strategic ethnicity: the construction of multi-racial/multi-ethnic religious community

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Strategic ethnicity: Theconstruction of multi-racial/multi-ethnic religiouscommunityGregory C. StanczakPublished online: 17 Feb 2007.

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Strategic ethnicity: The construction of

multi-racial/multi-ethnic religious

community

Gregory C. Stanczak

Abstract

This article highlights through one case the ways in which religiousorganizations provide an exploratory space for maintaining, reclaiming,and altering aspects of racial and ethnic identity within a racially andethnically integrated community. Utilizing data from in-depth interviewsand participant observation in Southern California, I suggest that withinthe organizational culture of the congregation, church leaders andindividual members recursively construct an integrated identity through1) the public framing and articulation of goals, 2) their religiousorganizational structure and resources, and, 3) the lived experiences ofmembers. I argue that a perceived reciprocal legitimacy emerges in thisprocess through which religious claims affirm integration goals while, atthe same time, observable integration within the congregation strengthensthe acceptance of religious doctrine. I offer strategic ethnicity as a usefulway of thinking about the transformation of racial experience andethnicity into collective and individual tools within American Protestantcongregations.

Keywords: Religion; race; ethnicity; integration; identity; organizational culture.

Sociological research on participation in organized religion continu-ally reaffirms the resilience of racial and ethnic homogeneity withinworship communities (Lincoln and Mamiya 1990, Toulis 1997, Chong1998, Emerson and Smith 2000). However, certain Christian-basedreligious organizations are increasingly making concerted efforts tointegrate their membership roles (Becker 1998, Marti 2005). Emersonand Kim (2003, pp. 217�8) have recently suggested that whilemultiracial congregations in the United States still constitute lessthan 7.4 per cent of Christian church memberships, significantdevelopment is emerging out of new survey data. Perhaps not

Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 29 No. 5 September 2006 pp. 856�881

# 2006 Taylor & FrancisISSN 0141-9870 print/1466-4356 onlineDOI: 10.1080/01419870600814312

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surprisingly, newer nondenominational megachurches and collegecampus religious movements are sites where much of this experimen-tation is taking place and provide opportunities to understand theprocesses by which success is achieved.

This article highlights through one intensive case, the Los AngelesChurch of Christ [LACC], the ways in which religious organizationsprovide an exploratory space for maintaining, reclaiming, and alteringaspects of racial and ethnic identity both collectively and individually.Utilizing ethnographic data, I suggest that group leaders andindividual members are continually engaged in a recursive process ofidentity construction involving 1) the public collective identity of themovement, 2) the organizational structure of the church, includingpatterned interaction, and, 3) the individual biographies and past livedexperiences of members. Cultural codes, organizational resources,public representations of diversity, and high levels of structuredinterracial interaction, construct a bounded space in which membersnegotiate a racial and ethnic identity in relation to a newly adoptedcollective multiracial, multi-ethnic identity. Following templates de-fined by church leaders, these identities ultimately become expressivetools that are used organizationally and by individual members tosustain integration and encourage church growth. Subsequently, areciprocal legitimacy arises through which religious authority legit-imizes the attempts to integrate the community while the successfulintegration of the community confers legitimacy back upon thereligious claims and demands of the church.

Introducing the case

The LACC is a local division and global headquarters of aninternational, racially integrated, highly demanding, rapidly expand-ing, Christian, evangelical movement based in the United States. Sinceits official founding in 1979, the movement has grown exponentiallyboth domestically and worldwide.1 By most recent church accounts,the worldwide movement, the International Churches of Christ[ICOC], is comprised of 434 churches in 140 countries on sixcontinents.

The LACC and the ICOC in general, are organized around ahierarchical pyramidal structure of one-to-one mentoring relationshipsbetween members or ‘disciples.’ At all points in this pyramidalstructure, the ‘discipling relationship’ is structured similarly; oneadvanced or ‘mature’ member mentors another. Beyond the singleunit of one discipling relationship are multiple layers of identicallystructured relationships that continue in a network of checks andbalances of personal action and belief maintenance. As such, a web ofsocial cohesion and authority locates each disciple, regardless of time

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within the church, into a perceived uniform standard of accountability.As with many of the new organizational restructuring practices withinmegachurches, these strong interpersonal relationships not only bufferagainst competing world-views and apostasy, they also cultivate acommunity bond of mutual respect, strengthen interpersonal skills,and elevate or project the assumption of shared responsibilities andexpectations onto the entire hierarchical network of the Church(Miller 1997).

Emerging out of the interpersonal network structure are hierarchicalorganizational subdivisions. The greater LACC, where this researchwas conducted, is divided into ten separate administrative areas called‘regions.’ Each region is further divided into ‘sectors’, similar to localcongregations. The focus of this research is on two sectors within oneadministrative region of the LACC, a suburban sector and a campussector. Selecting these sectors allowed for a wide range of diversityamong the disciples’ daily experiences and biographies. For example,the suburban sector had a greater range of ages and socio-economicstatus as compared to the campus sector that combined students fromseveral colleges within the geographic region. The college sector wasselected for two related reasons. First, campuses have been aconsistently vibrant source of movement recruitment for the LACC(and ICOC in general). Second, campuses have also been a source ofmuch of the criticism directed at the movement and therefore are siteswhere much of the identity work occurs.2 Throughout the essay I useethnographic data collected over thirteen months. A total of forty-three in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with activedisciples and church leaders. During this time, I also attended bi-weekly religious services, Bible studies, church retreats, special events,organizational meetings and informal dinners with groups of disciples.

Since the church’s inception a generation ago, church leaders bothlocal and global have held fast to the longstanding organizingprinciple established by church founders that strongly encourageseach local church to approximate the racial and ethnic compositions ofthe communities in which they are located. This organizationalrequirement, rooted religiously in the biblical mandate to make‘disciples of all nations,’ flows through the hierarchical religiousorganization in ways that command adherence yet also allow for localcreativity for accomplishing this task. And this task is notablyachieved. One of the most noticeable features of attending an LACCevent is the overwhelming racial and ethnic diversity of the predomi-nantly twenty- and thirty-something congregation. A survey of theLACC, administered by the LACC as part of this research,3 indicatesthat in greater Los Angeles in 1999, the racial breakdown of activedisciples in the church was 19 per cent African American, 10 per centAsian/Pacific Islander, 29 per cent Latin, and 35 per cent white (with 7

858 Gregory C. Stanczak

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per cent selecting Other). In the geographical region where I conductedthis research, the congregation was comprised of 19 per cent AfricanAmericans, 11 per cent Asian/Pacific Islanders, 33 per cent Latinos,and 31 per cent whites (6 per cent Other). Compared to the vastmajority of American religious congregations, the LACC is ananomaly in this respect. Yet beyond demographic integration, thecongregation was intimately integrated at the level of interpersonalinteraction as well.

