Kathy Khang reflects on the difficulty that Korean-Americans confront when attending a white church:
So it came as a bit of a shock to recognize that the churches we were visiting during our search had a different feel, a different sense of community and welcoming that we recognized as being part “Christian” and part “white” but did not fully resonate with us. The-“Where are you from? I’m from in town. Awkward pause.”-interactions. The times we would slowly walk out of a sanctuary waiting for someone, anyone to welcome us instead of just looking at us. The time-orientation of the service–in which emphasizing punctuality and ending “on time” seems more important than relational exchanges that might change the timing of the service– along with the tempo and phrasing of the worship songs. I think I had wanted to believe that a church could be racially white but not culturally white and unintentionally exclusive. I think I had wanted to believe what many of my white Christian sisters and brothers want to believe: there is no white church culture. It’s just church.
But rather than trying to be cultureless, which Khang believes is impossible, she wants white churches to acknowledge their whiteness:
Churches tend to take on the cultural influences and traditions of its members and community, but how many predominantly white churches own a white identity and name its culture as being white? The Korean immigrant church of my youth owned it in name (written in both Korean and English), language, and food but it often failed at reconciling the generational gap that grew between the Americanized youth and the Korean elders. More often than not, predominantly white churches won’t claim being culturally white but rather try to emphasize a Christian identity.
A couple of thoughts.
It is an intellectually challenging but perhaps worthwhile proposition to try to tell what parts of a worship service reflect a congregation’s cultural heritage. Language is one factor. Rule Britannia. Music is another. Most of our churches use the western musical scale and the harmonics that go with it. They may even rely upon European rhythms. Another part is sitting. Witold Rybczynski observed that human cultures are divided into the sitters and squatters. That means Americans generally falls into the white column because they with the rest of the West sit when not standing. From posture we might examine the liturgy or order of service. Some white churches will use the white evangelical service, the white P&W order, or a liturgical order from one of the European churches. All white but no one white size fits all.
Then we have what happens after the service. What kind of drink and fare do we have over fellowship? Sweets would likely put off Turks since desserts are not a specialty of Asia Minor. Coffee, as Khang shows, is not the favored drink of many in the East. And then we have the phenomenon of bad coffee that doesn’t suit either foodies or visitors from Seattle and Portland.
What about openness to outsiders? Can we chalk up friendliness to culture? We may associate the Dutch and the Scots with certain temperamental features. But once you’ve been in America for several generations, do you become as open and bubbly as Americans are supposed to be? Or is temperament a spiritual gift, or is niceness part of definitive sanctification? Churches should be friendly if only to recruit new giving units since congregations can’t rely on the state for patronage.
On the whole, Khang has a point. Our churches have a lot more culture than the vanilla places we think them to be. And much of it is decidedly of European descent. White doesn’t really do justice to this European heritage since color of skin (really pink) does not account for how important European Christianity was to the emergence of churches not only in North America but around the world. Of course, Europeans have a lot for which to ask forgiveness and European Americans should not be reticent about getting in line for that soul-searching. At the same time, without Christian Europe (Protestant and Roman Catholic) along with the colonialism and imperialism that attended the globalization that Europeans started in the fifteenth century, we wouldn’t have many churches (white, yellow, or brown) period.
Old Life 