Eric H. F. Law

Several years ago, while I was in seminary and a ministry intern, I had an opportunity to participate in a cross cultural learning opportunity. Our urban, mono-cultural church had planted a church in a First Nations community downtown. The associate pastor left to lead it and she was reticent about allowing the 'parent church' to come to many of their first gatherings because she wanted to cultivate a safe place for a disempowered group to flourish. Of course many at the original church didn't understand this and felt hurt by the exclusion, so the pastor and a few of us organized a course on missional, cross-cultural partnerships.

A chapter from The Wolf Shall Dwell With the Lamb was one of our resources. I remember appreciating Law's insight into power perceptions in multicultural contexts and how to approach these sensitively, but I didn't read this book cover and cover until now.

I think this is one of the best articulations of the pre-work that needs to happen if church is going to authentically multi-cultural. Law evokes the cycle of Crucifixion and Resurrection and posits that communities of color and white communities should enter dialogue from different starting points. White Christians taking up their cross, listening and divesting themselves of power, and people of color given authority, power and a voice though resurrection. He calls this the Pentecost miracles of tongue and ear and walks through case studies, liturgies and how to use various mediums to foster mutual dialogue.

This book is now twenty-four years old and yet so much of what Law says is still relevant and necessary (just think of the tone-deaf way many church's approach movements like Black Lives Matter and how genuine multi-cultural faith community still feels like an anomaly).
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