I thought this church was exemplary, but maybe not for everyone:
...Anyone familiar with Redeemer knows that Asians constitute about 50% of the congregation. However, the leadership does not nearly reflect the Asian demographics of Redeemer. In fact, I am only aware of one Asian on the session - Redeemer's governing body - and two who are Teaching Elders, that is, part of the pastoral staff that reports to the session in a PCA church.I love how he explains what a session is. Most people have never heard of that usage. Anyway, it gets worse:
...Redeemer has recently fired a black pastor, Mark Robinson. This in itself may not cause alarm. Pastors get fired all the time for various and sundry reasons related to character and competency. But why did Redeemer fire him? Embezzlement? Moral scandal? Lack of competence? Some persistent character deficiency pointed out in an evaluation? No. None of these. He was fired for lacking 'fit'...
...To be sure, this is not to imply that any time a White organization terminates a Black employee the reason must be because Whites see a Black person as the problem such that their very existence constitutes the problem......[but] [y]ou simply do not fire a competent employee with "gospel character," especially without any warning or due process that the gospel (not merely corporate policy!) would seem to mandate. Is this the way grace-touting, gospel-driven people treat a person - a fellow pastor - with "gospel character?" The worse gospel-less corporate human resource department would not perform such activities...
I wonder if this episode will concurrently discourage black folks, including pastors, from associating with PCA and Acts 29 churches, and discourage these churches from hiring black pastors.
this is the kind of stuff i really get fed up about in the church. reading through the referenced article, it is clear this report is based on hearsay:
"if 'character' is not the issue, according to Scott Sauls' announcement, then race/culture certainly seems to be."
that's a big leap. just because the leadership doesn't come out and say exactly why he was fired (as most any company will not do) doesn't mean it was because of race. it could be any number of reasons for which the leadership though it best not to give the details to the church.
don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Keller or anyone at his church is beyond reproach. if they have fired this brother based on grounds of racial discrimination, then that's reprehensible... but so is vilifying a brother(s) based on hearsay. if there is a true issue of discrimination then i'm pretty sure the Gospel response is not to sound the alarm and point fingers but to go to our brothers and talk to them about the situation.
in a situation like this, there are inevitably two sides to the story, so before we all pull out our "jump to conclusions matt," let's take a breath and act out the gospel ourselves before we accuse others of failing to do so.
I have read the attached article, and I am fairly unimpressed with it. While the author makes some valid points, he also does a fair bit of ranting about so-called "code speak."
I don't know that specifics of the case, but would be interested to know two or three things:
1. Is the author of the article a member of the PCA or Redeemer?
2. What information does the author have outside of the letter from Sauls and hearsay from unnamed members of the congregation?
3. Is it possible that the man was fired for doctrinal reasons?
4. What company has this guy worked for that ever gave him advanced notice that he was going to be fired? It just doesn't happen!!
5. In light of their efforts and presumably sincere desire to acheive some form of ethnic diversity, shouldn't we be a little bit gracious in allowing them to experience the headaches that most churches, by choice, are never going to have to face?
6. When are the black and asian churches going to begin reaching out to the white community and seeking to establish multi-cultural denominations in their own churches? It may be happening, but I am unaware of it.
I'm always wary of blog posts like this accusing churches of a hidden motive in a firing. I don't think blogging is a good way to voice differences over something like that. He might have a point, and he might be totally right. But I would just use caution before jumping to any conclusions. And, as an Asian-American in the PCA, I'm well aware that the PCA (and probably Redeemer) has some ways to go in changing its predonominantly white culture, especially in its leadership. But I applaud Redeemer and Redeemer network churches for taking big steps toward multiculturalism. They are among very few churches in the U.S. that are genuinely multi-ethnic, or at least bi-ethnic in their congregations.
Much ado about nothing. Diversity should be measured by more than skin pigment.
I'll say one more thing: anyone who chooses to not associate with any Acts 29 churches or the PCA based on this one "episode" (that is purely hearsay at this point) practices the same sort of generalizing and lack of critical consideration that they abhor and lambast when applied to them or their ethnicity.
separate from this specific case, I do think, as a general rule, it's wise to have greater diversity amongst Session members if the goal is a multi-ethnic church. I'm curious how many Session members are asian. Maybe there are more REs that are asian we just don't know about? One example of this is, e.g. The Journey in St. Louis, I don't think has many elders/pastors who are non-white? Could be wrong there though. But then again, not sure if The Journey is trying to reach the non-white demographic. Rah's new book is pretty good on these points.
... it's also pretty important to point out that Redeemer's Church Planting manual explicitly tells church planters to choose one of three audiences via three correspnding models: Racial Reconciliation, Parish/Mercy Ministry Focus, and Urban Professionals. While Redeemer may not be the ideal in terms of diverse makeup, they sure beat out the vast majority of churches (in any denomination) if you include the dozens of churches they've planted in NYC alone. The vast majority of these cross denominational and/or racial lines.
Also, Sauls' letter says Robinson was let go for "ideological differences." Dramatic differences in vision are totally acceptable reasons for letting someone go, and happens on a daily basis to leaders of other races. And who knows how long this has been going on? Who knows what attempts were made to work with those differences?
