To participate in the work of justice, we pastors need to grow and change. Image: Julio Reynaldo / Amir Babaei / Steward Masweneng / Unsplash
One month after our church’s annual Gospel and Race conference two years ago, a small group of black congregants asked for a private meeting with me. I thought the conference was a success, so I wondered what the meeting could be about. For the conference, we brought in top-notch thinkers and leaders from the outside, but it was evident to some in our church that we still had lots of work to do on the inside.
For three decades, our multiethnic congregation has worked extremely hard to bridge racial barriers. We address racial injustice, encourage relationships across ethnic differences, and seek to model something of the kingdom of God. But even with this history, there remain blind spots.
Many evangelical churches have grown in diversity, but are they places of true unity and equity? In the March issue of CT, sociologist Korie Little Edwards explains why the multiethnic church movement hasn’t lived up to its promises–and how it still could.
Join Little Edwards along with Rich Villodas, Rebecca Y. Kim, Naima Lett, and Curtiss Paul DeYoung for a live discussion on the fruits and challenges of multiethnic congregations.
Our Speakers:
Korie Little Edwards
Korie Little Edwards, PhD, is associate professor of sociology at The Ohio State University. She is a leading scholar of race and religion in the United States and past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, an international, interdisciplinary association. She has written several books and articles on multiracial religious organizations. These include
Perhaps, in the decades to come, some enterprising religious historian will study how the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 affected Christian magazine journalism. Fair warning: You won’t find anything terribly eye-opening in CT’s books coverage.
As the editor chiefly responsible for that coverage, I remember feeling a tad sheepish at our morning check-in meetings during those first few locked-down weeks in March and April. Updates from colleagues throbbed with urgency. They were commissioning timely op-eds analyzing the virus in all its theological and sociopolitical complexity. They were chasing down stories about believers manning the medical front lines and churches transitioning to online services. Meanwhile, my own work carried on as though nothing had changed.