"The transformation of what was long known as the Clarkston Baptist Church speaks to a broader change among other American churches. Many evangelical Christians who have long believed in spreading their religion in faraway lands have found that immigrants offer an opportunity for church work within one’s own community. And many immigrants and refugees are drawn by the warm welcome they get from the parishioners, which can stand in stark contrast to the more competitive and alienating nature of workaday America.
Indeed, evangelical churches have begun to stand out as rare centers of ethnic mixing in a country that researchers say has become more culturally fragmented, in part because of immigration.
A recent study by the Harvard political scientist Robert D. Putnam underscored the practical complications of diversity. In interviews with 30,000 Americans, the study found that residents of more diverse communities “tend to withdraw from collective life,” voting less and volunteering less than those in more homogeneous communities.
The study noted a conspicuous exception.
“In many large evangelical congregations,” the researchers wrote, “the participants constituted the largest thoroughly integrated gatherings we have ever witnessed.” "
Our truly pathetic attempts to become an ethnically and racially diverse denomination over the decades seem to me an indication that we, for whatever reason, don't really have our heart in diversity. We are rushing headlong into defining ourselves as a liberal protestant mainline denomination. As a result, we talk a lot about diversity. What would reclaiming our evangelical protestant theological heritage do to setting us on a path that would make the ELCA look more like heaven, "a place for people of all nations"?
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