This study seeks to understand how a Western European based denomination talks about reaching beyond its monoculture identity to a multi-ethnic identity and move from racial indifference to racial reconciliation. The analysis uses the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) 2015 General Assembly’s three “Moving Forward” seminars that address how the PCA must reach out to non-Anglos and a “protest petition” that repented of cultural indifference. These texts will be analyzed based upon the Rhetoric of Social Intervention model.  Understanding how a church group begins to reach across cultural, racial, and economic differences locally will help the church to make better connections globally.

[From Chapter 15 in Adrienne E. Hacker-Daniels, Editor, Communication and the Global Landscape of Faith. Lexington Books, 2016.]

Sunday morning is still the most racially divided time in America. Martin Luther King Jr. said in 1963, “We must face the fact that in America the church is still the most segregated major institution in America. At 11:00 AM on Sunday morning when we stand and sing ‘Christ has no east or west,’ we stand at the most segregated hour in this nation. This is tragic.” Most people who go to church choose churches where they are more likely to fit in theologically, economically, and especially culturally.

More than a half a century after MLK’s statement, a survey of churches claims that church leadership is not satisfied with the current lack of diversity but two-thirds of church members are reasonably satisfied with the current arrangement.[1] Is this a reasonable expectation? Will churches be able to survive without being more racially inclusive? How does the local church fit into a global understanding of the church?

This study seeks to understand how a Western European based denomination talks about reaching beyond its monoculture identity to a multi-ethnic identity and move from racial indifference to racial reconciliation. The analysis uses the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) 2015 General Assembly’s three “Moving Forward” seminars that address how the PCA must reach out to non-Anglos and a “protest petition” that repented of cultural indifference. These texts will be analyzed based upon the Rhetoric of Social Intervention model.[2] Understanding how a church group begins to reach across cultural, racial, and economic differences locally will help the church to make better connections globally.

Enduring Questions and the Problem

                Since I did not grow up attending reformed churches but did grow up in Latino cultures, I have persistent questions about reformed groups and their cultural interactions. This study, then, is an early attempt to understand the challenges faced by reformed churches in reaching out to ethnic groups not typically attracted to them. First, how does a predominantly Western European based group, birthed during the Protestant Reformation, adapt to non-European cultural assumptions and stylistic tastes? Second, how can Reformed groups adapt culturally but still maintain their theological distinctives and rigor? This is not presumed to be an unachievable polarity, but it is a constant tension.

For the PCA and this study, there are more focused questions. First, how does the PCA adapt its intellectual theology and cultural background to contemporary demographic changes? Second, how does the PCA convince its leadership and congregants to agree that cultural adaptation and reconciliation are necessary and good? What biblical and theological principles are used to convince church leaders and members of the need for cultural inclusion and reconciliation?

For some individuals in the PCA, the problem is obvious. The demographics in the United States are changing and the Anglo population is shrinking while the Latino, African-American, and Asian populations are increasing. The PCA, however, remains predominantly, Anglo, suburban, and middle to upper-middle class. The PCA’s in-house magazine, byFaith, recently reported on the demographic involvement of minority men in the teaching elder (pastor/preacher) positions. The low percentage of minority pastors prompted the emphasis on cultural outreach for the featured seminar at the PCA’s 2015 General Assembly.

The featured seminar at this year’s General Assembly deals with diversity in the PCA. That’s largely because Hispanic and African-American teaching elders (pastors or preachers) make up just two percent of the PCA’s teaching elders. However, nearly thirty percent of the general U.S. population falls into these same two categories. Because of this disparity between our neighborhoods and our churches, PCA members may want to consider why diversity matters and how to encourage it.[3]

The PCA’s appeal to the General Assembly attendees is that they would consider these issues and ask their regional presbyteries and local congregations to do so as well.

This same issue of byFaith magazine also notes the presence of a potential generational divide regarding diversity issues when the former president of Covenant Theological Seminary stated that his children will leave the denomination if there is not greater cultural engagement and ethnic diversity. “Despite the relative peace [between conservative and progressive factions in the PCA], if more progress is not made in cultural engagement, demographic diversity, and world-Christian involvement, my own children will struggle to stay with the PCA (although all are presently in PCA churches).”[4] For such a prominent figure to make this statement was not only surprising but indeed shocking. The statement implies that the future of the denomination is in doubt because neither minorities nor young adults concerned about cultural diversity would be attracted to, or remain in, the denomination. Both William Thompson and Alexander Jun in the PCA’s 2015 “Moving Forward” seminar reinforced the claim that the denomination will cease to exist if it does not attract more ethnic leadership who will be able to reach more ethnically diverse church members and younger Anglos concerned about ethnic diversity.[5]

Thus, this essay analyzes how the three seminars and the “petition protest” at the PCA’s 2015 General Assembly (GA) aspired to convince church leaders about the need for ethnic diversity and the need to seek forgiveness for cultural indifference. I begin with a brief historical overview of the PCA to offer contextual understanding.

