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Living in Color: Embracing God's Passion for Diversity

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Randy Woodley is a man with a vision-a vision of how God loves diversity. I just got done reading this book and I highly reccomend this to EVERYONE. Randy is not afraid to say some things that need to be said and understood in our nation today. He gives advice on reconcilation and restitution between the races that is simply some of the best advice I have heard. He points out how God has placed each one of us in our own cultures for a reason and that we should embrace what God has given us(While weeding out the aspects of our culture that is not pleasing to God) and not be ashamed of it. I greatly appreciated how this book points to the fact that missionaries(and the church in general) often make the mistake of pushing western culture on those they try to share the gospel with. This book made me cry and encouraged me to seek to better understand my own Creek Indian Heritage (I am also of mixed blood).READ THIS BOOK!!!!

In "Living in Color," Randy Woodley writes from a Native American perspective about what the church ought to look like, in light of centuries of racial and ethnic strife and oppression. He paints a compelling (but rather abstract and generic) picture of unity in diversity, as God's clear plan for His church.

Unfortunately, Woodley doesn't provide much specificity to his ultimate goal or ideal. He talks a lot about racial inequity and how the preferred racial groups can help to right those wrongs. He talks a lot about the diversity of how humans worship, experience, and understand God and suggests that we need to not only tolerate, but truly embrace and value what we all bring to the table. But he is never clear about what a truly multi-cultural church might look like. His examples of success come primarily from conferences or momentary experiences, rather than full-fledged multicultural churches. If he thinks that this is where we should all be headed, I would have appreciated greater clarity about what exactly he has in mind.

Despite my dissatisfaction with a perceived lack of specificity (though this may be largely attributable to cultural differences!!), Woodley does offer some value to a white American evangelical like myself. I understand more clearly that I need to listen better to those who have wounds from racial oppression and inequity. I need to proactively encounter more cultural diversity than my current circles allow. I need to find ways and places to come before Christian brothers and sisters who have been oppressed and wronged by the powerful, white majority and offer them apology, contrition, and maybe even restitution. I still have much to learn about this multi-ethnic world in which I live, and Woodley's book has offered me some helpful wisdom along that journey.

If this book made the outright negative remarks and the many implications it makes against any people group other than caucasian Americans and Europeans, the author would quickly be denounced as a bigot. Instead, I was forced to read it for a seminary class under the guise of broadening my perspectives regarding races and ethnicity in America.

This book is not about finding a way to appreciate the diversity of cultures around us. It is about how white America has wronged Native Americans (the author says we should now refer to this group as First Nations, but I say Native Americans here for understanding), and how white America owes this group restitution for these wrongs. The author calls people groups to allow those wronged by their ancestors to share their grievances and the suffering they have gone through without the offenders speaking. While this example could perhaps be used for any ethnic groups, white America and Europeans are used in 95% of the examples, usually in relation to Native Americans. The author does not discuss when enough has been said and when people can finally move on. He seems to indicate that once a people group has been wronged, they eternally are entitled to sharing these grievances with the offenders. This model goes against any healthy scriptural models I see.

From the outset, this book calls people to appreciate other cultures rather than merely tolerate them or be "color blind." This is an excellent point! Unfortunately, the book continues by consistently disregarding and even attacking white American and European culture. The author attacks white churches in America for not adapting their worship styles to be more accomodating to other cultures. In the previous chapter, though, he speaks very highly of a Native American church he had previously started specifically tailored to Native American culture. From the description, this certainly would not be a church I would feel comfortable in--not because I disagree with any of it, but simply because it is a drastically different culture from the one I know. I applaud the author for starting this kind of church, but I am offended that he goes on to attack white churches for catering to a different culture. He even makes small attacks throughout the book, like criticizing whites for not being in touch with nature enough to hear what the birds or trees have to tell them. Any cultural differences brought up in the book are clearly portrayed as whites having it wrong and other groups (usually Native Americans) having it right.

If you are interested in white America making restitution with Native Americans for past sins, I might recommend this book (although I still don't see nearly as many solutions posed by Woodley as griping). If you are interested in diversity, do NOT read this book. If you are required to read this by a seminary, I would encourage you to ask why they require such books that would outrage people if they attacked any people group other than whites in the way that this one does.