Race and ethnicity are far from social factors that the movement isbeyond and therefore ignores. Quite the contrary, the church straddlestheir multicultural and colour-blind public persona with the savvyacknowledgement of the assumed individual desire, particularlyamong potential members, to feel understood as a racialized beingand represented as part of an ethnic heritage and culture. Race-specificoutreach ministries, racially homogeneous family groups, ethnicallythemed events, and racially selected evangelists for different geo-graphic communities strategically operate to maintain the multiracialcongregation and facilitate the conversion of individuals not only toreligious ideas but consequently, into a culture of negotiated racial andethnic identities. Before moving into the empirical data, I shall brieflysketch the current religious landscape with regard to race and ethnicitythen discuss my analytical framework through which I interpret theLACC’s construction of their integrated community.

Racial, ethnic, and religious identity

Arguably, the way race and to a lesser degree ethnicity, are sociallyconstructed in current North American contexts produces a prevalentsorting factor in Americans’ daily perceptions of themselves andothers, their social interactions, and the political, economic, andgeographical dimensions of society (Omi and Winant 1994). Religionremains one of the most enduring institutions in which racial andethnic sorting continues in most communities today both within andoutside the United States. Some argue that in the United States thissegregation is often due to the fact that religion is one of the mostparticipatory social organizations and therefore reflects the demo-graphics of an area (Becker 1998). This coincides with the idea ofracial, geographic segregation (Merry 1980; Massey and Denton 1993)but is true only for neighbourhood churches with a geographicallylimited, congregational base, an organizational model that is changingrapidly.4 Others suggest that language, ritual, and culture all play intothe reasons that church segregation remains. These authors argue thatthe persistence of racially or ethnically homogenous churches existsbecause religiosity cannot be dissected from one’s culture and socialexperience (Lincoln and Mamiya 1990, Toulis 1997). Taken from this


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perspective alone, religion is a conservative institution that reifies andmaintains racial and ethnic identity and thereby homogeneity.

However, more recently the analysis of integrated congregations hasexplored this intersection of religion, race and culture as well. PennyEdgell Becker (1998, 1999), in one of the few studies on integratedcongregations argues that adding current social, cultural and politicalreferents and realities, such as ethnic and in some cases racialintegration, onto the traditions and practices of religion, legitimizesthese new directions in the church composition or organization. Inother words, the transference of religious authority onto platforms ofracial integration strengthens this effort and, when successful, makes itappear to be an evolutionary outflow of ongoing church developmentor even of a sacred order or cosmic plan. Similarly, Gerardo Marti’s(2005) analysis of a multi-ethnic Christian church in Los Angelessuggests that integration is successful in part due to a religiousauthority that transcends ethnic identity in ways that obscure divisiveethnic boundaries and enables a common, collective identity toemerge. While I believe that both of these assessments are correctand applicable to the LACC, I add that this process of conveyingauthority and legitimacy runs in both directions rather than one;simultaneously conferring authenticity upon a religious congregationthrough the successful implementation of an integrated congregation.

It is precisely this reciprocal legitimacy between racial/ethnicrepresentation and religious authority that concerns me here. RichardFlory (2000) suggests that one of the distinctive components ofGeneration X religions such as the LACC and the ICOC in general istheir explicit attention to racial and ethnic inclusivity. This overlaps inFlory’s typology (although not stated directly) with the desire for‘authentic’ religion among this generation where authenticity ismarked in part by the dismissal of ‘rational apologetics’ and a turntowards ‘an experience-based epistemology’ (2000, p. 241). As we shallsee, the lived experience of being part of an integrated communityprovides church members with a potent narrative that is then deployedfor attracting others seeking this authenticity.

The individual experimentation with ethnic symbols, language,traditions and, most importantly, lived experiences within an inte-grated context and towards the specific goal of church growthindicates a dynamic and pragmatic process of racial and ethnicidentity construction. For the purposes of this essay I conceptualizeethnicity along Joane Nagel’s (1998) shopping cart metaphor. Mod-ifying Ann Swidler’s (1986) toolkit analogy of cultural practice, Nagelsuggests that in ethnic identity construction, what we put into our‘shopping cart’�the traditions, languages, and symbols�are as salientas the boundaries we construct around them. This metaphor workswell with integrating churches such as the LACC which actively


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provide an array of ‘merchandise’ that may be placed in one’s ethnicshopping cart.5 This occurs on two primary levels within the church;first through organizational representations and then through theindividual interactions and sharing of experience. However, the focuson use is important for understanding the active and strategicencouragement of ethnic retention or in some cases ethnic recoveryof identity and the sharing of these symbols among disciples.6 What Ishall refer to as strategic ethnicity then is the utilization towards apurposeful goal of racial and ethnic cultural resources that one alreadyhas or that one accumulates through organizational participation andinterpersonal interaction . The purposeful goal in this case is supportingand perpetuating the LACC’s diversity frame and ultimately makingmore disciples.

The term strategic ethnicity falls squarely in the tradition ofStanford Lymann and William Douglass (1973) who discussed theimpression management strategies that people use in negotiating theirethnic identities. More recent accounts suggest that ethnicity (and inparticular white ethnicities) becomes symbolic and for some, optional(Gans 1979, Alba 1983, Waters 1990, Bakalian 1992). While thisoptional enactment most often takes place in the private realm whereethnicity is expressed and made meaningful among others whosimilarly understand and take part in this expression, I am mostconcerned here with the public deployment of ethnicity. Yen LeEspiritu (1992) and Felix Padilla (1985) point out that public displaysof ethnicity may be strategically used to mobilize action and interestaround certain pan-ethnic issues that instil universalism. While asimilar process is occurring in the LACC (symbolic markers of ethnicdiversity are used to construct an ethnic identity for clearly articulatedgoals�in this case to make more disciples), the ethnic definition of thechurch is one of unified diversity rather than unified pan-ethnicity orracialized identity. The term strategic ethnicity then combines inter-personal management with the emergence of selective symbols ofethnicity all in the service of the collective religious goal of ethnicallyintegrated difference.

