I never really grasped the importance of minority representation until recently.
Let me explain.
For Christmas last year my kids, who are Black, received a children’s book about the Obamas. It’s a nice little book about how the Obamas have worked hard for equality, stewardship of the earth, and a healthier America. One day, my son, a curious boy, pulled the book off the shelf and started asking questions about it. “Who’s that on the cover? What did he do? What’s a ‘President’?” At first, I didn’t think much of these questions, but as I began talking about how Barack Obama was African American (“chocolate,” as our son says) and held one of, if not the most, powerful positions on the planet I saw my son’s eyes grow larger and larger. I came to realize just how energized he was by the fact that someone who looked like him was so important. He didn’t even know what “President” meant (he still doesn’t), but he knew it was something special, and what made it more special was that Obama has the same color skin as him.
The more I thought about it, the more I was also like, “Yeah, it is super cool that Obama, a Black man, became President!” I started probing deeper into President Obama’s life and legacy. Eventually, I stumbled on John McCain’s 2008 presidential election concession speech (and here). I’m not sure I had ever heard the speech before, but it was interesting in light of recent events. In case you need reminding, there was a time when certain conspiracists, Donald Trump foremost among them, spread the lie that Obama was not born in the US, and was not, therefore, eligible for the Office of the President. There were also people saying that Obama was a Muslim who wanted to destroy the US. Terrible, terrible racist things were said. Unlike some politicians these days, McCain stood up for Obama throughout his campaign, opposing some of his own supporters to their faces when they tried to spread false information about his opponent. McCain now looks like a man standing among playground children for having done so (also see this). In his concession speech, McCain—again, he had just lost—emphasized, “This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.” I don’t see McCain as a flawless man mind you (nor his concession speech), but to this day I’m struck by how he highlighted the significance of the 2008 election for millions of Black people across the US (even as his audience booed every time they heard the name “Obama”), all still feeling the sting of this country’s racist legacy. I’m struck by how McCain, a decade before my son was born, affirmed my son’s pride in the accomplishment of another Black man.
Whether its Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, Raphael Warnock, Cory Booker, or Tim Scott, you don’t have to agree with someone’s politics to celebrate what they might represent—in this country, a light flickering in the dark history of violence and discrimination. In no sense do I want to turn the figures I just mentioned into “tokens,” signs of “how far we have come” or something like that. We have work to do that feels insurmountable at times. The murder of Ahmaud Arbery (among many others), delight at the purposeful butchering of Kamala Harris’s name (also here), and the Capitol insurrection, even “Jewish Space Lasers” (look it up; also this) show us how hate rears its head from top to bottom in our society.
In America, there has been a trend among White people to paint over differences in color and gender, to pretend we don’t see them. We want to say, myself included, “it doesn’t matter what your skin color is or whether you’re a man or a woman; Americans judge fellow Americans on the basis of merit, not skin color, background, religion, sexual orientation, etc. The past is the past. We don’t deal with those issues anymore.” As the long, arduous year of 2020 has shown, that’s simply not true.
I fear we make a similar move in the church. Hear me out. In the church, we like to cite Galatians 3:28—“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”—as proof that since we are all united in Christ we shouldn’t care about “trivialities” like minority representation in the church. “That’s a fleshly concern,” I’ve basically heard people say. Or, we like to say, “Black or White, it doesn’t matter. As long as they love Jesus, it’s all good!” It’s a kind of “I don’t see color or other differences” Christianese response. We can then slide further into something entirely unbiblical—a reflexive opposition to difference, outright or subtle.
In Revelation 21, the Holy City, New Jerusalem, descends from the heavens prepared as a bride. There isn’t a temple in this Holy City and there isn’t a sun or moon. God’s glory provides the light. On whom does the light shine? Revelation says, “the nations.” In fact, Revelation 21:26 states, “The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into [the city].” In the Ancient Near East, “the nations” could denote all sorts of human “groupings”—ethnic, political, social, etc. Most importantly, what Revelation 21 shows us is not the total dissolution of differences, but God’s celebration of difference. As theologian William Storrar writes,
The one new humanity in Christ is a community of unity in diversity, a holy nation made up of people of all nations who, in embracing their new identity in Christ, retain their social and cultural identities as Gentiles and lose only the oppression and distorting effect of sin and their separation from God’s covenant people… The Bible affirms both equality and difference.
Honestly, I don’t know what that looks like most of the time. Sometimes I see glimpses. I live in a broken world that struggles to recognize difference in a way that isn’t pandering, self-satisfying, or goes beyond a meaningless gesture. The good news of Revelation 21 is that whatever this recognition of difference is supposed to be, it will be perfected and pleasing to God. How great is that! Think about it. There are right now brothers and sisters in Christ who were racists praising God in the heavens because they were set free from that racism, an ironic twist on their earthly lives.
We, still earth-bound beings, are all united by Christ, but, once again, we also live in a broken world where we have to fight hard against our biases and fight hard for racial and ethnic equality. Part of what it means to fight hard (biblically) for racial and ethnic equality in our present is to recognize and celebrate that unity in diversity.
Do we even try to live with the knowledge that God has set us free to embrace unity in diversity? I fear we, the church, as individuals or entire churches, often repackage unity in Christ into a type of Christian “tokenism.” That is, we can easily use unity, forgetting in diversity, as evidence of our “profound” spirituality, a sign of how “non-racial,” “post-racial,” or whatever you want to call it, we are. So, we use unity in Christ to push away wrestling with minority representation in the here and now because that wrestling makes us uncomfortable. Maybe, just maybe this happens in our own church.
Take heart! Christ will come again and set right all things! But we would be fools to forget how our future hope of perfected unity in diversity is impacted by our sinful minds, our family histories, and the way our society oppresses and demeans the marginal. More than fools, we may be in sin to deny sin’s presence. May we remember that unity in diversity matters: it matters to God.