Crossing the Ethnic Divide: The Multiethnic Church on a Mission (American Academy of Religion Academy) [Hardcover]

Kathleen Garces-Foley (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195311086 | ISBN-13: 978-0195311082 | Publication Date: February 22, 2007

While religious communities often stress the universal nature of their beliefs, it remains true that people choose to worship alongside those they identify with most easily. Multiethnic churches are rare in the United States, but as American attitudes toward diversity change, so too does the appeal of a church that offers diversity. Joining such a community, however, is uncomfortable-worshippers must literally cross the barriers of ethnic difference by entering the religious space of the ethnically "other." Through the story of one multiethnic congregation in Southern California, Kathleen Garces-Foley examines what it means to confront the challenges in forming a religious community across ethnic divisions and attracting a more varied membership.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Ethnography has the potential to reformulate our understanding of the world by presenting located, contextual sociological truths that can lead to the transformation of scholarship. Kathleen Garces-Foley gets it right. She has chosen a location that highlights the important features of 21st century American Christianity and she renders an account that shows why and how multi-ethnic congregations are transformative of the landscape of American religion and, potentially, for the cultural repertoire through which we encounter racial diversity. Well-written and accessible, this book deserves a wide audience in the academy and outside of it, and should be read by anyone who cares about the potential of religious institutions to become arenas that foster tolerance, caring, equality, and the spanning of traditional lines of social division." -- Penny Edgell, author of Congregations in Conflict and Religion and Family in a Changing Society.

"Combining a thorough survey of up-to-date knowledge on multiethnic churches and her own fieldwork, Garces-Foley offers an insightful and wide-ranging assessment of today's attempts to create inclusive, ethnically diverse communities of faith. Through the trials and successes of one multiethnic church, Garces-Foley not only affirms the desire to achieve racial diversity but also reveals the strains of achieving an ethnically inclusive community that simultaneously affirms the ethnic identity of all members. Through this one church, Crossing the Ethnic Divide artfully explores strategies of ethnic inclusion and the variable salience of ethnic identity within church cultures." -- Gerardo Marti, author of A Mosaic of Believers: Diversity and Innovation in a Multiethnic Church

In this rich ethnography, Kathleen Garces-Foley takes us inside a multiethnic congregation of young urban evangelicals in Los Angeles. Here, she explores in depth the challenges this new style of congregation faces as it both affirms diversity and seeks to build a shared community. An excellent read, of benefit to scholars and religious leaders alike. -- Wade Clark Roof, Professor of Religious Studies, University of California at Santa Barbara

"Crossing the Ethnic Divide is a significant addition to the growing literature on race and religion. ...[It is] useful for courses in Asian American Studies, religious studies, adn teh sociology of religion, and in seminaries as well." --Journal of American Ethnic History

"The book simply and honestly tells it as it is. It carefully details the realities, complexities, and difficulties of pursuing a genuinely multiethnic congregation." --Contemporary Sociology

"An outstanding ethnographic study ...offers an excellent theoretical discussion of the different models of multiethnic congregations and their building strategies. ...Highly recommended." --Choice

About the Author

Kathleen Garces-Foley is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Marymount University specializing in contemporary American religious life. In addition to research on the growth of multiethnic churches, she studies immigrant religious communities and American death practices and is the editor of Death and Religion in a Changing World.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (February 22, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195311086
• ISBN-13: 978-0195311082
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,189,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very personal review from the pastor of the studied church, November 8, 2007

By 

K. Fong "gearnut54" (Pasadena, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crossing the Ethnic Divide: The Multiethnic Church on a Mission (American Academy of Religion Academy) (Hardcover)

The fact that I happen to be the pastor of the church that Garces-Foley studied for 2.5 years may cause some to think that I am too biased to offer a review. So let's not consider this a review of the book per se but rather a reflection on her writing it.

I accepted her invitation to be the focus of her doctoral dissertation because I actually welcomed a learned look from a literal outsider. Not a Christian (she's a Unitarian), not a member or attender. But also a doctoral student in Sociology of Religion from UCSB. She performed a thorough-going analysis of our efforts to become a more redemptive, reconciled Christian community. I value her conclusions even though we are still a work in progress. Most of all, I find it gratifying that a secular academic could see the value in efforts like ours for the future, not just of churches, but for our nation and its increasingly diverse future.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Evergreen BC and the theology of discomfort, August 27, 2008

By 

Beryl Banks "BerylRB" (www.rca.org/netcommunity) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Crossing the Ethnic Divide: The Multiethnic Church on a Mission (American Academy of Religion Academy) (Hardcover)

Using the metaphor of crossing over, Kathleen Garces-Foley engages the reader in the most difficult topics of discourse with regard to becoming a multiethnic church, that of discomfort and the costs of diversity. Garces-Foley asks the question, "Why join a church where they never quite fit in, where people never completely understand them and are sometimes downright offensive?" Following in the footsteps of Emerson and Christerson, who found that the "joy of diversity" sustains and develops successful multiethnic churches, Garces-Foley finds that the boundary crossers see the multiethnic church as reflecting the real world instead of offering an alternative to it.

Garces-Foley's book is a ethnographic study of Evergreen Baptist Church, Los Angeles, under the leadership of Pastor Ken Fong. Evergreen is a church which is 80% Asian American and 20% other. There are two things that are unique about Garces-Foley's book which greatly add to the literature on developing multiethnic churches. One, as the United States slowly approaches a shift in population where whites will no longer be the majority, most of the literature on developing multiethnic churches still reflect black and white constructs of race - Evergreen's story is from the perspective of Asian Americans as the majority ethnic group in the church, and an Asian American Pastor whom after being exposed to racial reconciliation theology chose to take the church with him on the same path. And secondly, Garces-Foley presents an excellent case study for the multiethnic church by unpacking the influence that theologically grounded young people have made in sustaining healthy multiethnic churches. She calls this group of young people the "reconciliation generation" using a term that Brenda Salter McNeil coined in the 1990's. In essence para-church influences played the part of prophet in the shaping of Pastor Ken's theological reflections, the theological foundation of the most prominent adopters of the mission - young people, and towards the mission of Evergreen going forward. These are fresh insights that are absent in books on multiethnic church development that this author has read!

The theological frameworks she unfolds are a theology of discomfort and a theology of racial reconciliation. The reconciliation generation is grounded in movements such as the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship. These young people matriculate from college with a high value placed upon diversity learned through a rigorous grounding in biblical justice as expressed in the Minor Prophets. Pastor Fong's emphasis upon diversity and tolerance naturally created a foundation where young people having grown up with diversity as a norm find that Evergreen's values intersect their own. Add to this foundation a theology of discomfort where minor inconveniences of crossing over are reframed in the light of the Gospel, and Garces-Foley concludes that, "multiethnic churches will grow most easily among cosmopolitan, boundary crossing churchgoers, because they experience greater benefits and fewer costs in this setting."

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fantastic Resource!, August 27, 2007

By 

Gordon W. Marchant (McLean, VA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Crossing the Ethnic Divide: The Multiethnic Church on a Mission (American Academy of Religion Academy) (Hardcover)

The price of this book might cause you to wonder if it is worth it. It is! Any pastor or church leader who is seriously praying about transitioning their church to one that is mult-ethnically orientated needs to review this reference.