Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Can a Diverse Church Be Unified?

Holly's latest blog entry on Today's Christian Woman magazine's website is now up:

Can a Diverse Church Be Unified?
To be healthy as a body, we need to start making The Other feel like The Every.

Check it out, then come back to H-n-T and think about the following questions. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

To ponder:
1) Do you believe racial insensitivity happens within the Christian community?

2) When you've seen hurts occur, who was blamed? Was it the person who was hurt ("You're too sensitive") or the person who caused the hurt ("Why can't you be more sensitive?")?

3) Has anyone ever said something hurtful to you, then apologized by saying, "I didn't know that would hurt you"? If so, did you explain why you were hurt? Or, have you said something to another person, not realizing it was hurtful to them? If so, did they explain why they were hurt?

4) Is it easy or difficult for you to explain when you've been hurt?

5) What can we do to prevent hurts from occurring within the Christian community?
6) Describe how you see the church's role in racial reconciliation.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That was a great post! Don't be surprised if you take some flack for it. There are those who would rather deny that they harbor any racial bias. It is usually those who segregate themselves among a homgeneous group and have very little contact, thus very little understanding or empathy for the struggles of the other. Don't be surprised if you get attacked for being too politically correct. If so, remember that your arguments have nothing to do with political correctness. They have to do with, "In Christ there is neither Jew, nor Greek, male nor female." To some that scripture means, we should not even talk about differences and just take a "can't we all just get along" attitude. What that scripture really means, is that our identity in Christ supercedes all others and that the categories we formally used to separate ourselves are no longer valid. There is a new inclusive community of those who are in Christ. Keeping that unity of being in Christ means being sensitive to the hurts of others within the body. When one suffers, all suffer. You made that point in your post.