PCA History

                The PCA has historical ties with the Scottish and Dutch Protestant Reformation from the 16^th and 17^th centuries and with the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States. The creedal system to which the PCA adheres is the Westminster Standards, which include the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms.[6] In the United States, the PCA finds its genesis in the Presbyterian Church USA (Southern) when it split from the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Northern) before the Civil War, over the Plan of Union of 1801, theological liberalism in the Northern church, and slavery issues.[7] The PCA as it is today, came into existence in 1973 when a collection of about 260 churches pulled out of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Southern) because of theological differences, to form the Presbyterian Church in America by 1974.[8]

Both PCA’s Western European and Southern U.S. heritages have significant effects on the denomination. Most of the churches have remained theologically conservative, generally, and adhere to the Westminster Standards, but not all. Secondly, most of the churches have emerged from geo-cultural backgrounds where people were not necessarily against the 1960’s U.S. civil rights movement but were not likely actively involved in the movement either. The Western European and Southeastern heritages are both revered and reviled at times and in various manners. One African-American academic, Anthony Bradley challenges the PCA to be more overt in its ethnic outreach and wonders about the survival of conservative evangelical churches in a global environment that before too long will not be predominantly white.

Since its beginning, the PCA, like many evangelical denominations and associations, has appealed to white Christians who tend to be socially, politically, and theologically conservative within middle-class America, and the PCA is still highly successful at reaching that population….If denominations like the PCA do not diversify, what kind of future will they have? Many wonder if the conservative evangelical captivity to white, Western culture will make it an outsider in a global Christian world that is primarily African, Asian, and Latin American.[9]

Given these comments and perspectives, it may appear that the PCA is a self-contained group of people who only seek out and admit Anglos who have sufficient money and educational backgrounds. But this is not entirely the case.

To be fair to the PCA, it supports various organizations that engage in national and international cultural outreach through two sub-organizations, Mission to North America (MNA) and Mission to the World (MTW). Both of these groups support mission activities around the world, in addition to cultural and ethnic engagement in the U.S. These two groups sponsor and oversee various missionaries, mission organizations, and state-side organizations that include, among others: a) The Reformed African American Network (Jemar Tisby, President), b) the Hispanic Leadership Initiative (Gene Bowman, Executive Director) and c), the Korean Presbyterian churches that have existed for many decades and comprise about ten percent of the denominational membership. Members from these and other groups have endeavored to reach “ethnic minorities” both within and outside of the U.S. Nevertheless, the attitudes of some church leaders are reflected in Bradley’s statement, “A church predominantly made up of white people is a church that will likely close its doors within the next generation. White-flight demographics cannot sustain confessional denominations in America’s future because the growing and vibrant churches in America are primarily Asian, Latino, and immigrant churches.”[10] The desire for ethnic outreach needs to be accomplished while simultaneously maintaining the reformed distinctives and the intellectual rigor required of leaders in the PCA. The concern is about finding a balance between the intellectual demands for church leadership and being able to enlist and attract more leaders from ethnic groups where, traditionally, education is more difficult to obtain because of financial challenges and/or cultural assumptions about being disloyal to one’s culture and trying to look and act “white.” This takes us, then to the explanation of the rhetorical approach utilized in this essay and on to the analysis after that.

The Rhetoric of Social Intervention

                This analysis utilizes the Rhetoric of Social Intervention[11] as the way to analyze the aforementioned texts. The Rhetoric of Social Intervention (RSI) presumes the basic, fundamental human behavior is “naming” (that is, categorizing). RSI contends that ultimately our processes of categorizing both “sensed” and “non-sensed” experiences is controlled by our ideological framework, which is comprised of three sub-systems: attention, power, and need. Attention is the focal point that determines what is foregrounded versus what is backgrounded in a system as per the individual’s ideology. Power is the degree of perceived interdependence (power shares) between individuals and/or groups in a system. Power is always a two-way perception of perceived interdependence and the degree of interdependence perceived is the “power share” one holds in the relationship. Need is a way of understanding biological-social needs (food, shelter, belongingness) or symbolic-constructed needs (newest, hottest technology or a house on an island). In the RSI model, it is assumed that all symbolic interactions, then, have the potential to intervene and change the social systems in which they operate.[12] The critic’s understanding of what constitutes the “system” determines the boundaries of the social system analyzed. Nevertheless, all systems are comprised of interdependent sub-systems and every system, in order to maintain life, must have some form of permeable boundary whereby ideas, goods, and services flow in and out. The RSI model assumes that no healthy system exists with a non-permeable boundary and a closed system constitutes eventual death. On the other hand, a system perceived as too permeable (poorly defined boundaries) will eventually cease to exist as a system because it will blend into its surroundings. The RSI model is used for this analysis because neither the denomination nor the attempted interventions are organized around a single person or event. It is truly a system with hierarchy, structure, reasonably clear system boundaries, and multiple inputs and outputs. The intervention is also multifaceted in its attempt to bring about change because speakers present utilitarian, theological, and ideological arguments to address what are seen as significant needs and lack of power sharing among dominant and minority ethnic groups. Ultimately, the change sought is not a radical change of the organization but a changed focus of attention about cultural engagement.

