The Christian Manifesto

Continuing our Black History Month observances, we will be reviewing the book Dynamic Diversity (InterVarsity, 2007). In preparation for that review, we recently sat down to interview the title’s author, Dr. Bruce Milne. Milne was pastor of First Baptist Church in Vancouver, Canada, for many years. Today he travels the globe, preaching, teaching and encouraging pastoral leaders. He is also the author of Know the Truth and The Bible Speaks Today volume The Message of John. 

Fair warning, the interview is a little long, but Dr. Milne’s responses to our questions were so fascinating that we have opted to present them in their entirety.   

Enjoy! — 

TCM: First, we’d like to thank you for taking the time to sit down and answer some of our questions. 

Bruce Milne: It is a pleasure to share in this way with The Christian Manifesto.  I honestly believe that “Dynamic Diversity”, whatever its limitations, has an enormously important message for the Church today and tomorrow, not least in North America.  So I am very pleased to have this opportunity to share it. 

TCM: Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get started in writing?  

Milne: I am a Scots-Canadian, brought up in the city of Dundee in eastern Scotland.  I became a Christian in my late teens, and almost immediately sensed a call to serve the Lord in Christian career ministry.  I had a gap-year with the Anglican Church in Kenya, then enrolled at three UK Universities, ending with doctoral studies at the University of Edinburgh, where my father had been a student, and a good friend there of Eric Liddell, the hero of “Chariots of Fire”.  

I then became a church-planter in central Scotland, taught for a decade in historic Spurgeon’s College in London, and then came to North America to serve for seventeen years here in Vancouver as Senior Minister in First Baptist Church at the centre of what is claimed to be the most secular city on this continent.  I’m married to Valerie and we have two children, and two grand-children with a third on the way.  I’m now in retirement and travel globally preaching and teaching at conferences, colleges, and churches, and generally trying to encourage Christian leaders. 

I got into writing through a series of magazine articles back in 1978, which became a small paperback on ‘Fellowship’, entitled “We Belong Together”, published by Inter-Varsity Press.  “Dynamic Diversity” is my sixth title.  The most significant is probably “Know the Truth”, an introduction to Christian doctrine. Translated into nineteen languages it is reputedly the leading primer in Biblical Theology globally. 

TCM: Your latest title is ‘Dynamic Diversity: Bridging Class, Age, Race and Gender in the Church’.  Why this topic and why now? 

This is the most passionate book I have written. It arose out of three realities. The first was our ministry experience here in Vancouver.  The second was a conviction that amid all the multiple blueprints for ‘Church’ on both sides of the Atlantic, which often stress targeting specific sub-groups, there is an urgent need to recover a model which is deeply biblical, hugely relevant, and evangelistically potent - a model which consciously embraces diversity. But the key factor, underlying the other two, was my work with Ephesians.  Paul gives us there the overall purpose of God to which everything is moving: “to bring all things together under Christ” (1:10), which is actually totally mind-blowing!  But then I saw that that is not just for tomorrow.  God wants it demonstrated here and now in two ways – “under Christ” – that’s the Resurrection (Ephesians 1); and “together” (Ephesians 2) - that’s the Church, as a place where all the great diversities (typically that between Jew and Gentile), are visibly, presently overcome. 

TCM: Christian books, lectures, and sermon series that talk about diversity tend to make people uncomfortable.  Why do you think this is, and what has been the response to your work? 

At heart our ‘neighbor’ is a threat to all of us. Communicating with another human person involves risk, since it requires admitting within the boundaries of our selfhood another who is neither entirely accessible to our understanding, nor entirely submitted to our control.  When that ‘other’ is significantly different from us in some way, or ways, the sense of threat grows exponentially.  So advocating stepping out from our comfort zones to embrace the ‘different other’ is always going to feel uncomfortable for all of us.  However when we find the courage to reach out, with the help of God’s Spirit (and that is a crucial qualifier), the barriers can be crossed and wonderful discoveries can be made.   

The book has only been out a few months but already I am receiving encouraging reviews, as well as lots of positive feedback personally.  I believe many are sensing that this is a message whose hour has come. 

TCM: Of the various divides – class, age, race and gender – which has classically been the most difficult to bridge? How have you seen this play itself out in society? In the church? 

Milne: Social division, according to Scripture, is one of the most basic expressions of human fallenness, from the Garden of Eden on. In human culture generally, every one of these has at times proved almost insurmountable. They are all ‘biggies’ today, as I have experienced over the years.  I grew up in the UK with endemic cultural class-division. In my time in Africa I was face to face with racial and color prejudice. As a pastor I often had to grapple with the results of an insidious gender bias, and serious marital conflict. And I sense in our cultures today a huge and growing issue of generational disconnect.  

These sin-rooted divisions are part of our common humanity, and sadly, though not surprisingly, have all invaded the church at different periods. Globally speaking I suspect that “most difficult” varies from context to context. 

