What the heck is multiculturalism, anyway?

Since before Europeans landed on American soil, this land has been a multicultural one. While Native American tribes appeared similar physically, they spoke different languages, followed different traditions, and lived very different lifestyles. Once Europeans came to make their home, the number of different cultures increased tremendously, and it has never stopped. New people are constantly immigrating to America and bringing new traditions, clothing styles, languages, etc. So what does it mean to live as Methodists in this multicultural world?

Methodists from all of history would agree that living in a multicultural world means welcoming those of other backgrounds. They would also agree that being multicultural is important to the gospel. Kenneth Cracknell’s book An Introduction to World Methodism is a testimony to this. The fact that books like this even exist proves that multiculturalism has been and is on the minds of Methodists. What this looks like, though, has certainly changed.

John and Charles Wesley came to America to be missionaries to the Native Americans. They sought to bring new people of different cultures into the Church. Unfortunately, their idea of mission was to convert the natives, not just to the Christian faith but to the Christian lifestyle. “Multiculturalism” for them would have been looking different and perhaps having a few different traditions but mostly converting to the European way of living. One would think that we would learn from this, but it’s taken a long time.

In 1923, multiculturalism was on the minds of a lot of Methodists. Thousands of people had moved to the United States searching for a better life than the one they had in their home countries, and they brought with them their languages and traditions. The Methodist Church wanted to welcome these people into the fold, so they began searching for ways to minister to these folks. Many times, they had a “melting pot” mentality. In this case, the idea was to find ways to minister to the people where they were but then slowly convert them to the culture of the congregation at large. This would include everything from hobbies to language to value systems. The Methodist Episcopal Church had come a long way from the Wesleys’ early missions, but it still wasn’t truly multicultural.

What about now? We have certainly come away from the idea of a melting pot. A lot of people refer to America instead as a “tossed salad,” in which all the cultures maintain their own identity but complement one another with their various flavors. In an effort to make certain everyone has a voice and different cultures are represented, we make great efforts towards diversity and having multicultural congregations (sometimes). This has led to having the “token” people on committees. There will be the token African American, the token Asian, the token Latino/a, the token woman, the token young adult, etc. We have made even more progress since the Methodists of 1923, but this is still not the best way of doing things.

Multiculturalism is not something that should be forced. It needs to be born out of a genuine desire to learn more about others. It should come out of the efforts to reach people where they are (and not try to convert them to a new culture). People’s voices should be heard not because they are red, yellow, black, white, female, young, old, male, or anything else. Rather, their voices should be heard because they are children of God, and their voice is important. Multiculturalism happens when all this takes place, and we are moving closer and closer to it.