It is not uncommon when speaking about issues of class or culture for people to start suggesting that either class isn’t an issue anymore (though it is never working class people who say that), that it is divisive to talk about these things, or that we are simply stereotyping and pigeon-holing people in unhelpful ways. I have heard these responses to these discussions ad nauseam. Let me explain why I don’t think they are helpful.

Before I do that, whilst there are more than a few who throw these things out to avoid the more uncomfortable implications or any suggestion that the position they benefit from now might need to change, there are others from whom these objections come from a genuinely good place. I am quite sure that some who say these things are keen to be welcoming, don’t want to put stumbling blocks in people’s way and honestly believe that by not discussing these things they can best treat people alike. I appreciate that desire and do not want to dampen it at all. But I do think the position is misguided.

For a start, denying that differences exist doesn’t help anybody. We all know, at a basic level, that there are cultural differences between people from Britain and those from Saudi Arabia. There are reasons why the predominant religion in those respective countries are what they are. There are reasons why the language is different. There are reasons why people think and operate differently, why the law is different, why what people assume is moral and right, or logical and sensible, neither seems moral nor logical to those from the other place. To deny that there are differences is to deny the reality we see before our very eyes. It is simply obvious.

Very few would suggest that implying there is a shared history, language and culture in Saudi Arabia, and that the majority of folk from that country will have certain shared assumptions about the world, is pigeon-holing everyone from that country. Of course, we recognise there will be people who do not neatly align entirely with every broader cultural tendency. But that doesn’t change the fact that there are cultural tendencies at play and most people (though they may differ at points) will follow them. When we are discussing the cultural assumptions of British people from different class backgrounds, this is really no different.

We also kill off entire areas of legitimate academic study by denying these things. Anthropology and sociology are both rendered null and void if we say drawing cultural observations about the way most people within particular cultures operate is to pigeon-hole and stereotype. The reason these fields of study were ever studied was because people noticed groups of people have shared characteristics, aims, modes of operation, and so on. Ironically, I think to say we ought to just level all these things out and treat everyone as though they are the same is to lack basic curiosity in different people, with their different experiences and backgrounds, and to fail to understand what lies behind what it is that makes them, them. This approach will make it very difficult for us to understand history and why different peoples and nations have taken the courses they have and it will make it virtually impossible to understand politics and how different nations operate. One can’t spend much time looking at the international political scene and fail to notice that every country operates on somewhat different assumptions.

Whilst we do have a great leveller in the church – all people are imbued with the imago dei – it would be a category mistake to think this flattens all cultural distinctions. Whilst imago dei imbues all peoples with equal values and grounds any concept of universal human rights, it doesn’t nullify cultural differences. Most of the New Testament letters are given up to the issue of cultural difference. Most significantly, do Jews have to stop being Jews to become Christians and do Gentiles have to start acting as Jews to be Christians? (Spoiler alert: no to both). Interestingly, Paul never answers either issue with a hand-waving reference to imago dei and expecting everyone to be viewed the same. Rather, he insist that whilst ‘all are one in Christ Jesus’ all nevertheless retain their individual personalities and their cultural backgrounds in Christ Jesus too. We are all one and yet we are all quite different. This is not seen as a problem, but part of the manifold wisdom of God. If the New Testament recognises the legitimacy of cultural difference on display, it is a mistake to seek to flatten it by suggesting we are stereotyping people by recognising that we are all necessarily different and should rightly be able to display that cultural difference in the church.

But this attempt to flatten cultural difference, or dispense with considering it at all, is a problem in the church. For a start, it is the luxury of the majority culture to be able to say that we find talk of cultural differences divisive. Those from minority cultures entering a majority culture space aren’t able to do that; they simply have to adapt to how the majority culture operates or face being frozen out as functioning sub- (or un-) biblically. Only, it isn’t that they are functioning in an unchristian way at all, they are just functioning as a Christian from a different culture operating within a different cultural framework.

Moreover, by flattening any sense of cultural difference we will find ourselves unable to engage with why whole groups of people from other cultures are not represented in our churches. For those who are simply seeking to maintain their position and avoid any awkward talk about what might need to change, this serves their goal. But for those who are not trying to do that, who genuinely do want to be welcoming, this surely represents a problem. If it is simply stereotyping and pigeon-holing to think that a particular group of people seem to have certain cultural tendencies, we won’t be able to ask what it is about the way we think and operate that might be a stumbling block to any of them joining with us. If the question is out of bounds entirely, if people show up and determine ours is not a place for them, we aren’t going to be able to ask the most obvious question: why? We won’t be moved to ask what could we do differently, but no less biblically, that would be more welcoming to them? Instead, we will have to assume that they just didn’t like it and this is all a matter of personality and preference. But this answer doesn’t pass muster when just about every member of that same group of people all find the same thing. It will perpetuate that group never coming and joining us.

This is as true of foreign national cultures as it is of indigenous sub-cultures. If whole demographics of people are missing from our churches, it bears asking why. If it is not divisive and stereotyping to think about ‘young people’ and how we might reach them when their only shared characteristic is their age or to talk about ‘reaching muslims’ when their only shared characteristic is their faith (and even then, it is not uniform), why is it stereotyping and divisive to think of other groups with their national or subculture and ask how we might reach and welcome them more effectively? How will we ever welcome or include any of these people if we can’t first ask, what do these folks typically seem to think and how do they tend to operate and are we putting unnecessary barriers in their way?

If we can’t talk about legitimate cultural differences, we will always default to majority culture assumptions. If we only ever default to majority culture views, we will inevitably create a two-tier culture whereby minority cultures are forever second-class citizens. This defaulting without thinking to majority culture assumptions that is unintentionally divisive because, by its very nature, it insists every other cultural expression is necessarily wrong and sub-biblical. Our very flattening of cultural difference in an attempt to welcome ends up being the very means of creating a monoculture that follows the assumptions of the majority. All of this is true whether we are discussing minority foreign cultures, British class cultures and distinctions or any other sub-culture.

If we are at all concerned about why certain demographics are not represented in our churches or why, if they deign to come, they never seem to stick, we have to talk about culture and cultural differences. This means being aware of our majority culture and where minority cultures might differ. It doesn’t mean everything the majority culture says and does is wrong or needs to be changed. It does mean being aware enough to recognise that people from different cultures will think and act differently to us and not defaulting to an immediate assumption that they are unbiblical because they do not share our cultural assumptions. In the end, if we want to get anywhere on this question, we have to think about cultural difference and how people from different cultures – whatever they may be – because however else you cut it, cultural differences exist and we ignore them at our peril.