11.06.09
joining the Apaches
In Inhabiting the Church Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove relates a story from John Alexander, for many years the pastor of the Church of the Sojourners in Washington, DC..
“Suppose a white person went to Arizona for a weekend and came back saying he’d become an Apache. He still talked the same, he still lived in the same place, he still related to nature the same way, he still talked to everyone he saw, and he didn’t spend much time with Apaches. The only change you could see was that he wore buckskin Sunday mornings and went around telling people he’d become an Apache.
“What would you think? I’d think it was odd. I’d suspect he hadn’t joined the Apache tribe in any meaningful sense.” (48)
We don’t usually think of conversion as joining a tribe. Jonathan notes that there is little evidence that American Christians actually believe that the Gospel offers us a new culture — a new identity amidst the multi-cultural sea.
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, God’s special possession,
that you may declare the praises of him who
called you out of darkness into his wonderful
light. Once you were not a people, but now you
are the people of God; once you had not received
mercy, but now you have received mercy.Â
1 Peter 2:9-10