While the church founders primary organizing principle requiresintegration, enacting and maintaining this integration is a much morecomplex cultural process. To structure my argument, I shall addressthis ongoing process across three overlapping levels of religiouscultural production; cultural framing, organizational structure, andindividual biography. My analysis combines three overlapping analy-tical approaches that map these three levels of religious culturalproduction. First, frame analysis in the social movement literature(Snow et al. 1986, Snow and Benford 1988, Hunt, Benford and Snow1994) sheds light upon the ways in which this movement connects thecollective identity and more specifically a multiracial, multi-ethnic


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identity with the personal values of potential members. Second, Iexplore the basis of these frames within pre-existing cultural codes andthe process through which organizational rearticulation and typifica-tion of these codes crystallizes into newly integrated collectiveidentities (Demerath 2002). Finally, I connect the framing andorganizational articulations to the interpersonal sharing and use ofcultural tools. Here, the collective identity is translated throughindividual and interpersonal interaction into a meaningful individualidentity that resonates with the unique biographies of members andfunctions to mobilize future recruitment (Swidler 1986, 2001, Jasper1997).7

Making a big deal: Framing and articulating multiracial/multi-ethniccommunity

Symbolic representations of a multiracial, multi-ethnic community arepervasive in the public collective image that the LACC projects and areoften the initial spaces in which the church’s integration frame ispresented. The official website of the ICOC, the movement’s videonewsmagazine Kingdom News Network [KNN ], and the LACC’s localglossy magazine all reference, through vibrant visual images, the racialdiversity of the movement. For example, the introductory segment toone KNN episode used a digital technique popular among musicvideos at the time to show a series of faces from across the racial andethnic spectrum, one literally (virtually) blending into the next.Beyond the visual representations, the diversity of the movement isoften expressed culturally through a variety of themes that shape andcolour their events and retreats. One campus retreat held a fiesta onthe opening night, complete with carne asada , a pinata, and mariachimusic. At another special Sunday service, the suburban sector leader-ship asked volunteers to translate the Great Commission into theirnative or family languages. Disciples recited a variety of translationsfrom Spanish to Japanese to Inuit. While many of these languages wereindecipherable to most disciples and their guests, the emphasis seemedclear. This was a community of differences. Yet it was a communitythat sustained a common core behind those sometimes incoherentdifferences. Disciples did not have to understand Japanese or Swedishto symbolically ‘get’ that in this context the core tenet being recitedheld the same meaning across these differences.

Beyond media, special events, and church productions, the multi-racial and multi-ethnic identity of the movement is acknowledged bythe leadership at some point during nearly every LACC service. TheLACC leadership makes sure that this diversity is not lost on visitorsor its salience weakened on longer-term members by explicitly andrepeatedly articulating their integration. One disciple whose family is


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racially and ethnically mixed discussed the way in which this generalframing of the movement slowly but clearly focused her awareness ofthe importance of the integration of this church, an integration thatshe initially took for granted. ‘I started noticing they talked about it alot so I thought, ‘Oh, this must be different.’ With this revelation shestarted exploring other churches in the phone book and concluded,‘This is different. We are mixed. Not that I noticed the differencebecause I’ve always been around a lot of people [of different races andethnicities], so � I didn’t notice but since they keep making such a bigdeal out of it . . .’

A big deal is made and to a great extent it is made to elicit the veryresponses that this disciple gave. Stating this difference typically occursat the beginning of a service when a different disciple each weekwelcomes visitors. The disciple provides a brief history of the Churchalways noting its ‘remarkable’ growth. This rapid growth is then oftenlinked in some way to the unique racial and ethnic composition of thecongregation. Evangelists reinforce this point. One Sunday, a whiteevangelist8 energetically exclaimed, ‘We are part of history! We arehistory! Look around you today. There’s blacks and Latinos andAsians and even a few whites [added with a touch of self-deprecatinghumour].’ Weekly articulations by local church leadership lay thegroundwork for the framing of legitimacy and exclusivity of thismovement.

Kip McKean, the ICOC’s founder and leader, dramatically empha-sized the significance of this integration frame in a climatic moment ofa sermon he gave to a gathering of the entire LACC at the Rose Bowlin Pasadena. The Rose Bowl was a long sought after venue for theLACC and this service was a momentous occasion in the unfoldinghistory of the movement. Months of preparation, intense recruitmentof visitors, and an emotional, prayerful build-up had most disciplesanxiously awaiting this event. Standing in front of 18,000 people afterten years of anticipation, McKean drove home the racialized definitionof who they are. Building in pitch, speed and fervour, McKean wavedwith his arms as he told everyone to look around and see what he saw,

A black man sitting next to an Asian woman, arm in arm, standingnext to a Latin man, standing next to a white woman, standing nextto a Native American man, standing next to a black teen, next to aLatin senior citizen, with a white hairdresser, an Asian CEO, a blackformer gang member arm in arm with a Latin former gang member,a white computer nerd with a black NBA player. See, this is not agroup of strangers. This is the family of God. We know each other.We love each other. Get this, we like each other. We like each other alot, right church?


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The stadium was on its feet and roaring by the time that McKeanfinished this rallying definition of collective and diverse identity. Yet itis important to note that diversity in this case, while strategic, is notmerely strategic in the sense of instrumental calculation or quotas.Instead, McKean frames this community in experiential and affectivedistinction to other types of integrated communities in the broaderculture. He does so in three subtle ways, drawing upon the pervasiveyet elusive cultural goal of meaningful or auth-entic integration.McKean begins to build his case with the phrase, ‘We know eachother’. In the general context of this sermon, this phrase resonates withmild forms of alienation that many feel in voluntary associations wherewe may know others but not form intimate bonds with them. But if weinterpretively place this within the context of strategic ethnicity, he hastapped the cultural codes of alienation within integrated venues suchas the workplace or the classroom where integration is not simplyvoluntary but socially mandated. Here, McKean implies that indivi-duals come to know their co-workers, their fellow students and evenother parishioners. However, this type of integrated ‘knowing’ is notthe definition that McKean intends.

He continues, ‘We love each other’. Whereas in the first phraseMcKean acknowledges social integration, here he taps the biblical,Christian, ‘religious’ mandate to love one another. Latino Christiansby religious standards may love their white Christian neighboursacross the street or their Asian Christian community around the worldwhile continuing to conduct racially or ethnically homogeneousservices in their local churches. Again, this is not the collectivedefinition towards which McKean is building. Instead McKeanconcludes, ‘Get this, we like each other’. Beyond the emphasis on anintegrated community is the clarification that integration in a legalisticor biblically nominal sense is simply not enough.9 The LACC’s claimto legitimate integration is evident in McKean’s assertion that disciples‘like each other’. McKean’s attribution of this success clearly linksracial and religious frames by capping his multiracial definition with,‘This is the family of God’. Religion, and in particular this religiousmovement, is offered as the solution to this ubiquitous social problem.

This link between successful racial integration as legitimizing thechurch’s claims of exclusivity as the one true Church recurrentlyreassure potential members and current disciples in their choice of thiscommunity. During one sermon that had a particularly caustic tone,the evangelist made this connection clear and in doing so distanced theLACC from all other churches. In an increasingly mocking and cynicaltone the evangelist railed saying, ‘Most churches are segregatedchurches. You go in and they’re all black or all Latino or all white.’Even though they are segregated these seem like fine places to mostpeople, he argued. ‘Everyone might smile at you on Sundays when


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you’re there and not get too involved in your life and how you’re doingspiritually and everyone will say, it’s just an all around nice church’.Although these may be ‘nice’, he chided, ‘You know what? That’s notthe Church of the Bible!’

