When Multiculturalism Trends...
When Multiculturalism Trends…
It will quickly become obvious to you that Common Hymnal is multiethnic. This, against a backdrop where racial diversity is trending in Christianity. This interest in multiculturalism, especially in worship music, is a fairly recent development, and it is all-too-often happening in churches that are led by white people or birthed out of a white frame of reference or built on the algorithm of a theologically ‘white centered’ ministry. Truth be told, a disproportionate number of these entities have sketchy histories when it comes to racial justice, and are very often led by people who have loudly and publicly supported politicians with racist histories, racist rhetoric and racist policies.
When Jesus commissioned his followers to go out into the world and ‘disciple ethnicities’, the presumption was that we would go out in the way of the sermon on the mount - from the bottom up. Sadly, the spreading of the gospel was often tied to Empire and the colonization of the world - from the top down. With the backdrop of the teachings of Jesus, we see an inseparable bond between the sharing of the good news and a respect for the multifarious ethnicities of the world, which the prophetic psalms describe as Jesus’ inheritance.
The 1960’s birthed two movements in America: the Civil Rights movement and the Contemporary Worship movement. Both made their way around the world, but, in the overwhelming majority of situations, have run on separate, parallel tracks. Common Hymnal was born out of a conviction that worship and justice are tied at the hip. Hence the slogan: Praise and Protest.
When unity and diversity are championed across racial lines without a simultaneous commitment to tackling systemic racial injustice, it creates an unbearable dissonance in the lives of the congregants and discredits Christianity in the face of a watching world. That is why people of color are speaking out more and more about the evils of white supremacy. You will probably never hear us throw around words like diversity or unity as we are not merely pursuing a multicultural aesthetic but a just society.
One of the consequences of white privilege, and its inattentiveness to the historic realities of racial injustice, is the way that people of color are often backed into a corner needing to compromise deeply held convictions when they are offered financially rewarding opportunities within these kinds of organizations. We are committed to seeking out places and spaces where we can thrive without having to bow the knee to white access. More specifically, we are not looking to work with white people who have not had enough self-awareness or compassion to think through the painful consequences of their indifference to the realities of people of color.
Malcolm du Plessis