The Rhetoric of Social Intervention analysis begins by asking whom are seen as the interveners, what is the intervention, into what system the intervention takes place, and to note the name(s) emphasized for defining the system. I begin with the presumption that the system defined here is the evangelical, reformed denomination, Presbyterian Church in America. The PCA, as a system, is comprised of its 1500 churches, a theological seminary, an undergraduate college, the administrative offices near Atlanta, GA, and over 358,000 members who affiliate with the denomination.[13] This “system” is composed of all the attending congregants, the church leaders (pastors, teachers, elders, deacons, women in the church leadership), the local church workers, the leadership of the regional presbyteries, Reformed University pastors and staff, and the leadership of the denomination who work out of the headquarters near Atlanta, GA. The intervention consists of the three “Moving Forward” seminars on ethnic diversity and outreach at the 2015 General Assembly in Chattanooga, TN, and the interveners were those who were the speakers (and organizers) for these three seminars. In general, the seminars attempted to rename (reframe) the denomination and attempt an attention switch that changes the perception of self-identity, interdependent relationships, and what constitutes the self-defined major needs of those in the denomination. I present an overview of the texts to be analyzed and then show how the intervention attempts to re-name and re-frame who the PCA is and what it will be in the future.

Texts Analyzed

                I analyze three different seminars from the 2015 General Assembly and one “protest” petition signed by about half of the General Assembly delegates. The seminars include one assembly-wide seminar with five participants and two additional seminars presented by individual teaching elders (pastors).[14] Please note that I include the cultural-ethnic identity of each speaker because it is significant to this study. As Alexander Jun states in the first seminar, “It is not a compliment to say ‘Alex, when I look at you, I do not see race.’ Not a compliment to someone who wants to embrace their ethnic identity.”[15] Because this analysis is about racial identity, I will identify each of the participants based on their own ethnic definition.[16]

The first seminar, which was the featured one during the GA, was titled “How to Advance Ethnic Outreach and Ministry in the PCA” was the featured assembly-wide seminar. This panel was moderated by Dr. Bryan Chapell, an Anglo Pastor of the Grace Presbyterian Church of Peoria, Illinois, and former president and chancellor of Covenant Theological Seminary. The panel also consisted of a diverse cohort of PCA Teaching Elders. The three pastors included: Dr. Thurman Williams, an African-American Associate Pastor of Grace and Peace Fellowship, a multi-ethnic church in St. Louis, and former pastor at New Song Community Church in Baltimore; Al Guerra, a Cuban-American PCA church-planter with the Chicago-Metro Presbytery, in Chicago, Illinois who has served the Hispanic community during 34 years of ministry in different geographical areas of the US; and Tom Anderson, an Anglo pastor planting a church, Strong Tower Fellowship, in a low-income (multi-generationally-poor) African-American neighborhood in Macon, Georgia. The other participant was ruling elder Dr. Alexander Jun, a Korean-American Professor of Higher Education at Azusa Pacific University. Individual speakers headed two other seminars. Lance Lewis, an African-American Teaching Elder at Soaring Oaks Presbyterian Church in Elk Grove, California headed the second seminar and Duke Kwon, Korean-American Teaching Elder of Grace (PCA) Meridian Hill (DC area), presented the third seminar. The seminars were connected around the central theme of “moving forward,” attempting to answer how to get more ethnic groups involved in the PCA both as leaders and congregants.

The “protest petition” came about when two well respected Mississippi pastors, who both teach at the Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS, requested that the PCA affirm a resolution of repentance for racial indifference of Christians in the South during the Civil Rights Movement. This petition was considered in committee but ultimately not brought to a vote of the General Assembly because of procedural issues. Dr. LeCroy describes the situation in the following way:

Reverend Drs. Ligon Duncan and Sean Lucas, both pastors in Mississippi, stood up to make a personal resolution on the floor of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America. That resolution called the General Assembly to confess our sins regarding our complicity and involvement in racial injustice during the Civil Rights era up until the present day. These sins had recently been addressed through the research of PCA historians including the same Rev. Dr. Lucas, Dr. Otis Picket, and Rev. Bobby Griffith (PhD candidate).[17]

According to the PCA’s rules, the resolution was received by the General Assembly and then referred to a committee whose job it is to recommend to the assembly what action should be taken. After much discussion in committee, it was ultimately agreed that this resolution needed to wait a full year so that each regional presbytery and local church session would have time to consider the resolution and vote on it. This did not please the individuals who wanted to have the resolution accepted immediately. Thus, after several hours of discussion in committee and on the floor of general assembly, and an hour of prayer devoted to repentance for racial indifference, a decision was made to delay. As a result, a “protest petition,” agreed to by the moderator of the General Assembly, and with support from various minority pastoral groups, was written and “…between 200 and 300 pastors and elders [have] signed their names to the protest.”[18] The full text of the petition is below as provided by commissioner Dr. Timothy R. LeCroy in his Vita Pastoralis Blog.

We the 43rd General Assembly of the PCA (the undersigned) understand that repentance is not merely a statement, but steps of faithfulness that follow. Allowing that more time is needed to adequately work on such a denominational statement, but also the need for action now, we recognize and confess our church’s covenantal and generational involvement in and complicity with racial injustice inside and outside of our churches during the Civil Rights period. We commit ourselves to the task of truth and repentance over the next year for the glory of God and the furtherance of the Gospel. We urge the congregations of the Presbyterian Church in America to confess their own particular sins and failures as may be appropriate and to seek truth and repentance for the Gospel’s sake within their own local communities.[19]

The three seminars and the protest statement do not appear to constitute an attempt to bring about radical systemic changes, but they reflect the significant small steps that can potentially alter the telos of a system for good or for ill.