TCM: Let’s talk about homogeneity for a moment.  It’s a fact that people on the whole are more comfortable around those who are like themselves.  This plays itself out every Sunday in church as people divide along many of the lines mentioned in your book and some not mentioned.  How should people in a smaller, rural or suburban community take your thoughts into consideration? 

Milne: There is nothing wicked about being drawn to ‘people like us’, so I am certainly not wanting any of us to be ashamed of our instinct for homogeneity. But the exciting reality is that the New Testament actually holds out something even richer and greater - life together in “the body of Christ”, where, to quote Paul, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but we are all one in Christ Jesus.”  It’s all of our natural, relational instincts affirmed, but broken open to discover a commonality in the Holy Spirit which actually goes deeper than any of them, and can produce a new kind and quality of communal experience where the ‘different’ neighbor truly becomes a sister or brother in God’s new technicolor, ‘diversity-in-unity’ family. 

But the diversities which can be faced, and in significant measure overcome by the grace of God, cover every level of human relatedness.  So in the cases you note, where the surrounding community is basically mono-typical, i.e. ‘no whites…no poor folk…no kids here’, etc., the challenge to discover the richness and fulfillments of ‘unity-in-diversity-in Jesus Christ-community’ is there at all the other levels: gender, generation, personality type, degrees of physical and mental health, intelligence quotient, educational opportunity, spiritual biography, and so on. In other words if we are prepared to really listen to the New Testament at this level we discover a reality which is relevant to every church, everywhere.  And as a footnote, all the projections of the future texture of our communities indicate that everywhere in North America we are headed for massive social diversity.  In other words the days when we will be able to associate only with ‘people like us’ are fast running out.  But what a wonderful, positive possibility this presents –to honor the Lord, and at the same time confound our secular society by doing what it can never do – unite in Jesus all our surrounding communal diversities in the family of God. We had a slogan at First Baptist, “Diversity is not a threat to be feared but a gift to be celebrated.”  Once you taste the joys of walking that road you are spoiled forever for anything less.   

But it is also evangelistically so potent. Deep down I believe everyone has a longing to live in harmony with all their human neighbors. In Vancouver I lost count of the number of people who said to me “the first time I came into the church I somehow felt ‘at home’ ”.  The majority of these were today’s neo-pagans, without any Christian or church memory.  But they sensed something in our ‘diversity- in-unity-in-Christ’ congregation, for all its undoubted limitations, that stirred a longing for more of it.  Many, many of them came to Christ out of that. I sincerely believe that can be every church’s story, as Jesus actually promised:  “may they be brought to complete unity so that the world may believe that you sent me.” 

TCM: Some might claim that Dynamic Diversity makes a good argument on paper.  How, though, can a Christian living in today’s divided culture seek to build diverse local congregations? 

Milne: I am well aware that some will find this congregational model almost too good to be true.  My response is three-fold.  First only God can do this!  As I stress again and again in the book this level of community is a supernatural reality, the gift and fruit of the Holy Spirit. It is not just difficult; in purely human terms it is impossible!  That is where we need to begin - by bringing our helplessness to God. But, second, he has actually done it before, not least in the church which meets us on the pages of the New Testament; which is not to say it did not have its struggles, as churches always will – we’re sure not in heaven yet!  But it’s not just there in Scripture; Christian history too has its record of Christians uniting across all the great human divides, often with astonishing effects; and as I noted above, during our years in Vancouver, by grace alone, we began to authentically experience something of this very thing.  It really can happen, I promise!  Third, in the second half of the book I try to address the challenge of how to ‘earth’ this vision, by spelling out some of the ways in which this kind of congregational life can be experienced, along with its challenges, in areas like worship, leadership, discipleship and mission.  

As far as starting out on this road is concerned, it is critical that we begin with a vision from the Lord.  If God is not in this, and with this, and through this, we are headed for failure from the outset. So, if we are in pastoral leadership, we can begin by expounding through the many relevant Biblical texts.  If we are part of God’s laity, we can begin by searching the Scriptures personally for a sense of what this kind of ‘unity-in-diversity’ community means, and can mean; which in turn will lead us to prayer for a new spirit of love and inclusiveness in our congregation.  We will then find ourselves praying, and perhaps taking some initiatives, that all the diversities in our surrounding community begin to be connected with, and find a place of welcome in our church.  Then, as we are sensitized to these ‘different’ neighbors, we begin to reach out, in small ways initially, to embrace them with their ‘differences’.  Then as we discover the reality and mutual enrichment of our common life in Christ, the blessing of that leads on to still other folk, families, singles, needy ones, seniors, kids, affluent, destitute, ‘red and yellow, black and white’ as the Lord links us to them, and as the church begins to feel the pulse of what God is doing among us.  After that there is no going back. And in the process we will have begun to make a hugely important, even prophetic statement, to our surrounding community. It can all become quite contagious, so you need to beware! 

