|
09509
June 18, 2009
Amazed and Perplexed
Young adults return gift of service to Big Tent host city
The Rev. Carlos Cardoza-Orlandi addresses the National Multicultural Church Conference.
Photo by Erin Cox-Holmes. ATLANTA — The Rev. Carlos Cardoza-Orlandi began his opening plenary address at the National Multicultural Conference here June 12 with a question: “What happens when the Holy Spirit gives the gift of diversity?”
“Suprises. Deliverance. Hospitality. Boundary-breaking. Sacrifice. Called-by-Name. Amazing. Hilarity” were some of the words called out by participants, who came from countless cultures all around the world. They joined with 1,500 other Presbyterians for the first-ever Big Tent event, a gathering of 10 denominational conferences with joint worship, shared meals and a plethora of workshops open to all.
“Christianity’s centers of vitality are found in Africa, Asia and Latin America,” Cardoza-Orlandi said in his address, “Amazed and Perplexed: The Blessings and Challenges of Resistance and Acceptance in our Cross-cultural Communities.” Cardoza-Orlandi is professor of world Christianity at Columbia Theological Seminary in nearby Decatur.
Over the next thirty years, he said, we will see two things happen: mainline, Roman Catholic, and evangelical churches here in the United States will continue to decline, but at the same time we will see significant growth in immigrant churches.
“The Holy Spirit is at work reshaping the spiritual landscape of churches. Christianity is emerging in new forms. The critical question is how will established churches respond?” Cardoza-Orlandi queried.
Even when we know it’s God at work, communities resist, he continued. We could learn from Peter’s experience as told in Acts 10. Peter is with Cornelius in the home of Simon the Tanner’s house, near the seaside, when they have an amazing experience of God breaking the boundaries between their cultures.
“The location of the house, near the seaside, puts Peter at the margins of Jewish culture. It’s when we’re at the margins that the Holy Spirit builds connections between human beings,” he said.
“In that encounter Peter learns who he has to become. He is going to have to communicate the Gospel on other people’s terms.”
Cardoza-Orlandi pointed out that Christianity has “official” language, but the Gospel always has to be translated into native tongues. In fact, Christianity is a always a religion of testimony, he insisted. People are the agents of the faith. People are the ones who embrace it. Who name it. Who live it out.
The dramatic challenge of cross-cultural ministries is not about having the right answers or strategies, but asking the right questions, Cardoza-Orlandi said. “Christian faith becomes a river that flows with the vitality about the Holy Spirit. It is about the questions. It is not about answers. We have too many answers.”
The gift of diversity of has already been given to the church, Cardoza-Orlandi said, “but some of us still have to discover it. The higher gift is discovery of the Holy Spirit’s gifts of reconciliation.”
There is no one central place where that work of reconciliation is going on, he said. “There are multiple centers of the Christian faith — Sao Paolo, Mexico City, Manila. We find this enormous and great diversity and faith only finds its vitality as it continues to cross boundaries and engage the cultures of the people.”
Engaging young people is particularly crucial, Cardoza-Orlandi said. “The real vitality today is in the young people of our church. We must be finding ways to bridge the gaps between the church and community to be ‘marketplace pastors’ — to help these kids to make it a reality.”
As we try to “handle”diversity, Cardoza-Orlandi said, “we may be missing what it means to be one in Jesus Christ. Diversity is not the gift. It is the given. The gift is being called Children of God.”
| 