PCA Intervention: Naming the PCA’s Current Status and Likely Future

                The three seminars and the “protest petition” are but four of the multiple interventions encountered by denominational leaders and congregants to convince them that the way they currently see the world is incomplete. The interveners in these seminars contend that the PCA’s mono-cultural, suburbia-based membership will slowly decrease and atrophy if church leaders do not begin to reach more diverse constituencies. Former president and chancellor of Covenant Seminary, Bryan Chapell, made this explicit when he stated, “If we as a church do not find a way to reach beyond an Anglo suburban culture then we will die. That is not our calling and that is not the gospel.”[20] The overarching names given to the PCA categorize it as insufficiently diverse, a place where white privilege dominates, where people are concerned about proper reformed theology but are not willing to reach beyond their middle-class and suburban, white monoculture. An analogy introduced by Alex Jun, and repeated by Duke Kwon, implies that the PCA is “a house built by and for giraffes where elephants cannot feel welcome.”[21] This certainly names the denomination as unwelcoming, albeit unintentionally, to outsiders who are “not like us.” Another complex name for the PCA refers to it as a place where Anglos do not recognize that they, too, are an ethnic group and ignorantly assume the right to define what is/is not “normal.” Jun chided the audience along these lines when he asked, “Who gets to own ‘normal?”[22] These names for the PCA as a denomination identify it as incomplete and ignorant.

Overall, the names presented in the seminars for the PCA portray a denomination that fosters soft-core racism, engages in racial indifference, and desires assimilation (where the “other” become like me), rather than racial reconciliation.[23] These names contrast somewhat with pronouncements made by Anthony Bradley and Otis Pickett about the PCA as overtly hard-core racist stemming from its Southeastern U.S. heritage, the predominant Southern theologians of the early and mid-1800s that include James Henley Thornwell, Robert L. Dabney, and the Dutch neo-Calvinist Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) on whom is laid the appellation of progenitor of South African apartheid.[24] Charges of overt racism are also made against the PCA’s Puritan, Southern U.S., and Dutch heritage by Anthony Bradley without more than a couple anecdotal pieces of evidence to support his ad hominem claims.[25] Similar charges, however, are presented in carefully researched historical overviews written by Otis W. Pickett in his six-part blog series.[26]

The name “racist” for the PCA denomination allows potential interveners to enact significant change if the name is accepted by the audience. Changing a denomination’s name alters how those in the system identify themselves by highlighting the anomalies that exist in the currently-accepted ideology.[27] Notice, however, how the “protest petition” takes a different approach to naming the PCA. In this short statement the petitioners have already accepted the name of “being complicit in racial indifference and racial injustice both in and outside the church during the Civil Rights era.”[28] The context, though, is not merely about some form of social justice; rather, it is a theological name of “sinfulness” for which individuals and churches need to seek forgiveness from God and reconciliation with those who have been harmed. This name implies a need for both an exchange with God and actions toward others that seek forgiveness for sin. This is a name that fits into the already accepted ideological system that is understood and can be accepted or debated. By the end of the multi-day General Assembly when this petition was proposed nearly half of those present signed the petition and accepted this particular name thus indicating agreement with this identity.

For a denomination steeped in reformed Christian theology, the charge of “sinful” is already accepted as a theological reality for which they have been pardoned by Christ. The charge of racism/racist is an attempt to indict the denomination with a charge of “social sinfulness” and guilt by association. But the charge of “breaking covenant” is the church’s relationship with God and is steeped in the reformed distinctives the PCA already accepts. As such, the name presented for the denomination in the protest petition is one that is already intimately tied in with the theological self-identity of the PCA as a system. Tactically, the names “sinful” and “breaking covenant” have the potential to make more epistemic sense and invite response because it fits the already accepted theological system rather than the other proposed names that adhere to progressivist and neo-Marxist academic discourse. Yes, names create expectancies but a name that is too-far outside the epistemic and experiential base is less likely to be accepted.

Attention Subsystem

                This attention subsystem presumes that persuasion (an attention switch) is possible when there are at least two or more viable but competing ways of interpreting the world, and the intervener can show significant anomalies in the current way of viewing the world.[29] The competing “worldviews” must be able to negate the other way(s) of viewing the world. Each way of viewing (each ideology) must have such a holistic way of explaining the world that accepting a competing paradigm seems completely foolish. As such, each “way of viewing” has its own way of knowing, being, and valuing.[30] Ways of knowing, being, and valuing are parts of a complete ideological perspective, a complete world-and-life view as Abraham Kuyper explained in his 1898 presentation.[31] The following four questions are posed and answered later. So, what are the two competing views of the world inherent in this discourse? How did the seminars attempt to intervene into the denomination as a system and change these leaders’ views of the world? What was the change in the system—from what to what? How does the potential shift in attention presume different ways of knowing, being, and valuing?

