Ethnic Diversity Within the Church That Is Emerging

by Rudy Carrasco

I get asked a lot about whether the emerging church discussion is just something for white guys with two books under the arm and a budget to travel around to conferences. Of course, rarely does anyone ask it in precisely that way, but that's not far from a composite question. The answer is no. To be sure, there is dialogue happening at national events, in books and magazines, and on prominent blogs that often looks like the aforementioned caricature. But people who are familiar with Emergent and interested in the questions about church and culture, fixing what is broken, and epistemology, are diverse by geography, theological tradition, and ethnicity. You just may not be familiar with them.

Here's a list of some blogs by people who are engaged in the conversation at various levels. Now, before you go emailing each one and asking them their opinion on an Emergent issue, you should know that some may not consider themselves "emergent," others will not recognize any familiar Emergent names, and others may simply not know what the heck you are writing about - i.e. "Why did Rudy go and put me on this list?" They all fit the bill because they are discussing, or re-examining, ways of doing and being church in a manner that resonate with the broader emerging church conversation, even if some might not agree with the direction of particular theological discussions.

They're all interesting. In his or her own way, each provides a valuable, non-token contribution toward future discussions, conferences, writings, and - ultimately - forms of doing and being church. This list includes a Native American approach to Emergent issues (Levesque), a Latino Leadership Circle blog (D.Ramos), a church planter in France (Burkes), a South American in India midway through a hermeneutics Ph.D. (Gros), and a former newspaper columnist (Nykol), among others.

This is not an exhaustive list nor a top-ranked list. It's just a placeholder for a sector of the church that is emerging that we don't hear enough from. I encourage you to check out the blogs on this list and drop a greeting in their comments sections.

• Anthony Bradley
• Todd Burkes
• Rudy Carrasco
• Noel Castellanos
• DJ Chuang
• Jeremy Del Rio
• Aaron Flores
• Rod Garvin
• Fernando Gros
• Julio Hernandez
• Jose and Mayra Humphreys
• Sivin Kit
• Mark Laroi
• Ray Levesque
• Ambra Nykol
• Paulo Ordoveza
• Abner Ramos
• Davis Ramos
• Elizabeth Rios
• Arlene Sanchez-Walsh
• Tony Sheng
• Anthony Smith
• David Trigueros
• Karen Ward