Note: While I write from my perspective as a Christian, I do not consider this a Christian blog. That said, this is an explicitly Christian post. I hope that all of my readers, whatever their faith, will find some value in my musings about unity and diversity, despite the fact that my focus is on unity and diversity in the church. Thanks for being a reader.
If I asked you who the Church belonged to, how would you answer? Perhaps you’d need me to clarify my question: Was I talking about a particular church? If so, you’d say something like, “Saint Mark’s belongs to the Catholics.” But once I clarified that I’m talking about the Church as a whole, you’d probably answer, “It belongs to God” or “It belongs to Jesus.”
And I would agree with you. But that answer raises another question: Why do people get bent out of shape when the church they attend no longer looks or acts like them?
It’s easy to find articles and even entire books written by men about the feminization of the church. These men argue that more men would attend church if it was more masculine. They believe that, even if women don’t see themselves represented in the pulpit, most male pastors are feminine men, too touchy-feely for “real men.”
I strongly encourage you to read Kristen Rosser’s response to such criticisms. She suggests that we should, perhaps, change the question from “Why are so few men going to church?” to “Why are so many women attending church?” If women feel valued and welcomed, isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t that the delicious fruit of God’s radical upside-down kingdom? Rosser also questions typical constructs of masculinity and femininity and addresses the misogyny behind comments about churches being too “feminine.” The problem isn’t that some men are expressing a need to feel more welcome at church. The problem is the assumptions and attitudes behind many of the statements made to justify the notion that churches have been feminized.
In the end, arguments about the feminization of the church may be irrelevant, since the gender gap in U.S. churches has declined since the 1980s.
But complaints about churches being too feminine aren’t the only controversies you’ll hear about representation in church. Even as some churches strive to increase racial diversity, all too often people of color are expected to assimilate to white, middle-class culture. Chanequa Walker-Barnes notes, “At a highly diverse megachurch … the white senior pastor publicly announced that in hiring a music minister, he was looking for an African American who would ‘play white.'”
That’s not what true diversity looks like. Instead, it’s like an analogy given by Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah: “If I’m a guest in your house, you might fix kimchi for me, but you can throw it out after I leave. But if I’m living with you, that kimchi’s going to be in your refrigerator for a long time, and your milk is going to start tasting like kimchi, and you might not like it as much as when it was just a random, one-night visit.” Such diversity may make us uncomfortable, but discomfort helps us grow.
If churches are to reflect God’s inclusiveness, we need to allow those who are not like us to change us. We need to stop arguing about masculinity and femininity in church and instead focus on maturity. We need to be willing to talk about things that make us uncomfortable, to worship in styles that we’re not used to, and to accept leadership from people who are nothing like us. Because the church doesn’t belong to any one group of people. It belongs to Christ, in whom we are all one (Galatians 3:28). And if I say, “Of course we are all one” but insist on having things my way, then I don’t understand what “oneness” means.
Let’s start learning to be more comfortable with discomfort and work toward churches that reflect all of us.