Browsing by Subject "Multiethnic"
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Item Open Access Preserving the White Picket Fence: Interracial Conduct in an Integrated Neighborhood(2012) Mayorga, Sarah AnnMy dissertation identifies and deconstructs the interracial codes of conduct produced and enacted by three distinct racial-ethnic communities in an integrated neighborhood. My analysis of Creekridge Park is based on data collected via in-depth interviews, a neighborhood survey, and participant observation. By addressing the particularities of an integrated neighborhood, this project augments traditional index-based studies of segregation research and examines how the concept of social distance can explain the quantity and quality of encounters between Black, White, and Latino/a residents. I also evaluate the social environment of an integrated neighborhood by documenting and questioning the attitudes, behaviors, and relationships of neighborhood residents. Finally, I analyze the data using modified grounded theory, an iterative process that uses data and existing theory to develop conceptual models. Overall, this project emphasizes the importance of race as a social marker of status, privilege, and marginalization; the limits of diversity as an emancipating ideology; and the importance of power as a conceptual tool in analyses of White and nonwhite experiences in integrated settings.
Item Open Access Slow Communion: Habitus-changing Formation for Multiethnic Churches(2021) Wu, JodieMultiethnic churches could be places of healing and profound witness to the reconciliation found in Christ. Unfortunately, our habitus, that interior framework that shapes the way we conceive of the world, is not currently sufficient to allow for the flourishing of multiethnic churches. Western cultural habitus has shaped us to see divisions as normal, to place value judgments on people and see them as other, and to prioritize success and efficiency over the slow growth of humans and relationships. The church has largely accepted this habitus, which has resulted in Christians who are unable to imagine and live into the realized reconciliation, communion, that is the hallmark of the new creation in Christ.Multiethnic churches and their people need a new habitus to enable them to reimagine their gathered life together. Drawing upon Paul’s discussion of the Lord’s Supper and the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians, we find that Spirit-led communion with Christ allows us to reimagine communion with others. Herein, four elements emerge as helpful in forming the new habitus: finding identity and belonging in communion with Christ; discerning the body of Christ; waiting for and receiving one another; and becoming a witness to the crucified and risen Christ, for the sake of the world. These suggest slow, embodied practices that, when led by the Holy Spirit, reshape our vision of the world and our ways of gathering. Ways of engaging a number of such practices toward the formation of a new habitus, and thus a new communion, will be suggested. Slow communion becomes a way of describing both the long journey of reconciliation, and those practices that reshape us for communion on this journey. Our communion is slow because it takes time to form a new habitus, and be formed by it. It is slow because the new vision of life together requires us to engage the brokenness we wrought in our old habitus of division and speed, a reckoning which cannot be skipped over or rushed. And it is slow because it leads toward a realized reconciliation, a communion for lifetimes together, never ending, always seeking to follow close to the leading of the Holy Spirit. By learning to see the life together as a Spirit-shaped, slow communion, multiethnic churches may be able to become bodies of true communion, living and proclaiming the reconciliation of Christ, for the sake of a weary and hopeless world.
Item Open Access Slow Communion: Habitus-changing Formation for Multiethnic Churches(2021) Wu, JodieMultiethnic churches could be places of healing and profound witness to the reconciliation found in Christ. Unfortunately, our habitus, that interior framework that shapes the way we conceive of the world, is not currently sufficient to allow for the flourishing of multiethnic churches. Western cultural habitus has shaped us to see divisions as normal, to place value judgments on people and see them as other, and to prioritize success and efficiency over the slow growth of humans and relationships. The church has largely accepted this habitus, which has resulted in Christians who are unable to imagine and live into the realized reconciliation, communion, that is the hallmark of the new creation in Christ.Multiethnic churches and their people need a new habitus to enable them to reimagine their gathered life together. Drawing upon Paul’s discussion of the Lord’s Supper and the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians, we find that Spirit-led communion with Christ allows us to reimagine communion with others. Herein, four elements emerge as helpful in forming the new habitus: finding identity and belonging in communion with Christ; discerning the body of Christ; waiting for and receiving one another; and becoming a witness to the crucified and risen Christ, for the sake of the world. These suggest slow, embodied practices that, when led by the Holy Spirit, reshape our vision of the world and our ways of gathering. Ways of engaging a number of such practices toward the formation of a new habitus, and thus a new communion, will be suggested. Slow communion becomes a way of describing both the long journey of reconciliation, and those practices that reshape us for communion on this journey. Our communion is slow because it takes time to form a new habitus, and be formed by it. It is slow because the new vision of life together requires us to engage the brokenness we wrought in our old habitus of division and speed, a reckoning which cannot be skipped over or rushed. And it is slow because it leads toward a realized reconciliation, a communion for lifetimes together, never ending, always seeking to follow close to the leading of the Holy Spirit. By learning to see the life together as a Spirit-shaped, slow communion, multiethnic churches may be able to become bodies of true communion, living and proclaiming the reconciliation of Christ, for the sake of a weary and hopeless world.
Item Open Access The American Church: A Call To Unity and Witness(2020) O'Neal, William KeithAbstract
It is commonly thought that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. Race in America is a vitally important issue and is equally significant within the inner systems of American churches. This project considers what motivations can be embraced to move homogeneous churches toward racial diversity and specifically whether the prayer for unity in the body of Christ that Jesus prayed in John seventeen is compelling enough to initiate a transition from homogeneity to multiracial. This thesis addresses the questions: What societal barriers exist that prevent or inhibit racial diversity within the majority of American churches? Can we identify societal mandates with theological underpinnings that are adequate to overcome these barriers? What practical approaches can congregational leaders implement to create and sustain an intercultural, multiracial church? So, this project is both an expedition for understanding and a search for strategies that will give the most promising opportunity to produce a healthy multiracial local church. The research is primarily a literature review and will include existing literature regarding historical race relations, sociological implications of race, and segregation in American churches as well as personal experiences pastoring a multicultural church. Documented interviews and discussions from notable individuals about race, white privilege, and discrimination within the American church structures will be included in the inquiry. Ultimately, this thesis provides pastors, leaders, church planters, or leadership teams the tools necessary to navigate the challenges of forming a racially diverse church, understand the complexity of race relations in America, identify the needed motivation to persevere through the process of transforming a homogeneous church into a multicultural one, and acquire reliable action steps that if taken, will increase the likelihood of success. This project presents Jesus’ prayer for unity in John seventeen as a call to action and the research both affirms its validity and offers steps toward its fulfillment.
Item Open Access The Possible Church: Stories of Those Who Have Led White Churches into a Multiethnic Reality(2022) McCormack, BrianAs the number of multiethnic churches in the United States continues to rapidly increase, predominantly white congregations perpetually struggle to contribute to this trend. Stories of formerly white churches achieving a multiethnic reality are few and far between, despite survey data indicating 70 percent of church leaders wish their congregations were more ethnically diverse.From within this troubling scenario, a question and a need emerge. The question is why formerly white, now multiethnic churches are so rare. The need, is more stories—for while statistics prove change is necessary, stories prove change is possible—and many leaders who desire to transition their white churches into multiethnicity will not act until they know it can be done.
This thesis seeks to answer the question above, by addressing the need above. That is, by collecting and curating stories from leaders who already lead such churches, explanations for their rarity emerge, alongside footsteps for aspiring leaders to follow as they begin their own journeys.
The result of casual conversations with ten leaders at formerly white, now multiethnic churches from across the United States, this thesis presents stories that illuminate the uncommon leadership, robust theology, and intentional culture that makes them so rare.