In many ways the PCA faces the same challenges of other evangelical churches where the leadership is more concerned about increasing ethnic engagement than the congregants.[32] Do local churches change their worship style, their theology, and/or other church foci to meet new demographic demands or do they continue as they have for the last 50 years but only reach a presumed shrinking percentage of the white, middle-class demographic? Statements made by Brian Chapell, Anthony Bradley, and Thurman Williams about the PCA’s certain demise (as reported above) were always stated rather matter-of-factly and without regard to dissenting perspectives, or without any particular question about whether or not the PCA qua institution should, or has the right, to exist. This is an issue that is separate from whether or not the church universal has the right to exist and it begs the question about the role of the local church in the church universal. The potential attention shift involves two different sets of issues. First there are the concerns about the utilitarian and financial survival of the church and being seen as culturally relevant with its emphasis on diversity (Chapell)[33] and progressive academic discourse about whiteness, white privilege and white power (Jun).[34] The second set of concerns stem from biblical and theological grounds about being biblically inclusive in evangelistic outreach, making the gospel available for everyone (Thurman, Guerra, Chapell),[35] showing Christ-like incarnational attitudes (Kwon),[36] and pursuing redemptive ethnic unity (Lewis).[37] Most of the seminar participants seem to include both of these sets of assumptions. There was apparent disagreement, however, about how much emphasis should be given to one set of concerns over the other. The language chosen for these interventions seems to presume that a change is inevitable, the denomination needs to be “ahead of the game,” and the PCA must make decisions regarding which directions to head. Again, the “protest petition” begins with the assumption of personal and systemic sinfulness about which the denomination needs to repent and begin to take steps to show repentance.[38] Both of these approaches to the intervention seem to be somewhat at odds with each other, and Lance Lewis makes the strongest statement about what should motivate the PCA, though, when he argues for a biblical motivation.

No, our pursuit of redemptive ethnic unity is not driven by demographic changes in America, nor is it motivated by the desire to appear relevant with respect to the issue of race and ethnicity. …We don’t ever want to ignore our society’s issues, or idols, or problems, or challenges; but our motivation to be involved within our society, our country, our culture is what scripture teaches and has taught us concerning what God is doing. We’re moved by the volume of scripture that teaches God’s will to save a people from all ethnic groups and to form them into an eternal multiethnic worshipping community (emphasis added).[39]

                So what are the “anomalies in the currently held interpretation of events and actions” of the PCA’s current identity and its biblical obligations to be inclusive?[40] Certainly there is the emphasis on the denomination’s need to be “culturally relevant” and to move from a localized geographical and ideological mindset to a global and universal mindset. One tactic to justify this change is to claim that denominational doors will close if ethnic inclusiveness is not attained. Another justification is that the gospel is to be inclusive of “the nations.” As such, the PCA must go from seeing itself as satisfied in its white, middle-class, educated, suburban churches to being dissatisfied if the local church does not look like a more representative mélange of the cultural groups that comprise the United States.

The attention shift, when justified from the pragmatic and/or utilitarian perspective, seems a reasonable, even necessary, leap. To keep the denomination alive, paying the pastors, and keeping the buildings open, then the individual churches need to bring in more people who will give money and volunteer their time as the pool of white, educated, suburbanites diminishes. However, aside from a few direct comments, the economic side of the concern almost seems unacceptable to use as the basis for why ethnic outreach is needed. Some talked about it in these terms but the more significant attention shift seems to come from more biblical justifications about how the gospel needs to be inclusive, how Christ’s image of the church and heaven will be multi-racial/ethnic, and how the kingdom needs to spread beyond the PCA’s southwestern and U.S. borders. While several presented these arguments, the question remains whether or not each local church is required to look as socially inclusive as some of the seminar speakers claim.[41] Accepting the potential attention shift will significantly alter the power dynamics and the self-identity issues related to need. Both of these subsystems will be addressed.

Power Subsystem

                Brown introduces an understanding of power that is relational.[42] Unlike others who argue from utilitarian or neo-Marxist perspectives, the RSI model is not concerned with power as a way to “get things done,” as cultural/economic divisions, or as social hegemony. Brown’s definition of power is as a perceived interdependent relationship.[43] Power, as perceived interdependency between people, groups, or institutions and the subsequent ability to affect future-choosing, presumes that power is based on how people perceived their interdependencies. As such, each person in a system has a particular “power share” based on how much other people in the system perceive a mutual interdependence based on exchange of goods/services, a perceived threat, or based on a more altruistic “self-identity.” Power is based on one’s self-identity, for example a pastor who cares for his congregants because that is who he is, is what Brown names integry.

The attention shift, if accepted, contends that the dominant Anglo culture needs the integration of other ethnic groups for survival and Christian authenticity. The attention shift away from seeing the denomination as self-sufficient to naming the denomination as insufficiently integrated is to place power shares with those who are part of non-Anglo groups. Whether for survival or for the ability to say that the local church reflects God’s calling for the gospel and Christ’s kingdom, Anglos in the PCA are unable to fulfill the gospel apart from other ethnic group involvement. This is to say, that those with whom the PCA never previously felt dependent before are now important groups to have around and on whom the denomination is dependent for its future survival and its ability to fulfill its calling. Tom Anderson adds a new facet to the ethnicity issues in his presentation ministering to generationally poor African-Americans when he claims that the PCA has abandoned the poor.