IMHO, it is dangerous to comment with any certainty on something we have so little behind-the-scenes information on...
I commented at Xavier's site and I'll say that this article should have been left to die at the site it was found. It is hearsay. Robinson is fine and was not dropped the way this article claims. Either Robinson lied to me, lied to this article's author, or there was no real communication with him before uploading this tripe on the net.
It surely would be foolish to draw any solid conclusions from this blog post, or from the RBA one. Like others have said, we just don't know enough about the Robinson piece. There's obviously more to the story, but that goes both ways, i.e. maybe the ambiguity was to protect Robinson from being publicly shamed. Both parties are obviously hamstrung by PR and career considerations. I don't expect to find out more, but given the public stances that Keller has taken, the community has a right to wonder within bounds.
We don't know what process went into it, either, but to say, "Hey, Aldi fired me one day for no reason, so it's cool if the church does that" is dumb.
Also, generalizations are interesting. Surely at first glance when a Chinese visitor sees a Chinese pastor preaching at Redeemer, that visitor instantly generalizes good will towards the church. The colorblind notion is inhuman.
Correspondingly, the lack of Asian leadership is still weird. Even if Xavier is on some garbage, wouldn't you expect something like 30-60% Asian leadership at Redeemer?
Maybe the Asian membership is a recent phenomenon. That would create an interesting scenario. How is a church to respond to demographic shifts?
Although I might be swinging this way off topic, I can't help but notice the potential similarities between what is being presumed about this situation and the wider issues of affirmative action in higher education and the work place.
Should there be (internally/externally) imposed standards or requirements of diversity upon leadership in churches based on the racial (or socio-economic) composition of a church? It sounds like the implication in the case of this post is that their should be, but I'm not sure.
The Asian membership is as old as the church itself, actually. Later on they had an ethnically Korean pastor, and he had the coolest name EVER - "Iron Kim." He left to go plant a church somewhere in San Francisco, I think.
You also have to account for the membership. The Redeemer membership is disproportionately upwardly-mobile professionals based in Manhattan, which as a class includes more Asians than the general population. But the lay leadership is going to be drawn disproportionately from older Presbyterians in Manhattan and Presbyterians outside of NYC, which is disproportionately whitish. So although I'm not saying that things are optimal, it's not surprising that the leadership looks like it does.
In any case, the article has a lot of extraneous material, but the thing that jumped out at me was the phrase that he was not the best fit "ideologically and ecclesially." That's a huge deal. If I'm not on board with how a church "does church," I have no business being in leadership there.
rob taylor,
last month i looked at a church to serve at that aimed to "increase diversity" in leadership. I thought, bummer, I'm out. I looked a little further, and found out I was in: they were looking for a 'non-asian.'
The Asians *at* redeemer don't seem to be worried, as they're showing up in droves, when they'd have every opportunity to "vote with their feet."
"the thing that jumped out at me was the phrase that he was not the best fit "ideologically and ecclesially." That's a huge deal. If I'm not on board with how a church "does church," I have no business being in leadership there."
Mark had been associated with Redeemer for well over a decade. He knew exactly how they did things and was on board with it as much, if not more, than all other staff.
The only ideological and ecclessial difference addressed to him prior to firing him concerned the diaconate. Mark, because of his desire to respect the denomination as well as Redeemer, referred to unordained diaconal workers as 'leaders' in the church, not Redeemer 'officers' or 'deacons'. He, like many other PCA pastors, wanting to be faithful and respectful to their vows while not causing more contention over a relatively minor issue, find that to be a comfortable position. Obviously, Redeemer thinks otherwise.
http://www.baylyblog.com/2009/04/woman-deacons-and-metro-ny-presbytery-complaint-filed.html
http://www.baylyblog.com/2009/06/complaint-against-metro-new-york-presbytery-filed-with-general-assemblys-standing-judicial-commissio.html
Redeemer has many people on staff and in its membership who diverge substantially from them and the PCA 'ideologically' and 'ecclesially' - (i.e. pro-choice leaders/deaconesses, egalitarian directors/sr. directors). Perhaps, because there is more white MALE guilt than WHITE male guilt at Redeemer, such ideological and ecclesial diversity is allowed to exist.
FYI - "anon" who quoted baylyblog
baylyblog is written by two men who are absolutely insane. If anyone readys that blog regularly, as I do, they will take notice that what those men write is at the far side of extreme. I attended their church when I was in school in Bloomington, Indiana, and I can attest to their extreme "orthodoxy." Just read them for the next two weeks and see if they don't creep you out.
6. When are the black and asian churches going to begin reaching out to the white community and seeking to establish multi-cultural denominations in their own churches? It may be happening, but I am unaware of it.
Let me just take a wild guess as to what your ethnicity is. Perhaps, next time you post, you'd do well to reference some stats on demographics across the U.S. to figure out some rudimentary definitions on what constitutes 'minority' and 'majority' as those terms apply sociologically, politically, theologically. Either that, or move to Osaka, Beijing, or the Ivory Coast for a year and assume a flip-side perspective. Reading some post-colonial literature and theology would help, too.
peace.