. . . was my neighbors virulent accusation. Ethnic tensions are everywhere. And in the course of this evening I heard railing against the chinese, Americans, albanians and spineless macedonians. Even when we are not overly prejudiced, why do we state our frustrations in negative-ethnic terms? Even the spiritually mature still, in this part of the world struggle with ethnic issues.

Americans are proud of the fact that we are a pluralistic society that embraces every race and culture, right? Not hardly. Look at the immigration bills being bounced around today. But lets go beyond that and look at all the conflicts happening in the world today . . . In Nigeria, Somalia, Israel, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan, DRC, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Cyprus, Bosnia, Spain, Myanmar, Colombia, Chechniya, Syria, Kashmir region, Philippines, Nepal, Sudan, Uganda, Papua New Guinea, Chad, CAR, Bangladesh, Laos, Indonesia, Korea, Kurds and on and on I could go.

Lets not stop there. What about our prejudices? Don't you think we have some? We are most prejudiced against those who practice a homosexual lifestyle. But we are also prejudiced against divorced people, single parents, women and lets face it, we are prejudiced against the very ethnic groups of the world that we missionally say we are trying to reach, but when they come to our doorstep, we reject them. You disagree? Do you think that our perrcentage of ethnic churches is reflected in an equal number of ethnic leaders at the district and national levels? I know they have their own districts . . . but have you stopped to consider why?

It is a problem that is common to all humanity and even Christians. I think one of the signs of a mature faith is true color-blindness . . . and I rarely find it, not in my neighbors and not in me.