“From Every Tribe and Nation”: Multiculturalism in Christian Churches in Suburban Melbourne

Abstract

This article analyses everyday multiculturalism in Christian churches in suburban Melbourne, showing how migration transforms migrants and host communities. It reflects on how the story of Pentecost provides a framework for migrants and host churches to understand cross-cultural encounters and describes how liturgical habits create a sense of home in a new church setting.

     The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews at three churches; a multicultural Catholic congregation that worshipped in English, a multicultural Seventh-day Adventist congregation that worshipped in English, and an Arabic Baptist church that worshipped in Arabic and was home to people from a range of countries but mostly Iraq and Egypt. In describing these multicultural churches and the intertwined lives and loves of people from different cultural backgrounds, I consider the faith-full way in which my participants think about ethnicity and migration. While not always explicitly theologised, this tendency reflects a deeply-embedded ‘theological disposition’ that results from Christian liturgical formation.

     I draw attention to the way in which Derrida’s theory of cosmopolitanism can be understood as another way of talking about the liturgical practice of Pentecost in everyday life. By doing so, I hope to show that both the mobile migrant and the host community that shows hospitality participate in cosmopolitan—or liturgically ‘Pentecostal’—habits.

     This research is an attempt at a local Australian ethnography, not one oriented to people of a particular ethnic background. This is a deliberate step away from a tendency in the social sciences to limit studies to a particular ethnic group as a convenient way of limiting scope, but which thereby reinforces the assumption that ethnicity is people’s primary organising principle. While there are many ethnically identifying churches in Australia, there are many multicultural faith communities as well. This article is concerned with how habits are transformed through or held onto despite a cross-cultural encounter and argues that both are evidence of liturgical formation.