America has been called “The Melting Pot” for all people, cultures and countries around the world. But is multiculturalism good? More importantly, is it biblical? In this series, I am going to show you through the Scriptures that the gathering of many cultures in one place, or “multiculturalism” can be beautiful, but ONLY when under the Federal Headship of Jesus.
Britannica.com in an article by Jennifer T. Eagan, last updated July 19, 2024 defines “multiculturalism” as “the view that cultures, races, and ethnicities, particularly those of minority groups deserve special acknowledgement of their differences within dominant political culture”.
The one big problem with this definition is the point that new comers to any culture or country somehow “deserve special acknowledgement”. This serves only to destroy the existing culture and refill that space with those of other cultures that do not deserve or have not worked for what they have been given. An example of this is the U.S. governments granting tens of thousands of dollars to migrants (non-U.S. citizens) to buy new homes with the hard earned tax money generated by citizens of that country-against the will or without the consent of it’s citizens. This is more political than it is compassionate.
I was born in Brooklyn, New York and was raised in the Washington D.C. area. New York City and Washington D.C. are about as multicultural as you get and I had tons of friends from countries around the world which was awesome. Growing up in these cities, the one commonality my multicultural friends and I shared were the (biblical values) of hard work, respect for one another, and the respect of my friends being in my country, as would be expected when I visit theirs. That seems to be lost in today’s world. Multiculturalism is beautiful on one hand though and destabilizing and can be disastrous on the other.
It all boils down to a “United States” of America or “United State Countries of Europe” or any other continent that determines a countries unity, stability, functionality and so on. When you bring migrants into any country that are poor and cannot pay for themselves, you enslave the citizens of that country against their will to pay for the cost of living of the existing citizens. The result as such results in “TRIBALISM”.
TRIBALISM, according to the Mariam Webster Dictionary is: “Consciousness and loyalty especially exaltation of the tribe about other groups; strong group loyalty”.
When I was a little boy, in New York City, the neighborhood my family lived in was mostly Italian. My grandmother would take me to the “market” (not supermarket) for fresh food and nobody spoke English, at least not to my grandmother. They all spoke her dialect of Sicilian. My other grandmother only spoke English. But both sides of the family “ASSIMILATED” into American culture, adopting American values, including working hard and not taking hand outs.
Today, we find entire ethnic groups from poor countries and not so poor countries coming to America and Europe with no desire to engage in the American or European work ethic; instead living off government provisions. Furthermore, speaking of American in-particular, many of these ethnic groups live in America, but refuse to assimilate into American culture. And here lies the issue in that it creates cultural, ethnic and religious tribalism. The same is true of Europe.
In this two part series, I want to focus on most all that matters, which is “religious” assimilation". WHY? Because if all ethnicities were to adopt the Christian religion and/or values of the Christian faith, the United States would be more “UNITED” than ever before. But there is one problem which is that every country has a central dominant, traditional religion which governs their values, mores, traditions, values and laws. When Islam’s Sharia Law is seen by its American citizen members of the Islamic faith as above the Constitution, it creates a divide among more serious issues. In the Middle East, there is NO multiculturalism. In India which means “Country or Land of the Indis”, there is very little if any multiculturalism. The same with China, Japan and most of the East among the rest of the world.
As a result, WESTERN-CHRISTIAN dominant cultures are diluted into “nothingness” while non-assimilating cultures and religions take over the Christian landscape-all in the name of “POLITICAL MULTICULTURALISM”. A major part of this equation is government control, but this is not the point of this article.
In PART 2, I am going to do more of a deep dive, looking at specific directives given by the Old Testament as to the dangers of multiculturalism and show you what that means for you and I today. The biblcal view of multiculturalism deals with many aspects of life and reality but not in an overly practical and prescriptive way. All people and cultures are part of our human heritage and equally valued by God for sure. And politicaly, teh Bible has more to say about respecting authority than it does about specific policies, Theologically though, the Bible does NOT support the idea that all cultural religous ideas are equally true or shouldbe treated as such. In the end, yes, we are all equal in God’s eyes. But God is clear that Christians and Jewish people are not to mix their religious beliefs in the name of “MULTICULTURALISM”, however attractive as that may seem. I will pick up with that point in PART2.
