The following is an excerpt from an interview with pastor Efrem Smith on City to City’s How to Reach the West Again podcast. In the discussion, Smith discusses the obstacles to creating multi-ethnic ministry, the importance of different cultures of Christians interacting with each other, and how the church can attain a biblical view of justice rather than views given to us by cultural rhetoric.

BRANDON J. O’BRIEN: Can you start by telling us about your background in Minneapolis? I'm particularly interested in your reflections on your experience of faith in that space.

EFREM SMITH: I was born and raised in Minneapolis, specifically on 38th and Elliott. George Floyd died on 38th and Chicago. So when I saw the video of him crying out for his life, it became even more personal for me because I know that community very well. I rode my bike on that block. I played touch football in the alleys. Even the store that George Floyd came out of is a store that I shopped at. After raking leaves or shoveling snow, I’d take the money I’d earned to that store and buy as many Hostess apple pies, comic books, and Twinkies as I could.

I would say I had two very real and conflicting experiences growing up in that neighborhood. One is that it's where I found my faith. I went from Calvary Lutheran Church to eventually being a part of a church that my mother and grandmother were a part of planting, Redeemer Missionary Baptist Church. I gave my life to Christ in a youth group at a Methodist church in that same neighborhood. It was known as an affluent, mostly White church for years. So, I'm simultaneously a product of the Black church, Redeemer Missionary Baptist Church, and a predominantly White evangelical church.

The White evangelical church became multi-racial over time, but it was a battle for them. As the demographics of the neighborhood changed and more Black families moved in, some White Christians were tempted to move out. But the senior pastor said that they should stay here and claim this new mission field. Nevertheless, about 300-400 people left when he decided not to move the church out of South Minneapolis and into a suburb. He even hired a youth pastor whose job was to reach youth in the neighborhood (like me) just as much as he took care of the youth inside the church.

And there were people in the church, again, who thought the neighborhood youth ministry and the church youth ministry should be separate; that we should have a ministry for neighborhood youth at a community center or a high school, and that the church building should just be used for the church youth. But the senior pastor and the youth pastor refused that request and another few hundred people left the church. Then, this church started bringing in African-American evangelical preachers like John Perkins, Tom Skinner, Tony Evans, and Madeline Mims. Those voices impacted me.

So all in all, I think of South Minneapolis as a place of racial disparities, but also the place where I was baptized and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior. And I heard the messages of reconciliation and biblical justice and received my call to ministry.

BJO: How would you assess evangelicalism in terms of its willingness to really pursue multi-ethnic ministry and reconciliation in the span of your lifetime?

ES: What's interesting to me is that there are so many essential, core theological understandings that the Black church and the evangelical church agree on. When we talk about things like the Trinity, the atonement, the authority of scripture, the necessity of new birth, and the importance of fellowship and communion, our two groups agree on a lot. But when we start talking about social issues and racial disparity, we get a great chasm—for the most part—between evangelicalism and the Black church.

Sometimes it's caused grief in my attempt to understand why it’s so difficult for a significant segment of evangelicalism to understand that systemic racism is real and we can make a biblical case for it. You can gain great understanding about systemic racism through the scriptures. You can also gain an understanding of God's call to bring the Kingdom of God to bear on systemic sin. One of the great divides between the evangelical White church, for lack of a better term, and the Black church is the chasm caused by a disagreement over biblical sin.

In general, evangelicalism sees sin as primarily in the heart of human beings—which is true. Sin is in the heart of human beings. But evangelicalism has been slow to acknowledge that sin is found not just in souls, but in systems and structures, as well. Yes, you can see sin in the heart of Saul in scripture—in the heart of Peter or Judas. But you also see systemic sin in Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and the nation of Israel.

I struggle in saying this, but it feels like there's a segment of evangelicalism that has benefited from systemic power. And because of this benefit, there's a refusal to acknowledge it, because that would acknowledge being complicit in it. And this is not all of evangelicalism. But there's a segment.