Following the Bible as the LACC proscribes is touted as the onlyway in which an integrated church is possible. Repeatedly expressingthis link cements the connection between racial and ethnic inclusivityand religious exclusivity. Disciples in response to the repeatedcomments about other homogenous or segregated churches eventuallyreinterpreted their own past experiences in order to realign theseexperiences with their new interpretive lens. One Latino disciplerecalled,

All other churches I heard about or been in are one group. AllMexicans here, all blacks � maybe a little mix here and there buteven in the church they’re all sittin’ in different areas. All the whitepeople sit over there, all the Mexicans over there. They all go intogether but they don’t sit together and they don’t leave together.But when I went [to the LACC] I was like, ‘‘Wow, that black man ishuggin’ that Asian guy. That white lady is putting her arms aroundthat Latin lady.’’ . . . And I’m like, ‘‘This is what it should be like.’’That’s what I thought right off the bat. ‘‘This is what it should belike.’’

These words echo the words McKean used at the Rose Bowlresulting in a personalized yet recognizable and organizationallyconsistent narrative. By reorienting his own past church experiencestowards the sentiments of the church, this disciple illustrates thedesired effect of framing processes; they pull together the explicit goalsand overall worldview as established by church leadership with theindividual member’s subjective goals, worldviews, and lived experi-ences.10 This link between leadership and disciple is strategic in that itprovides the necessary cultural ‘scripts’ for appropriately defining acollective message and identity, but it also simultaneously connectsthrough morals and emotions. This disciple’s use of the word ‘should’,for example, as with McKean’s words above, indicate a diffuse moralexpectation of racial integration that resonates with deeply embeddedcultural and individual expectations. Another disciple reinforced thismoral connection with broader social experiences concerning race andethnicity saying, ‘It’s just because of the world we live in. I mean, youwalk into [the LACC] and say, ‘‘This is how church should be.’’ Andthen you walk outside and go, ‘‘Well . . .’’’(emphasis added). Publicstatements from the pulpit flag these cultural codes which areembraced as moral mandates by those already sympathetic to thisintegration message or whose life histories correspond with what is


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being professed. In doing so, moral frames of integration begin toestablish an interaction and affective bond between the individual andthe group that is essential for developing collective identity as well asrepositioning individual identity within this new community.11

Simultaneous with these framing processes is an emphasis on action.Shared beliefs and meanings about specified issues or circumstances(such as the way racial and ethnic relations ‘should’ be) areprerequisites for enacting change. Framing processes designate whichissues need to be addressed and often place blame upon organizations,broader social structures, or cultural patterns, in this case, racial andethnic religious segregation (Snow and Machalek 1984, Snow andBenford 1988, Hunt, Benford and Snow 1994). In addition toidentifying problematic issues, frames may also suggest the collectiveway in which they may be overturned and in the process, increasebonds of solidarity.12 Religious movements, as illustrated here with theLACC, often attract members by framing themselves in distinction tothe rest of the religious field, claiming that this distinction is indicativeof religious legitimacy or ‘truth’ (Snow and Machalek 1984).13

Subsequently, frames may, and do in this case, suggest that thecorrective function for religious segregation lies in the ongoing actionsor beliefs of the movement or the interactions between members.Clearly McKean’s statement above framed the LACC in distinction tothe grievances of social segregation and alienation while suggestingthat redemption from these ubiquitous problems could be found onlythrough membership and participation in this ‘Family of God’.Statements by leaders are important steps for attracting potentialmembers to this moral alternative.

While grand interpretive linkages such as these allow for connectionand resonance between individual, organizational, and cultural idealsthat foster collective identity and perhaps most specifically in this case,conversion, sustaining this identity over time is not dependent upon astatic temporal decision at the time of conversion but rather anongoing process of articulation and negotiation in weekly services andeveryday interactions.14 Not only must the goals of the movement bearticulated and made meaningful to members as values to pursue anduphold, the ways in which this is to be carried out and maintained inaction must also be provided (Swidler 1986, 2001). What’s more, asDemerath (2002) has recently suggested, individual meaning derivesfrom both personal experiences and the cultural mechanisms throughwhich we interpret these in shared ways with others. New oruncommon experiences (such as participating in a multiracial, multi-ethnic religious community) can be unsettling unless one is able toconstruct meaning within a broader and shared social context. Overtime, if these same experiences occur and are consistently interpretedin similar ways, the meanings crystallize and strengthen. As we shall


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see next, organizational structuring of disciples interpersonal interac-tions strengthens these frames and provides racial/ethnic ‘tools’ out ofothers’ lived experiences in profound ways within the LACC.

Organizational structure and strategy

The strategic restructuring and mobilization of disciples on anorganizational level provides strong evidence of the active implemen-tation of these moral frames of integration. Beyond fiestas and RoseBowl services, this implementation of integration occurs interperson-ally in organizationally structured discipling relationships and regi-mented Bible talks where attention to the racial or ethnic identity ofthe guest or other members can be explored. For example, discipleswho are just getting to know someone that they have invited to churchor to a Bible study may invite another disciple who is of the same raceor ethnicity as their guest. To illustrate, the white evangelist of thesuburban sector recalled the time he asked a Filipino-Americandisciple to attend a Bible study with a new Filipino-American couple.‘What are they gonna have in common with me?’ he asked,rhetorically. Yet arguably, this couple, who were financially successful,upwardly mobile young Americans, would have just as much if notmore in common with the similarly situated white evangelist than withsomeone based solely upon ethnic designation. However this strategy,enacted by the sector leader, communicates a specific approach amongall disciples to think through racial and ethnic compositions in theirinterpersonal interactions with visitors.

Beyond this interpersonal example of the direct deployment ofstrategic diversity the LACC organizationally mobilizes its members inways that literally restructure the racial and ethnic configurations ofthe regional and sector churches. Special outreach ministries aretactical subgroups within the church whose primary objective is toincrease membership of specific racial and ethnic groups in sectorsthat do not demographically reflect their geographic location. In thesuburban sector that I studied, the new assistant evangelist explainedthe focus of these ministries by again using the Great Commission. Heexplained, ‘Matthew 28:18�20 says . . . ‘‘go make disciples of allnations’’ . . . So yeah, we definitely go after all nations. Everybody. Itdoesn’t matter who you are.’

And yet in the case of the specialized outreach, it matters very muchwho you are. Shortly before I began this research, several Asiandisciples had moved into the suburban sector, some from considerabledistances within the greater Los Angeles area. Disciples of Filipino,Korean, and Japanese descent converged upon this sector situated in ageographical region with a very large percentage of Asians (44 per centby church figures). The arrival of the Asian-American disciples�an


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organizational feat in itself that indicates the resources and authorityof the movement�made an initial boost in the Asian representation ofthe congregation that was nowhere near the Asian demographics ofthe surrounding community. Since then the results have not yielded thetype of racial growth among Asian members as was expected. Even so,disciples repeatedly although reservedly applauded the strategy ofphysically relocating Asian disciples into this community. One of thenewly arrived Asian disciples explained the rationale in these terms,‘People tend to flock toward their kind. That’s why all these China-towns come up. Little Saigon. Little Persia. I mean, we’re a multiracialchurch but sometimes you need a homogeneous outreach to reachyour community’.

