Friday, May 19, 2006

The April 2006 issue of Christianity Today has a major article about Asian College students. It turns out that relative to their numbers, Asians are the most active Christians on America's college campuses. This is wonderful news, demonstrating once again that Christianity knows no racial or cultural boundaries. Yet one aspect was interesting: repeatedly the article described asian only or asian dominated fellowships in neutral or approving terms. They quoted asian students and non-asian campus ministry leaders as approving of this racial segregation because it appealed more to asians and offered them more leadership opportunities. Yet it was just a year ago that CT headlined that "All Churches Should Be Multicultural". So what is the CT editorial line? Multi-Culti when the group is white? Monoracial when its not?

This is a good example of the world's standards leaching into the Church. The academic obsession with racial classification has led not to integration but balkanization. CT, by buying into this racialist argument ends up looking silly, supporting both mandatory integration and balkanization at the same time.