Customer Reviews

What Color Is Your God?: Multicultural Education in the Church (BridgePoint Books)

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I bought a copy of this book used a few years back. It was perhaps the best book I ever found in a discount bin.
I work in cross-cultural ministry, mostly with Asian Americans. This book was very helpful to me in the work that I do. It covers most of the races that are currenly in America and covers the strengths and faults that are in each of them. This book also tells what must be done to present the gospel to each of them without changing their ethnic culture. I think this feature of the book is excellent because far too often white America thinks that when minority races get saved, they must adopt "White Values." Not true! Each ethnic group in the world that has Christians celebrate Jesus in a way that is unique to their own culture. When we evangelize other groups outside of our own culture, when should remember this.
I'd call this book a must for all pastors, evangelists, and other Christian leaders of all levels in America.

As the subtitle suggests, "What Color Is Your God" educates pastors in foundational cultural understanding. Covering ethnic groups in America, this primer shows church leaders how to value cultural differences. It also highlights trans-cultural biblical principles and probes how various cultures apply or misapply these eternal principles in daily life.

Reviewer: Bob Kellemen, Ph.D., is the author of Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction , Soul Physicians, and Spiritual Friends.

A breif overview of how different ethnic groups approcah the Church and it's activities, but mostly focused on logistical concerns and not on worship style, faith, male vs. female perspectives, etc. within the different churches (ethnic groups). However, goo dfor group discussion.

I approached this book with high hopes for pointers and insight. What I found became a waste of time and effort. Much of the information is dated, biased, and so full of politically correct fluff as to be unusable. In addition, there are mistakes in its recount of historical events. This alone leads me to wonder about the research of all of the material. Simple checks would have shown that statements utilized as key facts to derive deeply imbedded hypothesis were in error.

The only redeeming characteristics arise in the sections dealing with individual cultures. As long as one realizes that the material presented is exceptionally broad based, this section becomes and interesting read. However, it stands as too broad for anything but the most basic beginnings and simplest of approaches. Those with prior awareness of a specific culture will likely find the chapter on it quite dull and uninformative.

I would not recommend this book to anyone.