Special outreach ministries suggest the organizational commitmentto integration while at the same time revealing the paradoxes andnuances of its construction. While many public descriptions of allraces coming together to make up the LACC seem utopian, the realityentails a wide variety of personal views on race or ethnicity that ofteninvolves individual and organizational conflict. This was particularlytrue of those who perceived an inherent contradiction between anintegrated movement and the need to have a special racial or ethnicoutreach. Interestingly, the most developed of these sentiments camefrom several of the Asian ‘transplants.’ One explained that hisparticipation in a specialized outreach quickly became isolating andhe developed conflicted feelings of self-segregation. Another, who ablyarticulated the reasons behind instituting an Asian ministry above,continued, saying, ‘I think the goals are to make a lot of disciples . . . IfGod needs an Asian ministry here then, Amen. I’m in. Do I think weneed an Asian ministry? No . . . If God wants, God will bless them.Black or white or Asian. God will bless you.’

There are a variety of reasons why these opinions come from thevery people chosen to carry out this mission. The first and perhapsmost obvious is that since the transplanted disciples were expected, asAsian-Americans, to increase the Asian participation in the church,the weight of the success of this outreach ministry was perceived toland directly upon them. But beyond this, some felt anxiety and lossover moving from their sectors and the deep bonds that they leftbehind clouded their interpretation of the move and the mission. Stillothers had ongoing struggles with placing their own ethnicity socentrally in their religious activities and identities. Regardless of thehesitations that several disciples had to the Asian ministry, they allresoundingly placed the needs of the church well above the personaldiscomforts they harboured. Perhaps acknowledging these strains, thechurch was broad in its definition of the goals of the Asian ministry.The assistant evangelist overseeing the special ministry put it this way,‘We preach to everybody who’s open. And the funny thing is, is that I


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think about 90 per cent of people who became Christian in the Asianministry weren’t Asian (laughs). So it’s kind of a funny thing. It’s justgreat!’

This seemingly flippant comment reveals the subtle and nondirectways in which the goals of integration are achieved by the churchthrough the shared understandings of an organizational integrationnarrative. This narrative emerges from a two-fold assumption,articulated by church leaders and echoed by disciples, about the wayto attract people to an integrated movement. First, as the commentabout Little Persia and others suggests, racially or ethnically identifiedindividuals want to see themselves represented in the seats andmingling through the aisles. Bringing in Asian-American disciplesincreases the potential for other Asian-identified visitors to experiencethis sense of belonging. Second and somewhat paradoxically, the newmember is also assumed to be one who already wishes to be part of anintegrated community or who will quickly find this attractive. Thisself-selection among potential members who are seeking a multi-racial,multi-ethnic experience might facilitate cross-racial recruitment butinhibit racially or ethnically specific recruitment. If these two under-lying assumptions function simultaneously then it is not surprisingthat the primary function of the Asian outreach would be to increasethe Asian representation in the congregation simply by showing up butperhaps not be the direct conduits for new, integration aspiring, Asianconverts. As a shared organizational narrative, along with the ‘will ofGod’ caveat, these assumptions allow the church to absorb bothsuccess and failures. However, they also can result in ambivalent oreven perplexing positions that the individual members must negotiatethemselves.

Individual negotiations

Once brought into the church, whether through specialized outreachministries or otherwise, heavy time commitments and face to faceinteractions with other disciples form the necessary building blocks inhelping to guide and merge the wide array of racial and ethnicbackgrounds into a unified Christian community.15 To a large degreethese interactions play an essential role in creatively personalizing thearticulations of church leadership and organizational productions.Mandated interactions with other members increase the frequency ofhearing and rearticulating the goals of the church outside of churchwalls. This crystallizes their meaning and fuses this meaning witheveryday life (Demerath 2002). Richard Flory (2000, p. 241) arguesthat authentic religion�especially found among Generation X�is‘identified by experience, narrative, creativity, and example, not byrational argumentation for the truth claims of a particular belief


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system’. Part of that authenticity for the LACC is this lived experienceas a participating member of a multiracial multi-ethnic community.However, this process of finding authenticity is often more complex,private and personal.

Most disciples I spoke with acknowledged the centrality of race andethnicity in their lives and noticed the diversity of the LACC. Many ofthe disciples who were surprised by the composition of the congrega-tion had come from a church background that fits the standard,homogeneous model. However for others, these interpersonal relation-ships were not always easily embraced or even welcomed. Individualbiographies, family structures, political motivations and prejudicesoften preceded disciples in ways that shaped their ideas about race,ethnicity and integration.16 Joining an integrated community put theseindividuals directly at the centre of struggles over individual identity,family pride and history, religious loyalty and salvation, and peerpressure and acceptance. Several sketches indicate the spectrum ofprior experiences and the complex negotiation many disciples had toface in coming to terms with what others wholeheartedly welcomed.

Arturo was a promising college junior at the time of our interview.His family is from Central America but Arturo was born in LosAngeles. He converted to the LACC while still in high school but had astrong Catholic identity before joining that he admits was mostlybased on ‘the ethnic part of it’. He recalled: ‘When I went to church Iusually went to a Spanish service sometimes and it was good for me tosee a lot of Hispanics there, you know, it gave me a sense of identity.’Arturo’s past identity is representative of the view of ethnicity andreligion as entwined in generations and even centuries of familial andcultural tradition. (Lincoln and Mamiya 1990, Toulis 1997, Hervieu-Leger 2000). However, the biblical interpretations that Arturo waspresented with through a study series at the LACC solidified hisdecision to become a disciple. He then had to deal with the painfulrepercussions that this caused his family. He recalled, ‘My mom didnot accept the decision. She just thought that I had betrayed, not onlythe religion, but the family, culture, and, I didn’t want to do that!’Arturo’s sincere desire to retain his ethnic identity was tested duringwhat he remembers was a long deliberation.

I asked Arturo if he felt he had sacrificed part of the strong sense ofidentity that he had found through his family and the Catholic Churchby becoming a disciple. He replied: ‘No. Honestly no. I still have thatLatino identity.’ In fact he had just returned from a trip to CentralAmerica where he was happy to report he ‘was able to communicatestill over there.’ He added, ‘the funny thing is, it seems that mostpeople there aren’t even Catholic. They’re like Protestant or this orthat.’ As Arturo spoke these last lines, he smiled. From his point ofview, becoming a disciple did not significantly compromise his Latino


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identity. In fact, he realized that in his ‘home’ culture, the ties that usedto bind ethnic identity with Catholicism were fraying. His new identitynow resonated not only with the social, cultural and religious changesin his immediate life but also with transformations at the very sourceof where he attributed his ethnic identity. With this awareness, Arturo’sreligious commitment to being a disciple, and more specifically aLatino disciple, seemed at least permissible within an extended ethniccommunity in transition.