There are many multicultural groups in the PCA but not many economically poor persons—few have redemptive relational relationships with generationally poor. We have abandoned the poor. We truly need the poor but we do not see it….We need each other’s pain, experiences, and interpretations or else we fail to see the depth of God’s mercy and kindness.[44]

                The non-Anglo ethnic groups are no longer outsiders who need to assimilate into the dominant cultural perspective but are now groups without whom the dominant Anglo culture is unable to survive. The dominant Anglo culture is incomplete and not a “whole gospel” without other ethnic groups and the generationally poor. The power shares for the Anglo culture shifts from the perception that Anglos need to help non-Anglos to receive the gospel, to the perception that Anglos inadequately understand the gospel and God’s grace without non-Anglos as co-equal partners in the local church. The shift is one toward a perceived interdependence where each side is incomplete without the other. This gives significant power shares to non-Anglos and redefines the identity of Anglo reformed Christians.

Need Subsystem

                The RSI model defines needs as either biosocial or symbolically constructed.[45] The biosocial needs, as per Brown, include food, clothing, shelter, and human relationships. Symbolically constructed needs are those needs created by our discourse but not necessarily deemed critical for survival like the biosocial needs. A symbolically constructed need would include a perceived need to own an expensive brick and columned building that “looks like a church” rather than a utilitarian space for a community meeting. The question for this study, in many ways, is what is the church’s need for ethnic inclusiveness—is it equivalent to a biosocial need or to a symbolically constructed need? Even if it is presumed that the kingdom of God must be ethnically inclusive, is this a need for the church on an individual level or is this a requirement for the church across the globe?

The need sub-system is affected in ways similar to the power sub-system. If the audience accepts the attention shift, no single ethnic group can state that they do not need other ethnic groups to fulfill a gospel understanding of “the church.” The assumption is that all ethnic groups need to be connected and interdependent. The implication in these seminars and in the protest petition is that each individual church is required to have ethnic variety.

To accept the attention-switch is to accept that the PCA goes from seeing itself as self-sufficient to seeing itself as needy and incomplete without other ethnic groups. Predominantly Anglo PCA churches go from “not needing other ethnicities” to “needing other ethnicities.” The denomination also goes from asking non-Anglo ethnic groups to assimilate (become like the majority) to asking them “how do you think about us, how do you think about yourselves, and what can we do to accommodate you and help you to feel comfortable and a necessary part of the church?[46] This is a significant switch in self-identity because it takes the focus off of a long-standing perceived need to maintain theological distinctiveness based on a reformed heritage and places the focus on a need to gather a greater mixture of ethnic groups and seeking help to do that. I do not intend to dichotomize the need for theological distinctiveness and the need for cultural inclusivity because both are needed and both may be possible to achieve together. I emphasize this change in focus about need because the rigorous theological distinctives appear to be backgrounded in order to the foreground ethnic inclusiveness. So, what can be concluded from this analysis?

Conclusion

                This intervention is overtly about getting Anglo, suburbia churches to reach out beyond their “comfort zones” to other ethnic and economic groups who tend to be overlooked. Implicit within this attempted intervention is an accusation that the PCA, as currently construed, presumes itself to be thoughtful but reasonably self-sufficient when it comes to theology but it does not do well fostering relationships beyond those who are Anglo or ethnic groups who have been reasonably assimilated into the middle-class Anglo culture. This balance is a delicate one, though. To imply that the emphasis on theology is too strong whereas the emphasis on relationships is not strong enough is to potentially change the very theological foundations that brought the organization into existence in the first place. The PCA was birthed in the early 1970s because leaders had significant concerns about a lack of theological rigor and a growing theological progressiveness in the PCUSA that threatened the very ability to call itself a biblical, evangelical church. As such, to diminish any emphasis on theological rigor is to fundamentally change the identity and character of the PCA. The result, I contend, is that while the calls for ethnic inclusiveness continue to ring louder and louder, there needs to be a similar fervent call to maintain theological rigor. The challenge with this call is that higher levels of education—which are a financial and intellectual burden on many—usually accompanies such theological rigor. Thus, despite Jun’s admonition to not mix up ethnic outreach with poverty issues,[47] ethnic outreach issues are often inextricably bound to socioeconomic issues and challenges.

One concern that comes to mind after hearing several of these presentations is how often the speakers seems to be affected by progressive academic ideas and less focused on biblical perspective about race and individual and corporate sin. When talk about whiteness, white privilege, and white power dominates talk about sinfulness, pride, and the need for sanctification, then the theological challenge becomes clear. When the use of progressive academic discourse is stressed over theological discourse based on the Reformed heritage, the biblical understanding of covenant, and creation-fall-redemption-restoration, it privileges a discourse whose presumptions seek to undermine the very world-and-life view the PCA claims is its heritage and its future.

