wfn.org | Make room for biracial people, pastor asks commission

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Sept. 25, 2002 News media contact: M. Garlinda
Burton7(615)742-54707Nashville, Tenn.  10-21-30-71B{430}

NOTE: For related coverage of the United Methodist Commission on Religion
and Race, see UMNS story #429.

By M. Garlinda Burton*

WAVELAND, Miss. (UMNS) - Younger adults and teens in the United States -
those born since 1965 - are more likely to date and marry outside their
race, and 20 percent of them are bicultural by birth or adoption, an Arizona
pastor told United Methodism's racial justice advocacy commission Sept. 22.

Members of Generation X and the young Millennial generation combined make up
as much as 45 percent of the U.S. population, and one-fifth of them are
"already bi-cultural," said the Rev. Dee Dee Azhikakath, pastor of St.
Mark's United Methodist Church in Tucson.

Biracial people like herself (the daughter of an east Indian father and
European-American mother) don't fit neatly in the "boxes" imposed by church
and society - the black, white, Native American, Asian, Hispanic and Pacific
Islander - and the church must make room for them, she said. 

"For those who don't fit in the boxes or compartments, what kind of Christ
does our church portray to those people? Jesus came to free us from those
boundaries, yet the church has fallen short of reaching them," Azhikakath
said. "When we offer only six (racial) boxes, we are marginalizing the next
generation - nearly half of our post-modern world."

In addition, with the proliferation of lightning-fast, accessible, global
mass media, younger people are find common ground and affinity of culture
beyond lines of race, ethnicity and country of origin.

"A teen-age girl in Japan today, surfing the Internet, watching MTV and
drinking Coke has more in common with an American girl than she does with
her traditional Japanese grandmother," Azhikakath, a member of the
churchwide commission, told her colleagues.

The challenge to the church is to share the message of an inclusive God and
welcome all people, she said. Christians - particularly those concerned with
racial justice - must extend the table to include people who are bicultural
and multicultural.

"Imagine being told you're not black enough, or being told by the church to
choose between your father's culture or your mother's," Azhikakath said. "If
hybrid cars are all the rage, can't the church accept and nurture hybrid
people?"

Azhikakath dismissed fears by some that making room for biracial people's
concerns could dilute the ever-present concerns about racism and injustice
aimed at people of color. "There is room at the table for all people
committed to justice," she said.

Ministries of welcome for biracial, bicultural brothers and sisters reflect
the very heart of where the church and its racial justice agency should
concentrate, she said. "After all, we serve a Messiah who is 100 percent
human and 100 percent divine - he's not half anything.

"That is the message we have to offer the next generations."

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*Burton is director of United Methodist News Service.

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United Methodist News Service
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