I talk about this in my doctoral project I wrote at Fuller Theological Seminary: that there's a double consciousness within evangelicalism. Evangelicalism preaches freedom and Christ, the good news of the gospel, and yet there's a segment of evangelicalism that helped to sustain slavery in America. But there were evangelicals that were abolitionists; there were evangelicals that risked their lives to speak against slavery. Evangelicalism preached reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ. Yet there's a segment of evangelicalism that participated in segregation. And yet, there were evangelicals that fought for integration and risked their lives and lost their jobs because they supported The Civil Rights Movement. Even today, there is a segment of evangelicalism that speaks boldly about the importance of the church looking like heaven by being Christ-centered and multi-ethnic.

So, if somebody asked me, “Are you a product of evangelicalism?” I would say, “Yes.”

If they asked me, “Are you a product of the Black church?” I would say, “Yes.”

I am connected to a number of evangelical movements. I have deep relational connections to evangelical brothers and sisters. But because of this double consciousness within evangelicalism, I can’t uproot myself from the Black church that raised me. I have to stay connected to Black theology and Black ecclesiology, as well.

BJO: How do you view that distinction between the evangelical church and the Black church?

ES: Again, I want to get back to what I said originally: if the race issue was not an issue, you would not be able to tell much difference between evangelicalism and the Black church. This is the tension: that on one hand, there are a number of core theological issues where there's a union between the Black church and the evangelical church. I've been in some Black churches where the preaching is more conservative than the preaching I hear in some evangelical churches! You want to hear some fire-and-brimstone, “repent of your sins,” “if you died tonight, you ain’t gonna make it” preaching, I can tell you a lot of Black churches to visit!

But to get my final thoughts on this specifically: the video of George Floyd's death was an opportunity for there to be a great reconciling, unifying moment between the Black church and evangelicalism. There was also a great opportunity for it to be bigger than a Black or White church moment, but include our Hispanic and Asian brothers and sisters. There was an opportunity in 2020 for there to be a great reconciliation revival in the church in the United States. And it's not too late!

BJO: You used the term “double consciousness,” which I associate with W.E.B. Du Bois. I believe it’s the idea that White people see White culture, but Black people see Black culture and White culture. They see the same things from a slightly different angle. Do Black churches’ status as a historically marginalized church give you a unique view of distinguishing systemic and individual sin?

ES: There's a segment of evangelicals—some, not all—that can see systemic issues when it comes to issues of sexuality or abortion, but can't see it when it comes to race because they either don't feel complicit or do feel complicit and ashamed when talking about it. The latter group doesn't want to acknowledge systemic racism because they feel fingers being pointed at them. If you ask them about abortion, they can put someone else on trial. You can put a liberal culture on trial. But when you ask them about race, they may feel like they're being put on trial.

Right now, a segment of evangelicalism is fueled by drawing a line in the sand between church and culture, between the secular and the sacred. Some want the secular to be the only ones on trial. They don't want it turned back on them, even though that's part of what Jesus did when he confronted the priests. And I understand some of this response, because there are versions of diversity training and racial sensitivity training that are guilt-ridden, focused on shame, and don't have the beloved community of the Kingdom of God as the end goal. I’ve been in diversity trainings where White people were told, “You're racist and there's nothing you can do about it. Just acknowledge you're a racist and deal with it.” That's not the gospel. The endgame of the gospel is transformation, redemption, and new life. There has to be a way to talk about the realities of systemic racism that includes repentance and lament, but also redemption and reconciliation and empowerment and liberation.

BJO: Can you tell us about your experience in multiethnic ministry? How do you realize this aspiration that we would probably all acknowledge is a good idea, but at the end of the day, is difficult to achieve?

ES: I think one of the reasons multi-ethnic ministry is difficult is an environment that makes it conducive to plant homogeneous churches. You can look at people's social media pages or neighborhoods. People still tend to live next to people who look like them and build friendships with people who look like them. People want a place where they can go to finally be themselves and say what they want to say and not have to explain themselves. I'm not saying these things are good or bad—I'm just saying they're real. The church has followed suit. We need to acknowledge how the social structure of race and its appendages have affected why the church is still largely homogeneous.

I think the second issue at play is the colorblind theory. That’s the sentiment that one doesn't need to pursue diversity or multi-ethnicity because when they look at someone, they don't even see color. But we want you to see color. That's why we have traffic lights! If you don't know the difference between red, yellow, and green, we're in trouble. It’s why we don’t still have black-and-white TVs. The answer to dealing with racial division isn’t to not see ethnic differences. That actually impedes multi-ethnic ministry.