TCM: As Christians seek to create these diverse communities of worship, should they seek to be diverse in every area, or are there areas of homogeneity that are perfectly natural to cater to? 

Milne: A good question at this point. What I noted earlier about the appropriateness of homogeneity alongside diversity is to the point here.  In 1 John 2 vs. 12-14 John addresses in turn “little children”, “fathers” and “young men”.  Arguably he is giving a special word to three generational groupings in the congregations he is writing to, and recognizing thereby their special needs within the larger united fellowship. Certainly in our experience in Vancouver we found the value of continuing to provide connecting places for women, youth, men, and seniors, young marrieds, single moms, etc. within the ongoing life of the church.  Yet all this was within the embrace of a rich diversity in our worship and general activities.  We even, perhaps daringly, had a ‘charismatic worship’ gathering among our small group options for a while (although that was never likely to become our primary worship form), and affirmed our youth in hitting maximum music decibels in one of our evening worship break-outs. In other words, with imagination, and the tolerance of difference which this congregational model engenders, both diversity and homogeneity can live comfortably together. 

TCM: What are some pitfalls to be avoided as people seek to be more diverse? 

Milne: That people always experience change, initially at least, as a loss, is a very important pastoral truth. Obviously not everyone awakens to this vision, or embraces it, with the same degree of enthusiasm; and that is heightened significantly when we are asking a congregation to confront that ‘fear of the different other’ I referred to earlier. All of which throws up the most obvious pitfall (ironically!) - conflict over the goal of unity!  

Accordingly we need to move lovingly, respectfully and patiently, and also prayerfully, as people who are less committed to the vision begin to catch it also. 

But the Bible is such a wonderful help!  Actually in Vancouver we did not so much consciously set out to realize this goal as gradually awakened to the amazing thing the Lord had actually been doing, and was doing all around us, as we had listened to his Word and sought to obey his call to love one another and our neighbor, with the help of the Spirit of love. 

More generally, the message of unity-in-diversity needs to go on being regularly affirmed, and its blessings and joys celebrated.  And there are many practical opportunities for that, not least in the Sunday worship context, such as baptismal or other ‘welcoming’ events where the diversity can be noted and reaffirmed, or the inclusion of diverse testimonies to the Lord’s grace and leading. Small groups where the diversity is reflected can be powerful helps in creating a face to face connectedness which fleshes out the larger community of the congregation as a whole.  I found value in making the Sunday worship experience one where careful selection meant the involvement of each of the major sub-sets of the congregation on a regular basis, whether in music contributions, testimonies, Scripture readings, prayers, liturgical responses, ministry reports, etc. all reaffirming our remarkable diversity, united in the Lord who was the centre of it all.  

TCM: How would you go about moving from error to truth in the areas you’ve outlined? 

Milne: Basically the ‘truth’ of prophetic diversity is authorized in Scripture.  I obviously cannot justify that claim in a few sentences - it covers the entire first part of “Dynamic Diversity”. 

In the end therefore the move to embrace it is a move to conform to God’s Word and hence the summons to obey him.  That probably sounds a bit heavy, but of course, as always, “the truth will set you free”.

Provided that Scripture is taught lovingly and winsomely, and with the backing of an ongoing prayer ministry, both personally and corporately, God will use his Word and confirm his truth in people’s hearts, not excluding our own. 

TCM: What is next on the docket for you in terms of writing? Do you plan on writing about African-American theology again? 

Milne: I am currently working on a commentary on the Book of Acts for a U.K. publisher, and am talking with another one about a projected title on preaching.  It is a great privilege to have these continuing opportunities.  I actually don’t believe I have addressed African-American theology directly in any of my writings to date, though it is a subject I would like to explore some day.  The principles expounded in “Dynamic Diversity” do have great relevance to the racial and color divides in North American society however.  Actually there are a couple of books I would be glad to recommend, which were influential in my own thinking, and which do directly address that issue, Divided by Faith, by Michael Emerson and Christian Smith (OUP, 2000), and United by Faith, by Curtis Paul DeYoung, et. al. (OUP, 2003).  These titles tackle the issue head on, the first by demonstrating beyond any question how serious the racial issue is for the Church in North America, and the second offering a very accessible Christian response. 

TCM: Thank you again for taking the time to answer some questions for us.  Any final thoughts? 

Milne: Thank you most sincerely for the opportunity to respond. My final thoughts would simply be to encourage us all to search Scripture as we plan and dream for the church of today and tomorrow.  We need to believe that God has given us in the Bible, not just the gospel we are to proclaim, but also fundamental direction on what the community that proclaims it ought to look like. Sociology or business management theory can be helpful aids in ministry where wisely used, but we dare not let them set our basic agendas or control our vision.  I believe passionately that the ‘diversity-in-unity-in-Christ’ congregational model is clearly taught in Scripture, is brim-full of promise for blessing right now for every congregation on this continent, and that it is profoundly relevant to the future expression of Christianity and its mission in North America.