Two of the most memorable moments of these seminars that emphasize a biblical approach came in the presentations by Lance Lewis and Duke Kwon. Lewis emphasized racial reconciliation rather than racial assimilation and argues that racial assimilation is achieved when the majority demands that all others become like them. Racial reconciliation, on the other hand, emphasizes redemptive ethnic unity that flows from the gospel, repents of racial indifference, studies the ethnic groups to be reached, and mimics Christ’s incarnation—his willingness to give up his glory and become like his creation—by initiating relationships even with those who may hate you.[48]

Duke Kwon emphasizes similar ideas with his argument for “incarnational redemption” as the necessary motivation and model for the “dominant majority groups.”[49] Kwon also contends that Jesus’ incarnation (his condescension to leave heaven and to suffer ultimate humiliation in life and death) becomes the model for “dominant majority” ethnic members to follow by being willing to condescend to those in the minority in order to get to know them, make them feel welcome, and get to the point where if they leave, “your church would not feel like your church.”[50] This, again, is incarnational integration and reconciliation rather than a dominant majority demanding assimilation. This biblical based motivation offers a justification that is easier to accept because these biblical and theological grounds are already presumed to be true. Again, biblical based arguments presented in gracious ways have a greater potential to intervene into a system that self-identifies as biblically based and theologically rigorous. Finally, it is outside the purview of this study to determine a cause-effect relationship between the seminar speakers, their attempted interventions, and the number of people who signed the “protest petition.” It is not possible at this point to even know the percentage of people who actually attended the seminars. However, the intervention potential of well-respected individuals in the denomination who are willing to stand up in front of their peers, confess their sins, and ask for forgiveness from God seems to still be one of the most powerful symbolic acts to initiate restitution and to bring about systemic changes. Systemic change still begins in the heart of each individual.

Dr. Mark Gring is a member of Providence Presbyterian Church (PCA); he is Associate Professor and Interim Chairperson Communication Studies at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Used with permission of the author.

NOTES

1. Bob Smietana, “Sunday Morning in America Still Segregated – and That’s OK with Worshipers,” LifeWayResearch.com, (Nashville, TN, January 15, 2015), http://www.lifewayresearch.com/2015/01/15/sunday-morning-in-america-still-segregated-and-thats-ok-with-worshipers/.
2. William R. Brown, “Ideology as Communication Process,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 64, no. 2 (April 1978): 123–40; William R. Brown, “Attention and the Rhetoric of Social Intervention,” Quarterly Journal of Speech 68, no. 1 (1982): 17–27; William R. Brown, “Power and the Rhetoric of Social Intervention.,” Communication Monographs 53, no. 2 (1986): 180–99; William R. Brown, “Need and the Rhetoric of Social Intervention,” (unpublished manuscript), October 25, 2010, 1–49; Susan K Opt and Mark A. Gring, The Rhetoric of Social Intervention: an Introduction, (SAGE Publications, Inc, 2009).
3. Megan Fowler, “Diversity Demonstrates Gospel Reconciliation,” ed. Richard Doster, byFaith, (Lawrenceville, GA, May 2015).
4. Bryan Chapell, “The State of the PCA: the ‘Great Battle’ Will Force Us to Find New Ways to Reveal God’s Grace,” ed. Richard Doster, byFaith, (Lawrenceville, GA, May 2015).
5. Bryan Chapell, Al Guerra, Alexander Jung, and William Thurman, How to Advance Ethnic Outreach and Ministry in the PCA, vol. 68, General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, (Chattanooga, TN, 2015), http://www.barkerproductions.net/shop.asp?action=details&inventoryID=308253&catId=28431.
6. The Westminster Standards were written about 100 years after the John Calvin’s birth by a collection of Scottish Presbyterians, English Puritans, and British theologians and pastors known, collectively, as the Westminster Divines.
7. “History of the Presbyterian Church USA (Southern),” Brittanica.com, n.d., Accessed September 12, 2015.
8. PCAnet.org, “A Brief History of the Presbyterian Church in America,” PCAnet.org, Accessed September 12, 2015, http://www.pcanet.org/history/.
9. Anthony B. Bradley, Aliens in the Promised Land: Why Minority Leadership Is Overlooked in White Christian Churches and Institutions, 1st ed., (Phillipsburg, NJ, 2013), 22.
10. Ibid., 23.
11. Brown, 1978, 1982, 1986, 2010 and Opt & Gring, 2009.
12. Opt and Gring, The Rhetoric of Social Intervention: an Introduction.
13. Presbyterian Church in America, “PCA Statistics Five Year Summary,” PCAnet.org, (Lewisville, GA), Accessed September 12, 2015, http://www.pcaac.org/resources/pca-statistics-five-year-summary/.
14. All the seminars were streamed on the internet and made available for purchase by Baker Productions, http://www.barkerproductions.net/shop.asp?action=cat&catID=2843; Accessed July 2015.
15. Chapell, Guerra, Jung, and Thurman, How to Advance Ethnic Outreach and Ministry in the PCA.
16. Note that I use the terms “race” and “ethnicity” interchangeably. My use reflects the debate both within the PCA and in academia about how to understand these issues. Often divisions are not necessarily based on biological distinctions (race) but on the ethnicity (the culture) to which people adhere. However, it is important to not diminish the perceived racial distinctions and differences in order to fully appreciate the people to whom it applies.
17. Dr. Timothy R. LeCroy, “PCA Protest of 2015,” Vita Pastoralis, June 15, 2015, https://pastortimlecroy.wordpress.com/2015/06/15/the-protest-of-2015/.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. Chapell, Guerra, Jung, and Thurman, How to Advance Ethnic Outreach and Ministry in the PCA.
21. Ibid.; Duke Kwon, “Building a Racially Inclusive Church,” (General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, Chattanooga, TN, 2015), http://www.barkerproductions.net/shop.asp?action=details&inventoryID=308282&catId=28431.
22. Chapell, Guerra, Jung, and Thurman, How to Advance Ethnic Outreach and Ministry in the PCA; Zoe Erler, “More Than a Seat at the Table: Pursuing the Path to Diversity,” byFaith Online no. 23, no. 23 (June 23, 2015): 1–5.
23. Lance Lewis, “Moving Forward: Actively Engaging Issues of Race/Ethnicity From a Biblically Point of View,” (General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, Chattanooga, TN, 2015), http://www.barkerproductions.net/shop.asp?action=details&inventoryID=308284&catId=28431.
24. Anthony B. Bradley, “General Introduction: My Story,” in Aliens in the Promised Land, ed. Anthony B. Bradley, (Phillipsburg, NJ, 2013).
25. Ibid.
26. Otis W. Pickett, “Race and the American Church (Parts 1-6),” Reformation21.org, Accessed September 2, 2015, www.reformation21.org.
27. Brown, “Attention and the Rhetoric of Social Intervention;” Opt and Gring, The Rhetoric of Social Intervention: an Introduction.
28. LeCroy, “PCA Protest of 2015.”
29. Brown, “Attention and the Rhetoric of Social Intervention;” Opt and Gring, The Rhetoric of Social Intervention: an Introduction.
30. Ibid.
31. Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1943).
32. Smietana, “Sunday Morning in America Still Segregated – and That’s OK with Worshipers.”
33. Chapell, Guerra, Jung, and Thurman, How to Advance Ethnic Outreach and Ministry in the PCA.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Kwon, “Building a Racially Inclusive Church.”
37. Chapell, “The State of the PCA: the ‘Great Battle’ Will Force Us to Find New Ways to Reveal God’s Grace;” Bradley, Aliens in the Promised Land: Why Minority Leadership Is Overlooked in White Christian Churches and Institutions; Chapell, Guerra, Jung, and Thurman, How to Advance Ethnic Outreach and Ministry in the PCA; Lewis, “Moving Forward: Actively Engaging Issues of Race/Ethnicity From a Biblically Point of View.”
38. LeCroy, “PCA Protest of 2015.”
39. Lewis, “Moving Forward: Actively Engaging Issues of Race/Ethnicity From a Biblically Point of View.”
40. Opt and Gring, The Rhetoric of Social Intervention: an Introduction.
41. Chapell, Guerra, Jung, and Thurman, How to Advance Ethnic Outreach and Ministry in the PCA; Kwon, “Building a Racially Inclusive Church;” Lewis, “Moving Forward: Actively Engaging Issues of Race/Ethnicity From a Biblically Point of View.”