Then, the last obstacle is assimilation. Some churches say they're committed to diversity, but they really want a diverse church where everyone assimilates into the majority culture that the church was started on. There are churches that were started in exclusively White, upper-class communities 20 years ago. Now, they’ve started hiring diversely. But as soon as those diverse people start expressing concerns about racism and prejudice, they may get accused of being angry, emotional, immature, or dividing the church. We're having the same debate that the early church had in the book of Acts: do Gentiles have to culturally act like Jews to be in Christian community with Jews? And some churches want Hispanics, African-Americans, and Asian members to act culturally like White Christians in order to attend a predominantly White church that desires to be multiethnic.

BJO: Are there particular practices that someone should keep in mind when trying to facilitate a truly diverse community?

ES: I hate to sound like a self-promoter, but I can briefly suggest some things I deal with in one of my books, The Post-Black and Post-White Church. In it, I talk about things that one can do to become a reconciling, cross-cultural Christian prior to strategically pursuing the multiethnic church. What you want to take place in your church has to take place in you first. What books are you reading? What other churches are you visiting from time to time? Do you have multi-ethnic diversity in your peer group? Do they challenge your thinking? You can't just find somebody of a different ethnic background that has all the views you already hold and think you've done the multiethnic community.

Consider why the church should be diverse. When the church is multi-ethnic, a reconciling community, it has greater evangelistic credibility in an ever-increasingly multicultural and divided mission field. A reconciling, multi-ethnic church with a robust understanding of biblical justice is going to have greater missional reach into global diverse cities like Chicago and L.A. and New York than otherwise.

I'm not saying that we should not have ethnic-specific churches. We need of Sudanese Christian communities among Christian communities. We still need the Black church in America. We still need Puerto Rican churches. We still need Korean churches. But if God has called you to build movements and networks and be a multi-site, metropolitan, missional church, you're going to advance the Kingdom by being multi-ethnic. The endgame should be missional disciple-making. It shouldn't simply be a stray thought like, “I think God wants our church to become multi-ethnic.”

In his letters to the church in Corinth, Paul really lays out what you're talking about. We're one body and the head can't say to the feet that it doesn't need them. The parts of the body that have been deemed lesser by society need to be lifted up. Why is Paul saying that? Because he knew that whether he was writing the letter to the churches at Corinth or writing to churches in Rome, there was an issue of Jewish people, who were marginalized in society, having a spiritual understanding of their own privilege. And there were those who were privileged by the Roman Empire’s society, but felt marginalized when they came into the church. Paul speaks to both the spiritual and the social issues of privilege, and he’s trying to say that in Christ, there's no Jew or Gentile. He's not saying that ethnicity doesn't matter. He’s saying there's no privilege. Jews don't get to be privileged over Gentiles. Gentiles don't get to be privileged over Jews.

So, the church has to be the place that is counter-cultural to the systems and structures that deem certain people groups better than others or lesser than others. But we can't do that if we bring the rhetoric of that society into the church. If we bring the rhetoric of CNN or Fox News or MSNBC into the church, then as soon as a pastor tries to talk about justice in a biblical way, people will say, “Oh, but Tucker Carlson said this,” or “Well, Rachel Maddow said this.'“ We can’t allow people to confuse politicized rhetoric with good biblical theology.

BJO: Is there any final word that you want to leave us with?

ES: At the end of the day, with all of the issues and challenges we're facing, I still want us to be people of hope. In the New Testament, the people of God were marginalized and persecuted for the faith. They were crucified upside down. They were beheaded. They were thrown in prison. They were beating publicly. They were stoned to death. And they were still people of rejoicing and hope.

They were being called to not lose hope in the midst of deep suffering. My prayer is that, in the midst of all of the struggles and challenges we face in the West, that we would not lose hope—that we would still be a people of rejoicing. I want us to be a people of “hallelujah”s, hungry to grab hold to all of the attributes that make one gospel-centered in Christ. We still have a great opportunity to rise as reconciling Christians in a broken world.

A Category-Defying Vision of Multi-Ethnic Community

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