WHENEVER there may be a discussion concerning the advantages of multicultural church, considered one of a variety of metaphors is prone to be trotted out: the rainbow, the salad bowl, the quilt, the box of crayons, fruit salad, muesli. . . These speak to the range on offer if several cultures are present, when each is making an identifiable contribution and the entire is larger than the sum of the parts. This is instead of a smoothie, where the components have been mashed together in order that no component is definitely identifiable, and the entire takes on the character of a dominant culture.
What these metaphors do is to select their well past the facility dynamics inherent in any meeting of various cultures. They impose an ideological equivalence: nobody culture is more necessary than the others. Ecumenism hasn’t helped. We’re all one in Christ, all of us matter; but Paul’s trenchant use of the body with many parts is more realistic. Some body parts behave as in the event that they are more necessary than others, or think that they may proceed if other parts of the body didn’t exist.
And Paul makes some extent about parts of the body which should be covered but must be treated with special honour slightly than silenced or ignored. In other words, he acknowledges what multiculturalists and ecumenists would slightly overlook: the facility relations, that are in plain sight to those that are less powerful, but of which the dominant cultures are apparently unaware.
It could be bad manners to spotlight these discrepancies. But the Church of England has been following a policy of assimilation which has turn into increasingly unworkable — as global-majority-heritage church members are starting to indicate.
AS THE debate about what post-colonialism might seem like within the English Church gathers momentum, I might recommend the usage of the Ames room. This is an illusion that uses forced perspective to make people within the room appear at dramatically different heights in relation to 1 one other. The Ames room accentuates differences in comic and dramatic ways. A toddler can tower over an adult by virtue of moving only a number of feet across the trapezoid floor.
When you enter a room, you can not be equal in stature to those that have preceded you. Even for those who are of equivalent height, the illusion creates and magnifies differences. This could be a helpful technique to bring the facility dynamics to the fore. If we have a look at multicultural church through the attitude of the Ames room, there are three inquiries to be answered.
First, where within the room are you standing, or how tall do you appear? For this, read: How much power do you hold on this church context?
Second, towards where within the room are you moving? Is the illusion making you taller, or are you shrinking — are those moving into the spaces you may have left growing in stature? Are you increasing your power, or trying to offer it away?
Third, and maybe most vital, what’s your stance towards others within the room whose height is different from yours? Do you give technique to them? Do you ignore them? Do you speak for them? Remember, the purpose of the illusion is that you just are all actually the identical height: it is simply the Ames room that creates the differences.
Â
MOST of us would profit from time in an Ames room. It would make us more aware of the facility dynamics which can be evident when different cultures come together, but that are rarely talked about. There is loads of evidence that some cultures feel that they’re invisible, or talked over, or stereotyped into particular roles. That is why most dioceses now have groups working on racial justice. But the levelling must happen at parish level.
The response will not be to restate our equality as a given, or to create positive bias, but to understand that these differentials are in plain sight and can’t be concealed under a veneer of politeness. The paradox is that giving up power — losing altitude — is what creates a dynamic for change. That might be done far more effectively than hand-wringing, or delivering manifestos about equality, or celebrating what number of flavours might be present in the salad.
Paul, writing to a church in a colony of Roman veterans in Philippi, nails it when he says (to paraphrase) that Jesus, the most important person within the room, didn’t consider equality as something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the character of a slave. In other words, Christ intentionally moved to the smallest place within the Ames room. And the Apostle suggests that, in a world where power dynamics are the very very last thing to be flagged, we must always be of the identical mind, seeking to value others greater than ourselves.
Â
John Griffiths is a Reader within the diocese of St Albans.