[42]. Brown, “Ideology as Communication Process;” Brown, “Power and the Rhetoric of Social Intervention.”

[43]. Ibid.

[44]. Chapell, Guerra, Jung, and Thurman, How to Advance Ethnic Outreach and Ministry in the PCA.

[45]. Brown, “Ideology as Communication Process;” Brown, “Need and the Rhetoric of Social Intervention;” Opt and Gring, The Rhetoric of Social Intervention: an Introduction.

[46]. Kwon, “Building a Racially Inclusive Church.”

[47]. Chapell, Guerra, Jung, and Thurman, How to Advance Ethnic Outreach and Ministry in the PCA.

[48]. Lewis, “Moving Forward: God’s Call for Redemptive Ethnic Unity,” General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, vol. 1, (Chattanooga, TN, 2015), (http://www.lightsource.com/ministry/pca-general-assembly/; and http://www.barkerproductions.net/shop.asp?action=cat&catID=2843.

[49]. Kwon, “Building a Racially Inclusive Church.”

[50]. Ibid.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bradley, Anthony B., ed. Aliens in the Promised Land: Why Minority Leadership Is Overlooked in White Christian Churches and Institutions. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Co., 2013.

Bradley, Anthony B. “General Introduction: My Story.” In Aliens in the Promised Land, edited by Anthony B. Bradley. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing Co., 2013.

Brown, William R. “Attention and the Rhetoric of Social Intervention.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 68, no. 1 (1982): 17–27.

Brown, William R. “Ideology as Communication Process.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 64, no. 2 (April 1978): 123–40.

Brown, William R. “Power and the Rhetoric of Social Intervention.” Communication Monographs 53, no. 2 (1986): 180–99.

Brown, William R. “Need and the Rhetoric of Social Intervention.” (unpublished manuscript, October 2010): 1-49.

Chapell, Bryan, Al Guerra, Alexander Jung, and William Thurman. How to Advance Ethnic Outreach and Ministry in the PCA. Vol. 68, General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America. Chattanooga, TN, 2015. http://www.barkerproductions.net/shop.asp?action=details&inventoryID=308253&catId=28431. (Accessed June 30, 2015).

Erler, Zoe. “More Than a Seat at the Table: Pursuing the Path to Diversity.” byFaith Online (June 23, 2015): 1–5. http://byfaithonline.com/more-than-a-seat-at-the-table/. (Accessed September 25, 2015).

Kuyper, Abraham. Lectures on Calvinism. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1943.

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Lewis, Lance. “Moving Forward: Actively Engaging Issues of Race/Ethnicity From a Biblically Point of View.” Chattanooga, TN, 2015.   http://www.barkerproductions.net/shop.asp?action=details&inventoryID=308284&  catId=28431. (Accessed June 30, 2015)

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