For others, the emphasis on racial and ethnic identity promptsretention or even rediscovery of symbolic ethnic elements. Lori’stranslation of the Great Commission into the Inuit dialect of hermother illustrates this concept well. Finding the correct translationproved difficult since few in her family still spoke the dialect and Inuitresources were difficult to access. Lori’s staunch determination inresearching this language that was lost to her was rooted in hercomment, ‘I wanted my mom and dad to come to church.’ Retention,and in this case reclamation, of symbolic forms of ethnicity in order tomake more disciples may indicate something other than a one wayprocess of assimilation.

While now part of a post-ethnic, amalgamated culture, the use ofthese symbolic ethnic references ensures that they are maintainedalthough they may and perhaps often do take on new meanings withinthe bounded space of the LACC. Using Inuit translations of biblicalpassages or serving carne asada at a church ‘fiesta’ is not celebrating aparticular ethnic heritage in ways that homogeneous communities,extended families, or ethnic churches could. Instead intimacy, lan-guage, food, music, and decoration are being used as symbols pulledtogether with a variety of others, devoid of extended historical contextand familial cultural transmission, to construct a new collectiverepresentation that reminds disciples and informs visitors of whothey are as a church and who they encompass as a community.17 It isprecisely these seemingly paradoxical attachments, one to the tradi-tional understanding of one’s ethnicity and one to the pasticheattraction of a workable multi-ethnic community that the LACCcapitalizes upon. Promoting the diversity of the LACC throughsymbolic representations of ethnicity is intentionally used to attractpotential converts to this remarkably unique, if calculated, element ofthe church. Perhaps Michael was the best at utilizing his own culturaldevices and the integration of others to become a better disciple andbring more into the fold.

Michael was raised in black churches in southern California. Whilehe points out that he is ‘black, white and Indian,’ he admits, ‘I justassociate more [with being black].’ Yet Michael is no stranger tointegrated settings. A stint in the army exposed him to a variety ofracial and ethnic backgrounds. Michael developed a comfort level in


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the service for addressing obvious racial and ethnic differences head onrather than ignoring or denying their existence. Michael uses this sameapproach in the church. ‘I’m like, Well, it’s not so different. It’s not soweird. We’re all people.’ But for disciples like Michael, learning thiscommon bond is not simply a by-product of interracial interaction.Instead, Michael takes advantage of this diverse religious community,interpreting interactions as opportunities to accumulate an awarenessof others and improve his skills in reaching out to racial and ethnicgroups beyond his own. He explained,

I can ask one of the disciples anything about their past, or abouttheir lives. You know, ‘‘What’s it like to be white?’’ I don’t know. I’venever lived that kind of life. And I’ve done that, you know. I’veasked them, ‘‘So what’s it like to be a white girl?’’ Or ‘‘What’s it liketo be an Asian guy?’’ And they’ll talk about it. ‘‘Well you know it’slike this and I grew up like that.’’ Different ones of us came fromdifferent places . . . Um, so I really try to take a hold of that and usethat when I’m talking to other people who aren’t in the church. Andreally understanding where they’re coming from based on what I’veheard from disciples.

Discussion

The LACC is successful in implementing the longstanding, organiza-tional mandate for an integrated religious community at a time whenother Christian churches in the United States are struggling to do thesame. While this is often promoted as a natural outcome of integrated,faith-based interaction over time, the LACC’s success can be morespecifically attributed to the connections between the moral frames ofintegration and the individual members. Charismatic leadership iscrucial in defining the parameters of an integrated identity and itstranscendent mandate, yet organizationally structured ministries, Bibletalk groups, and face to face interactions facilitate the culture work ofdisciples as they negotiate a particular space for themselves and indoing so, personalize the general frames of the organization in waysthat appear ‘authentic’ to potential members. This process highlightsseveral organizational resources, from strong leadership to patternedinteractions, and the particular process within one organization.However, this also informs a broader discussion about the activecultural interaction between race, ethnicity and religion.

First, as we have seen, the actual process of enacting an integratedidentity requires shifting worldviews, new social networks, and oftenconflict. While church leaders might suggest the ‘natural’ occurrenceof integration within the church, special outreach ministries and the


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personal testimonies of individual disciples validate the organizationaland interpersonal struggles that are inevitable in recreating ethnic andracial communities. For example, many first, 1.5, and second genera-tion ethnic Americans, adopted different religious and social identitiesthan the ones they had as part of racially homogeneous congregationsor ethnically-identified communities. Through these transitions, thesocial networks that help to support and define these identitiesdramatically shift; the plausibility structures of familial, ethnic, and/or prior religious constructions weaken.18 This may occur either priorto joining the LACC19 or because of the acceptance of the newreligious interpretations the church offers. In either case, the churchmust provide a new worldview and social networks which redefinecommunity and connection through diversity.

Second, racialized experiences influence the articulation of integra-tion. All of the above responses and individual innovations innegotiating racial and ethnic identity in becoming a disciple havebeen from nonwhite disciples. Yet white disciples made up 31 per centof the region where I conducted this research and the leader of thisregion and his wife are both white. This does not mean that whitedisciples did not respond to these questions. However, white disciples,based on their responses, claimed to struggle less with adapting to themultiracial community. While nonwhite disciples often had to radicallyrecast their individual identities, family relations, and ideals thatcorresponded with their ethnic identity, the white disciples I spoke withdid not for the most part relate the same experiences. Often they wereable to sum up their experience in a short sentence or vignette. I do notmean to suggest that all nonwhite disciples had to overcome identityissues to become a member. Many did not. Similarly, some whites didstruggle with their inclusion in a diverse community. However, forthose who did, it was conveyed as a minor hurdle that disappearedwith time. Family struggles and personal conflicts, while present withother issues around becoming a disciple such as theology or timecommitments, were not as prevalent among white disciples regardingrace or ethnicity.

