that man is the measure of all existence. His teachings can be summarized in words from his treatise On the Gods. Protagoras claimed that

[i]n respect to the gods, I am unable to know either that they are or that they are not, for there are many obstacles to such knowledge, above all the obscurity of the matter, and the life of man, in that it is so short.3

He went on, however, to deny the existence of any absolutes, asserting that humankind, “is the measure of all things,” of things that are, that they are, and of things that are not, that they are not.4 As far as Protagoras was concerned, nothing exists outside of the scope of human discovery and knowledge. It is ironic that humans attempted to nullify faith in a personal, immutable, and eternal God who transcends this universe on the basis of human knowledge.

This trend in philosophy enjoyed a progressive development until the seventeenth century when a combination of factors in science, philosophy, and theology gave it a great boost. Galileo Galilei had just given the world the thermometer, developed the pendulum, and applied the telescope to the study of the heavens. He had come on the heels of unpopular Copernicus, who had challenged the traditional theory that the world was the center of the universe and the sun revolved around the earth. As much as Galileo added credibility to Copernicus against the fury of the ecclesiastical orders Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity emerged to give it an almost infallible credibility.

This apparent victory of physical science over traditional dogma was soon translated into an affront on all traditional theories, even religious theories. A prevailing idea of this era was that Galileo and his contemporaries did not only destroy the old universe, they unseated the old religions, traditional sciences, and philosophical theories that predated them.5

As this new age emerged, human reason became the final court of appeal in all matters of science, philosophy, and even religion. Just as Protagoras suggested, human beings became the measure of all things. Humanistic philosophers and practicing humanists often see Christians as uneducated and uninformed, narrow-minded and bigoted, superstitious and unsophisticated, and some have called them weak-minded. R. C. Sproul sums it up: modern humanism is anti-Christian. He substantiates his claim with the following reasons:

• In the nineteenth century, humanism saw religion not as a valid experience, but nevertheless a valuable experience since it calls humans to a higher level of virtue.

• Modern humanism tends to be more militant in its affront against Christianity.

• Three important humanist publications—A Humanist Manifesto (1933), Humanist Manifesto II (1973), and The Secular Humanist Declaration (1980)—all affirm key aspects of humanism, some of which stand in opposition to the Christian faith:

> The natural world is the only one we can know; the here-and-now is all there is.

> Insight, intuition, and divine revelation must be tested by reason; truth is best discovered rationally.

> Mankind is the only source of morals and values, and the highest human achievement is to improve the human condition.

• Since the nineteenth century, humanistic philosophers have accused Christianity of hindering the evolutionary progress of human beings by keeping people tied to the conservative outdated and antiquated frame of mind and values.6

Sproul accuses secular humanists of borrowing Christian ethical principles and ripping them off their Christian values. He accuses them of living on “borrowed capital.” He sees modern humanism as basically atheistic, arguing that its nonatheistic forms can be found in the Unitarian Church. In its nonorganized forms, many church people have embraced its principles without knowing that they are humanistic.

Secular humanism has had a deleterious effect on the imperative of multiculturalism within Christian community, primarily because one argument suggests that humanist elements are present within the tenets of multiculturalism. However, multiculturalism is not humanistic in its true sense, primarily because, in its appeal to the dignity of the person and his/her rights, it does not make humans the measure of all things. Moreover, earliest Christian tradition affirmed multiculturalism as the will of God (cf. Acts 2:5–13; Gal 3:28; Eph 2:11–22; Rev 7:9).

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Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. The Prevailing Philosophies and Ideologies that Inform Contemporary Christian Worldviews Today
• Chapter 2. Contemporary Thought on the Christian Worldview and the Implications for Multiculturalism
• Chapter 3. The Facts and Fallacies of the Christian Views on Multiculturalism
• Chapter 4. The Goals of Multicultural Education
• Chapter 5. Justice: A Central Idea in Multiculturalism
• Chapter 6. Biblical Foundations for Multiculturalism
• Chapter 7. Shalom: A New Paradigm for Multiculturalism
• Chapter 8. Shalom: A Kingdom Motif for the Educational Setting
• Chapter 9. Multicultural Stories: Exemplars for Life in a Shalom Community
• Chapter 10. Shalom: A Kingdom Motif for the Twenty-first-Century Church
• Chapter 11. Taking the Steps Towards a Multicultural Community
• Bibliography