I am appalled at prejudice and injustice based on race or ethnicity. I did not come to this conviction initially from any social or political movements that were seeking to address it, but it was formed in me from my Christian worldview, stemming from the heart of God. In Psalm 67:4, the Psalmist writes \u201cMay the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples with equity and guide the nations of the earth.\u201d[1] This Psalm is incredibly important in understanding God\u2019s heart for all people, because it takes the blessing God instructed Aaron to give to Israel in Numbers 6:22-26, and extends it to all nations. There is no room for racism in a life of one who follows Jesus. And yet, racism, racial segregation and insensitivity are still issues that the church must name, repent from, and address [2].<\/p>\n
In reading Yascha Mounk\u2019s \u201cThe Identity Trap\u201d, he implores us to elevate the call to build diverse societies around more traditionally held ideals of universal \u00a0values and neutral rules, rather than making identity markers like race, gender and sexual orientation paramount, in what is referred to as the \u201cidentity synthesis\u201d [3]. Because of his own background and \u2018expert status\u2019 in the field of Liberal Democracy, Mounk\u2019s argument still draws us back to the collective good of the performance and values of liberal democracies which \u201coutperform their rivals on key metrics that virtually every human being values [4].<\/p>\n
In following the arc of the book, we encounter the Identity Synthesis\u2019 appeal, origins, victory, and flaws, followed by recommendations for how to avoid, argue against, and even escape the identity trap. Mounk neither rejects his own story or identity [5], nor becomes callous to the \u201creal ways in which categories like race, religion, and sexual orientation have historically shaped how people are treated [6]. In \u201cThe Wolf and the Lamb\u201d, Eric Law addresses spiritual leaders in multicultural communities, arguing that we address systemic injustice by moving from an ethnocentric way towards an \u2018ethnorelative\u2019 one [7]. He argues we do this by not only valuing our own ethnocentricity, but have space to values others\u2019 ethnicity as equal in value for mutual understanding and action [8].<\/p>\n
In my life, I am called to learn from others across the diversity of the church and society, so that I might understand and respond to the heart cries in both Critical Race Theory proponents and critics alike. This calling means growing to reflect ethnorelative ways of healing systemic injustice, by seeking to reflect God\u2019s love in all things. I must not use power or bias against any and all others, whether POC, marginalized, or privileged. And not simply for the betterment of society now, but in pursuit of one community from every tribe language and tongue worshipping God eternally [9] with the equity God calls for in Psalm 67.<\/p>\n
_____________<\/p>\n
[1] \u202d\u202dPsalms\u202c \u202d67\u202c:\u202d4\u202c \u202dNIVUK\u202c<\/p>\n
[2] For more, see Chapter 2 in Rah, Soong-Chan. <\/span>Many Colors: Cultural Intelligence for the Next Church<\/span><\/em>.<\/em> Chicago: Moody, 2010.<\/span><\/p>\n [3] Mounk, Yascha. <\/span>The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time<\/span><\/em>.<\/em> Penguin Publishing Group, 2023. Kindle edition<\/span>, 9.<\/p>\n [4] Mounk, 260.<\/p>\n [5] Mounk, 25.<\/p>\n [6] Mounk, 285.<\/p>\n [7] Eric H F Law. <\/span>The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb<\/span><\/em>. Preaching and Its Partners. St. Louis, Mo: Chalice Press, 1993, <\/span>36. Law credits Milton J. Bennett for the use of this term, describing the latter three stages of intercultural sensitivity. Bennett, \u201cTowards Ethnorelativism: A Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity,\u201d in Cross-Cultural Orientation: New Conceptualization and Application.<\/p>\n [8] Law, 35.<\/p>\n [9] Revelation 7:9.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am appalled at prejudice and injustice based on race or ethnicity. I did not come to this conviction initially from any social or political movements that were seeking to address it, but it was formed in me from my Christian worldview, stemming from the heart of God. In Psalm 67:4, the Psalmist writes \u201cMay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3093],"class_list":["post-36413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dlpg03-mounk","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36413"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36496,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36413\/revisions\/36496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}