Coming to a conclusion about this limited response by whitedisciples about the difficulties in converting to a multiracial congrega-tion is difficult. Several possibilities emerge yet more research isrequired to examine this issue more closely. First, stating, as onedisciple did, that the ‘race thing isn’t a big deal’, indicates that whitedisciples most likely never experienced the constraints and discrimina-tion that a racial category can impose upon an individual’s everydaylife and life chances (Fisher and Hartmann 1995). Second, whites havemore experience and the racially privileged opportunity to utilize theirethnicity as an option, voluntarily donning ethnicity as a positivepersonality attribute (Waters 1990, 1998). Third, nonwhites and


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especially first and 1.5 generation immigrants may have moreexperience with transitioning their ethnic and racial identities inconflict with the dominant culture.20 Because of this conflict, they maybe able to articulate more clearly the nuances of their ethnic identity.Finally, white disciples feel at home within the overarching main-stream, Protestant American template of the LACC. For some, theProtestant American model may absorb the novel multiracial, multi-ethnic aspects of the environment.21

This leads to a third point. Cultural codes of American Protestantindividualism influence American religious, racial and ethnic negotia-tions. One of the ways to read the cultural codes of individualProtestantism is to consider the whitening of the non-white disciples asthey integrate into the church. In fact, organizations that promoteintegration of racial and ethnic communities cause some to fear thatthe dissolution of cultural traditions and ethnic worldviews isinevitable (Cohen 1985). Admittedly, the individualism that infusesAmerican Protestantism and the politics of pluralism is deeplyembedded within Anglo-based cultures. And I admit as a whiteAmerican, most LACC services that I attended were quite recognizablein form and content. But others were not.22 Conflating Protestantindividualism with white or even mainstream American culture canovershadow the ways in which other influences are making inroadsinto and colouring the lived experiences of communities who functionwithin this cultural code. What’s more, considering the types ofcommunities in which the LACC is active, it is difficult to identify onemainstream let alone white American culture. In Los Angeles inparticular it is probably best to talk about multiple mainstreamcultures rather than one mainstream culture.23

If we more appropriately read Protestant individualism as a culturalcode that signifies personal autonomy, agency and responsibility (inthe traditional religious sense for one’s own salvation),24 then this codemay be seen as facilitating the re-creation of ethnic and racialdifference as cultural tools within the LACC. Conventional notionsof ethnicity as communally located are transformed into an individu-ally selective ethnicity. From this perspective, while the deep codes ofindividualism and communalism may be recast, the view of ethnicconformity need not be inevitable.25 Instead, as Anthony Cohen (1985,p. 37) suggests, ‘communities might import structural forms acrosstheir boundaries but, having done so, they often infuse them with theirown meanings and use them to serve their own symbolic purposes.’26

As we have seen, the LACC imports various forms through their moralframe of integration as well as by organizationally encouragingindividual disciples to retain these markers. While disciples may haveopted out of certain articulations of their ethnic heritage throughvarying degrees of assimilation both before and after becoming


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members, they retain and incorporate other aspects of their racial andethnic experiences because of their utility within this religiouscommunity. Elements of race and ethnicity become part of the optionsavailable to disciples in negotiating a lifestyle best suited to their ownemerging sense of identity (see Royce 1982, Nagel 1998).

Finally, religion and integration are entwined in the identity process.Elsewhere I have discussed the LACC as constructing an interactionalspace, devoid of iconic representations or symbolic connections toother religious institutions, where a new definition of ‘church’ wasconstructed (Stanczak 2000). This is perhaps most true with regard toracial and ethnic identities. Race and ethnicity ‘don’t matter’ in theLACC except to the extent that they result in the promotion andmaintenance of an integrated collective identity that in turn legitimatesthe exclusive truth claims of the movement. Said differently, theymatter as strategic ethnicity.

As such, new identities are created that have relational meaningwithin the church and between disciples. These identities can beconsidered relational in that they derive their clearest meaning withinthe boundaries established by the church and through interactionswith other disciples who understand the interplay of diversity andculture for their religiously mandated identity. More specifically,various ethnic symbols are not only appropriate for representing thediversity of the group, they are perceived as integral to its religiouslegitimacy and recast as tools through framing, organizationalresources and face to face interactions resulting in a new ‘chain ofmemory’ that links difference with a religious heritage of communityand connection.27 Arturo, for example is not giving up his CentralAmerican identity. He is utilizing it and, more importantly, isunderstood as utilizing it and is expected by other disciples to utilizeit within the church, for the goals of the church. The ‘disciple’ identityharnesses individualism, allowing for the open interchange between avariety of different races and ethnicities that does not expect orencourage homogeneity and assimilation, but diversity and growth.

This is not to say that religious goals and missions override ethnicdifferences in the church. This would miss the salience of race andethnicity altogether. The primary identity of ‘disciple’ is multivalentand depends upon various elements to make this identity unique. Inthis case, racial and ethnic diversity is instrumental in legitimizing the‘one true Church’ and therefore must be maintained in order formembers to be true disciples. Because of the central place that theLACC puts racial and ethnic diversity in its definition of itself, an allwhite or all Latino LACC would necessarily radically change thatdefinition and their founding biblical interpretations.28 Neither shouldthis play down the role of religion (a similar change in biblicalinterpretation would change the racial and ethnic composition of the


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church). Instead, this process of authority and legitimacy runs in bothdirections, simultaneously conferring authenticity upon the LACC forhaving a successfully integrated congregation while legitimating thetricky culture work of integration by invoking biblical mandates.

Conclusion

The leadership of the LACC created and continues to create anorganizational space in which racial and ethnic identities arenegotiated and recast both collectively and individually. As I havesuggested, this process involves a resonance between the articulatedframes of interaction through church leadership, organizationalresources and structures, and individual biographical contributionsand struggles. Framing allows one lens through which to understandthe way that racial and ethnic relations are condensed by leaders andthrough church productions and therefore made meaningful forpotential recruits and continuing disciples. The links between thegoals and the accomplishments of the church and the elusive culturalgoals of integration result in a reciprocal legitimacy and perceivedauthenticity between the church’s religious claims and the successfulintegration among its members. I offer strategic ethnicity as a usefulway of thinking about the transformation of ethnicity from a livedexperience of historical and familial tradition to an organizationalresource for producing this legitimacy and a new definition ofcommunity. The combination of strategic ethnicity and relationallegitimacy provides a new way for thinking through the constructionof integrated religious community within the diffuse cultural codes ofAmerican Protestant individualism and pluralism.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Jon Miller, Donald E. Miller, Amy Binder, ErnestineAvila, Michele Dunbar, Leslie Cole, Phil Harris, and two anonymousreviewers for their kind corrections and insightful feedback onprevious drafts of this essay. Earlier versions of this article werepresented at Williams College and Pitzer College and this final essaybenefited greatly from those discussions. None of these contributorsmay be held responsible for any shortcomings herein.

Notes

1. For a more thorough description of the group’s origins see Stanczak 2000, pp. 114�115.

2. See, for example, www.cultsoncampus.com.

3. For logistical purposes, I submitted a series of demographic questions that the ICOC

staff administered across the extensive network of sector churches in Los Angeles.


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4. Research on Asian and Armenian religious communities argues that their homogeneity

is due in part to their function as cultural repositories for new immigrants and subsequent

generations (Bakalian 1992, Lin 1996, Chong 1998, Yang 1998). Beyond immigrant

churches, the relatively new megachurch phenomenon similarly attracts large numbers of

attendees from vast geographical areas. These, however, are growing predominantly along

racial or ‘pan-ethnic’ affiliations such as white, Latino or Asian (Miller 1997, Becker 1998).

