3 Ways God is honored in your mixed cultured-ness.
I wanted to write this essay for a while because it seems like as long as I can remember when I would sit in church and listen to the preacher preach about the stories in the bible, culture has consistently been left out of the sermon - even though the bible itself discusses culture all.the.time.
I truly feel believe that as the white-washing of the Christian faith has permeated our culture in America since the foundation the United States, we have suffered great loss in understanding the richness of the Good news.
In the past, the Christian faith has been used to serve the spread of white supremacy and hold control over people of color in America. As a result the people that were forcibly brought here lost seeing themselves in the truth of God’s word and rather had to see themselves as outsiders who had to go through a “white Jesus” to find God. As Frederick Douglass said in his biography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave:
“Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference…”
Frederick Douglass was a slave of mixed culture background who escaped slavery and became an anti-slave lecturer and author. His biography became a best selling book reprinted nine times and translated into French and Dutch. He had to grapple with the Christianity he saw embodied by his slavers and the Christianity he discovered through reading God’s word.
It’s interesting that throughout the history in America being of mixed culture background like Frederick Douglass was met with shame. As more immigrants came to America the bible was continually used in a twisted manner to suppress people of color. These lies were also used colonize people in the name of mission work around the globe. But thank God His word holds power to cut through the lies and save people just like it did with Frederick Douglass.
People of mixed backgrounds have had to sit silent in the background suffering quietly. We suffer quietly because many times we don’t have the words to articulate what we are going through. It’s so complex, nuanced and misunderstood. Even our own parents cannot relate to us and are ill equipped, by no fault of their own, to help us walk through what we struggle with. It takes years to process things and build our identity.
The more I have been researching and writing about being mixed culture I have inadvertently uncovered my own sub conscious feelings about being mixed culture child of immigrants. It was something I wanted to cover and ignore growing up because I just didn’t have the skills to process what I was experiencing in my life. It seemed to be this thing that was confusing and frustrating and holding me back from taking advantage of all of my “American Dreams”. Maybe this false seed was planted years ago as a preschooler when my whole class bullied me that I wasn’t American because I said I was Jamaican and Indian when they asked me what I was. As a four year old, I had no way to process what was happening or why I was such a threat to the other kids just by existing.
Event though I have been walking with God for basically all my four decades on this earth I continue to grow in my faith and heal from my hurt. By God’s grace He gently pulls back layers and layers of film off of my heart to draw me closer to Him. Believe me - I’m in need of His constant grace! lol!
Recognizing not only that God reveals His glory through all of humanity but the way in which He reveals it through us has been truly healing to me as well. Honestly, I didn’t even know I needed to go on this journey.
Guess what? Those of us mixed culture people that sit quietly pondering our existence are also reflections God’s glory and the good news of the gospel.
Learning to embrace my culture as part of my Christian identity has been incredibly freeing.
The truth is the people of the bible were multi-cultural people of every nationality and ethnicity that was expressed in all manor of colorful phenotypes. As I confronted my confused feelings and leaned into my unique perspective on culture I was able to see my WHOLE self in the gospel story in a new way. I want to share it with you my fellow mixed culture friends.
Being comfortable sitting in the tension of the “in-between” actually has something to do with building faith muscles.
My pastor at church preached a sermon showing us that faith and doubt aren’t opposites of each other but to see doubt as something that helps us move into deeper faith. In order to go on this journey we must be able to sit in the tension of the in-between. Not everyone is comfortable with the beautiful “in between” and the profound unexplainable realities of life. But as a mixed culture individual I literally embody the beautiful “in between” every day of my life.
When I heard my pastor talk about this I felt a sense of peace about the constant inner struggles I’ve felt my entire life. I had no idea that I was building a muscle around faith just by grappling with living an existence where there is no box for me.
It’s a privilege to sit in this liminal space. This is where the journey of faith sits as well.
You have the privilege of a unique perspective of the humanity of the people in the bible.
I continued to be appalled and flabbergasted at how white washed portrayals of biblical characters survived so long even with the knowledge of the cultural histories. The rich cultures that each of these individuals wasn’t an afterthought in writing these biblical narratives. It was part of every day life and shouldn’t have been ignored. Every time these individuals chose to follow God, they had to summon the courage to make choices that were influenced by culture.
God told Abram to leave his people and listen to One God in a time of polytheism.
The Jewish apostles had to grapple with their culture as they found the courage to follow Christ amidst political upheaval, Jewish traditions and death threats.
Esther was born into the Jewish culture and became a Queen in the Persian culture. By courageously and wisely overcoming cultural divides, her faith in God saved the lives all of her people.
Moses was born into a Hebrew culture and adopted into the Egyptian royal family where his own adopted grandfather tried to kill him. He immigrated to Midian and married an Ethiopian woman. Then God called him to return back to Egypt to free God’s chosen people.
Daniel is known for his courageous faith to maintain his Jewish culture while in captivity in the Babylonian culture. This courage not only gave him great supernatural wisdom but saved his life, his friends lives.
As people of mixed cultural backgrounds we have a unique perspective to see deeply into the struggles and triumphs and faith of these characters. Their choices and actions weren’t simple but complex and nuanced just like their cultural backgrounds.
I’ve had the privilege of being asked “What are you?” a million times.
But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” - 1 Samuel 16:7
As a mixed culture person I got asked the question “what are you?” quite a bit growing up in the 80’s and 90’s. I may not get asked it as much but I do get stares from people with openly quizzical looks as they try to run through the boxes in their head to see which on they should place me into.
I’m hyper aware of what it feels like for someone to chose to interact with me by categorizing my outward appearance first before getting to know how awesome I am :). I do realize that on some level all humans do that to each other. We all have first impressions about one another. We all make some assumptions about people based on their appearance. However, since a young age I’ve had to suspend that natural question that arises in order to just integrate into life.
As a mixed person you literally are surrounded by people who are your family but don’t look like you. My Jamaican side of my family is so varied and beautiful. Skin tones range from ebony to copper. On my Indian side my family is has straight to curly shiny black hair and brown skin. My mother is ebony my father is brown. My dad’s side are artists, social justice fighters and engineers and my mom’s side is full of caretakers, community leaders and entrepreneurs. At school, I was surrounded by kids who were also very different from me. If I wanted to make friends I had to get to know people. My parents served anyone regardless of their socio economic state or ethnic background. We had homeless people and highly paid professionals at my dinner table. I was blessed to see my parents treat everyone with the same respect and expect that to be returned.
It is a privilege to be around so many types of people. It is a privilege to understand what it feels like to be judged on your appearance first so I can have more empathy for others.
As a mixed culture person, I get to know a facet of God’s heart and how He looks at us and how He wants us to look at other humans as well. I guess I’m learning that to know a facet of God’s heart it requires empathy.
As you journey through making your identity whole and growing in your fatih, check out my mixed culture manifesto. I made it with you in mind and it’s totally free!