“Our deepest identity and mission in life is to be Christo-centric Multiculturalists.”
ONLINE DEFINITION OF ETHNOCENTRISM:
“Ethnocentrism is the view that one’s own culture is better than anyone else’s culture. As a practice, it consists of evaluating other cultures from the perspective of one’s own. William Graham Sumner coined the term ethnocentrism in 1906; today many sociologists identify ethnocentrism as a feature of all cultures.”
MY THOUGHTS: I suppose there is a strong element of ethnocentrism in most countries. Generally, people are culturally conditioned by the values and standards around them to believe that their values, language, traditions, culture, etc are – or should be – the norm for everyone. However, there are often competing subcultures in some countries, like the United States, for example, where each subculture has ethnocentric tendencies of their own, tending to judge everyone by their own group’s values, beliefs, etc.
Some bastions of conservative nationalism are ethnocentric, judging everyone else who is different than they are. But also guilty of ethnocentrism are the bastions of radical liberal ideology on most of our secular university campuses. They also judge everyone outside their subculture by their values and philosophy.
As Christians, we need to do the best we can to transcend the ethnocentrism of our culture and subcultures. As the Apostle Paul shared his intention and example in I Corinthians 9:19-23 that he became “all things to all people (without compromising the Christian lifestyle), that by all means people might be saved.” I believe he was saying that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, he was able to rise above the ethnocentrism of prevailing cultures and subcultures around him in order to be an effective ambassador for Jesus Christ. We’re called to be Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:14-20), and we can’t do that effectively unless we’re able to rise above the divisive ethnocentric tendencies of the various ideologies and subcultures that are warring against each other.
Patriotism is a good thing, unless our patriotism is saturated with an ethnocentrism that causes us to look down our noses at other cultures and races. Jesus Christ was not, and is not an ethnocentrist or racist. He is the One and Only who perfectly sees the beauty of every person and ethnic group. He is the “Multiculturalist Par Excellence.” He alone through His Love, His Cross, Resurrection, and Gift of the Spirit is able to bring out the true beauty and life in all people and people groups on planet earth.
So what does that make us Christians who desire to be effective ambassadors for Christ? While being patriotic in the positive sense of the word is good, our deepest identity and mission in life is to be Christo-centric Multiculturalists.