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As Randy Woodley writes in his book Living in Color, God's intervention at Babel "merely sped up the process of developing the various ethnic groups." To underscore the point, when the Holy Spirit comes upon the first Christians, the miracle is not that they speak the same language—rather, those gathered at Pentecost each hear the mighty works of God being declared in their own language. The barrier to human communication imposed by God at Babel is removed at Pentecost, but the glorious diversity of human culture is blessed.

When Christians seek to be "colorblind"—a word that suggests that ethnic distinctions are ultimately irrelevant—they unknowingly imitate the tower-builders' fear of diversity. In practice, colorblindness usually means persons from minority cultures allow their cultural distinctiveness to become invisible, while persons from the majority culture expect others to adapt to their culture. A colorblind church is unable to appreciate the amazing cultural diversity to which God brings salvation: "You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it," the elders sing to the Lamb. "For you were killed, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation" (Rev. 5:9, NLT).

If God begins with a cultural mandate for us to fill the earth, doing so by means of the rich diversity of ethnicities and cultures, and if Scripture ends with all ethnic groups worshiping God, then living a vibrant ethnic life in the here and now is something deeply blessed by God. What are the practical steps we can take toward a life that blesses and affirms cultural diversity?

For many of us who are ethnic minorities, the first step is having the courage to live out the fullness of our ethnic identity. When I was 7 years old, my family became the first Puerto Ricans to move into a white neighborhood. We endured taunting from the family directly across the street, as well as racial insults based on our Latino heritage. It was all too easy to learn the lesson that being Puerto Rican was dirty and unacceptable. Bigotry and racism left an indelible mark on my soul.

But as I studied Scripture, I observed God working through the ethnicities and cultures of prominent figures like Moses (a tri-cultural person, Hebrew-Egyptian-Midianite!), Mordecai and Esther (Persian Israelites), and Paul (a Jewish Roman citizen). For each of them, their ethnic identity was central to God's plan for the deliverance of his people. If any of them had chosen to simply assimilate to the dominant culture, they would have missed God's deepest purposes for them. I began to believe that God could have a purpose for my ethnic identity—that my Latino identity was not an accident or a mistake, but a gift.

I discovered when I had trouble praying in English, my heart language of Spanish helped me overcome spiritual stagnation. The Latino value of fiesta—celebrating life even in the midst of pain—helped me hold onto my faith in difficult times. The closeness of my Puerto Rican family gave me a window into the love of my Father in heaven. I started to see that my bilingual abilities gave me opportunities for ministry, especially among second-generation Latino youth, who were trying to straddle two very different cultural worlds.

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August 2006, Vol. 50, No. 8