Where do Christians stand on multiculturalism?

How do we deal with this? How does what’s going on affect us as believers? Personally, if you are watching what’s going on, it’s pretty distressing, and it’s also relevant to us as believers. If you look behind the whole thing, you can see there’s a deep malaise in our country, divisions and social conflict in line. The question is: ‘Where Do We Stand?

Let’s start off with a quotation from the Gospels, from Jesus. A man came to Jesus and asked Him

³⁶ “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?”

³⁷ Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and great commandment. ³⁹ And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 22:36-40

So, the most basic command found in the Bible found in both the Old and the New Testaments is a call to love God and to love our neighbour. On the this basis, as Christians we can’t in any way condone racist and violent attacks on centers for asylum seekers, mosques, and hotels which have happened in the past.

We should oppose all those who are responsible for this and stand with those who are victims of violence and thuggery. Basically, we are against violence.

We read in the Book of Genesis Chapter 6 that it says,

⁵ Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. ⁶ And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. Genesis 6:5-6

What does the Lord think when He looks down on the world today and sees all the violence and the wickedness, and the division and strife in the world? Certainly, He is grieved in His heart.

Remember that Jesus said it would be as in the days of Noah in the days before His return.

³⁶ “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. ³⁷ But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Matthew 24:36-37

Now, on the subject of racism and anti-racism, speaking personally, I’ve worked most of my life in multiracial schools in London, and I’m the pastor of this church which is very much a multi-racial fellowship in our area of London. As far as asylum seekers are concerned, we’ve helped friends like Javad here from Afghanistan, from Iran come to our fellowship and become Christians. We recognize that they face persecution in their own countries as a result of intolerant Muslim regimes. We also help them to integrate into our society and will continue to do so.

In turn, they become helpful members of our community, and we believe that we should reach out to people of all faiths and backgrounds in fulfilment of Jesus’ command to preach the Gospel to all people, and to love our neighbours as ourselves.

On the race issue, we should live by what Martin Luther King said,

On this basis, we are definitely multi-racial. But we’re not multifaith. So, we wouldn’t be happy if people come in here for example and want to turn us into Muslims. In fact, we did have an incident once where someone tried to do just this at one of our evening services. A man came in and we had a time of open prayer and this man started praying in a loud voice ‘Allah Akbar’ and saying he wanted to bring his Muslim message to us.

We told him he couldn’t do this and he shouldn’t disturb our service, and that we would discuss his issues after the service. He didn’t want this and went on to say that, in the coming days, we would all become Muslims, we would have to become Muslims.

As he wouldn’t stop, eventually, we had to ask him to leave which he wasn’t happy about. And as he went outside and I tried to talk to him, he became quite aggressive and made accusations and threats to me. That’s the other side of the story.

So, we’re happy for non-believers to come into our meetings. We’re happy to discuss issues of faith with anyone. We’re not happy for them to try and change our community into one which advocates Islam or yoga or LGBT or any other teaching that’s contrary to biblical faith.

When I think about it, this is quite relevant to the whole multicultural issue. We believe we should show love to people whatever race or religion they come from, but not that we should submit our culture and faith to them.

When you look at some aspects of multiculturalism, that’s exactly what it is demanding of us. We are being pressured to surrender our culture, our faith to the culture of newcomers coming into this country. And this raises an issue which makes me equally uncomfortable with the anti-racist movement.

You look at the anti-racist movement and it’s largely in the hands of the radical left. It aims at equality and demands that we treat all cultures faiths and lifestyles as equally valid. It’s also linked up with the Muslims, especially over Israel and Gaza and, as such, is very much anti-Zionist as they chant ‘From The River To The Sea, Palestine will be Free’.

At some of the their rallies, they shout ‘Khaybar Khaybar ya yahud‘. Most people don’t know what that means but, if you know Arabic, it means the Khaybar incident should be repeated on the Jews. Khaybar was the first massacre which Muhammad instigated against Jews living in Medina at the beginning of the Muslim Conquest.

So, they’re actually calling for the assassination of Jewish people. And you get lots of anti-Semitic elements there.

It is also interesting that you have radical Islamists and radical leftists coming together to fight against the far-right and against Zionism. But they have their own agenda which is completely opposed to each other.

Muslims are really not into multiculturalism. They want the domination of Islam over other faiths and cultures. The far-left also want religion subject to their agenda and is mainly atheistic and opposes most religious views on issues like sexual morality and marriage.

If you look at the history of Marxist-Communist states such as the Soviet Union and China, they all suppressed and persecuted Christianity and other religions. In fact, China still does. China persecutes Muslims and Christians in particular in the name of Communism.

Now, the big problem with the equality agenda, from our point of view, is that not all faiths and lifestyles are equal. There is truth which is absolute and comes from God, and there are lies which come come from the Devil.

Jesus told Pontius Pilate at His trial,

“You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” John 18:37

There is also non-truth. Jesus said of the Devil

⁴⁴ You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. John 8:44

As believers in Jesus, we have to stand on the truth that He has revealed to us, and against the lies of the Devil who does exist.

A lot of people would try and rule the Devil out of it but, when you look at society today, you have a battle between truth and non-truth, and if you believe in the Gospel, you have to believe that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life and the One Way by which we can come to the Father through God. This is relevant to the whole issue of multiculturalism.