While this may indicate a lessening of ethnic affiliation (i.e. Korean or Chinese), it reinforces

racial affiliations often attributed to common experiences and the discriminatory treatment

of racial rather than ethnic groups in the United States.

5. I use the term merchandise here cautiously. While my intended use fits Nagel’s shopping

cart metaphor, I realize that it could be misconstrued as referencing the currently fashionable

market model or rational choice theory of religious growth (Finke and Stark 1992, Roof

1999, Stark and Finke 2000).

6. Lymann and Douglass (1973, p. 350) provide an early articulation of the strategic use of

ethnicity when they state, ‘Ethnicity is acquired and used as a feature of human identity,

available for employment by either participant in an encounter and subject to presentation,

manipulation, and exploitation’.

7. While drawing upon interpretive analyses within social movement literature and

sociology of culture, the process by which multi-racial, multi-ethnic community is

constructed in this movement is also dependent upon the religious claims of the church.

Many parallels exist between social movements and religious movements and much of the

analysis presented here may have analytical contributions for the wider movement literature.

However, it is important that we do not conflate all movements under one analytical

umbrella (see Jasper 1997, Della Porta and Diani 1999 for a discussion of this distinction).

The religious claims and motivations embedded within the ‘culture work’ done within

religious movements is, to a certain degree, distinguishable from that done within economic,

political, or identity movements.

8. In line with the church’s strategic ethnicity, leadership of individual sectors and regions

attempts to mirror the ethnic and racial composition of the demographic area in which the

church is located. The suburban sector that I studied had a white evangelist but was

mentoring an Asian (Filipino-American) for the position.

9. See Lewis Cose (1993) and Joe Feagin and Melvin Sikes (1994) for discussions about

racism among the middle class and the invisible or subtle forms of racism that often go

undetected.

10. Marti (2005, p. 120) highlights the necessary role of ‘catalytic leaders’ or those who

‘take ownership of the organization’s goals and purposes.’ McKean and the local evangelists

who reaffirm these organizational goals from the pulpit are catalytic both globally and

locally as they extend this message into local communities. However, this addition of the

creative adaptation by individual disciples is crucial in understand in the full extent of the

culture work being done within this movement.

11. David Snow et al . (1986) term this process ‘frame extension,’ and argue it potentially

broadens a movement’s outreach to a larger scope of individuals than simply those for whom

the primary religious message would resonate. This technique is aimed to reach the largest

pool of potential members and not simply those with already existing sympathies to the given

movement or cause. See also John Lofland (1978).

12. Although typically stated negatively as a construction process oriented towards

articulating grievances and their resolutions, framing may simultaneously construct a

collective identity based upon the shared values, goals and actions agreed upon by members

(Hunt, Benford, and Snow 1994).

13. The current emphasis on rational choice or market models of religious participation

suggest that competition in an unregulated religious field sparks religious vitality through

religious organizations pitching themselves in distinction to their competitors (see for

example Finke and Stark 1992, Warner 1993, Stark and Finke 2000). My focus here is on the


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cultural meaning systems and assurance of truth that are bound up in lived experiences and

emotions rather than economic models of choice.

14. Snow et al. (1986, p. 467) make the case that collective identity is not a single and

exclusively rational decision but rather an ongoing process of reassessment.

15. Gordon Allport (1958), in an early study of race relations, suggested that proximity or

social contact is likely to decrease the amount of prejudice if both parties are of equal status.

See also Merry (1980) and Robinson and Preston (1976). The reduction of prejudice is

facilitated if the social contact is voluntary, non-competitive, and goal oriented (Allport

1958). Social contact, through discipling partners and fellowship time, is essential and

provides assistance for disciples to maintain their religious identity. Following Allport, this

contact is also crucial for the decrease in prejudice. Disciples often stated that they realized

they all had a common purpose of being a true Christian and calling each other to the same

biblical standards for salvation. These Christian objectives, coupled with the high levels of

interaction come to overrule many status distinctions regarding race or ethnicity. Instead, a

new status is instilled through the authority of the discipling relationships, those who are

‘older’ Christians or ‘more mature in the Lord’. Therefore, becoming a disciple places an

individual in voluntary contact with people holding a newfound equal status who are

working to achieve a higher or transcendent goal, each of which helps to promote an

acceptance of racial and ethnic integration.

16. Michael Omi and Howard Winant (1994) argue that racial formations are so crucial to

social relations that they are a ‘central axis’ in the organization and relations in society. This

trickles down to function on an individual level as a ‘common sense’ notion of how race is

perceived in society (Omi and Winant 1994, p. 60). Ruth Frankenberg (1994) argues that

because of this, even in situations where we may not intend or want to, we inevitably think

through race.

17. Danielle Hervieu-Leger (2000) argues that religion sustains itself in part because of the

connections that its followers are able to make with the past as well as the future. Ethnic

traditions are particularly attuned to this kind of memory construction and cultural

grounding even when plucked from their original contexts. See also Durkheim’s (2001[1912])

notion of collective conscience. In this case, the collective conscience represents the new

community in which disciples live�and now worship.

18. Berger and Luckmann (1967, pp. 157�163) discuss the process of alternation through

which plausibility structures must be replaced.

19. In fact, in the greater Los Angeles church, over 85 per cent of disciples reported that

English is their preferred language. Nearly 10 per cent of the other responses selected Spanish

as their preferred language.

20. Lyman and Douglass (1973, p. 363) note that among ethnicities with oppressive

histories, ‘switching’ identities may be ‘highly developed.’

21. Robert Bellah (2002) argues that there is a pervasive, Protestant-based, monoculture of

individualism in the United States that trumps any claims of multiculturalism.

22. Services in the Latin Ministry appropriated, understandably, Latin culture, language,

music and colloquialisms. Similarly in video clips screened as part of a KNN episode the

Washington DC church which is predominantly African-American was shown appropriating

African-American hip-hop in both dress and style.

23. Gerardo Marti (2005, p. 160) argues that Los Angeles based Christian churches can

conform to an ‘Americanized centre’ without sacrificing their ethnic identities.

24. Bellah (2002) and Etzioni (2001) each argue that the secular legacy of Protestant

individualism produces more abstract similarities in Americans as a people than it does

differences.

25. Lymann and Douglass (1973, p. 344) argue that the evolutionary and unidirectional

assumptions about ethnicity deny their ‘strategic and tactical employment of racial and

ethnic identities.’

26. Anya Peterson Royce (1982, p. 33) highlights this fluid sense of ethnicity suggesting that

ethnicities are ‘eminently mutable’.


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27. I borrow this term from Daniele Hervieu-Leger’s (2000) argument in which she suggests

that the survival of religion is based upon its ability to connect to a past, present and future.

28. One exception is the Latin Ministry. Language is the primary reason for the Latin

Ministry.

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strategic ethnicity: the construction of multi-racial/multi-ethnic religious community

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