Alternative

Genesis 11:1 speaks of the story of the tower of Babel to explain the multitude of ethnicities that exist today. At one point in history, there was a homogenous society. Everyone grew up in the same area, had the same practices and spoke the same language. They all worshipped the common religion of Christianity as well. In their efforts to reach heaven to confirm that God existed, they decided to build the tower of Babel, a tower so high that it could reach the Lord in heaven. But God intervened the construction of Babel as he had other plans. He made it so that suddenly, everybody who worked together started speaking different languages. This made communication impossible; and with different languages, humans grew apart and spread over the world, creating the basis for the different ethnicities. According to Christina Lee, a Korean-American member of Northwestern s Multi-Ethnic Inter-Varsity fellowship (MEIV), some religious ethnic groups interpret that God is inflicting punishment upon the world by spreading them apart and creating ethnic divides. They maintain those community divides because they see it as God s will, as he himself divided humanity into these ethnic groups. But other religious groups think God created us to spread all over the world, but his power and presence is most evident when people from all different ethnicities come together and unite as one. Only when we are united can we re-build the metaphorical tower of Babel and reach to the Lord, Christina said. But that is not the end of the story. The biblical verses in Genesis not only account for the multicultural and ethnic backgrounds of humanity, but also provide a basis of understanding the distinctions between pan-ethnic and multi-ethnic Christian groups. These differences are found within what their religious communities are based upon and the different transformative changes that they seek. Pan-ethnic groups interpret ethnic groups were created by God in order to instill a sense of community and belonging, and for members to heal one another spiritually within the ethnic community. On the other hand, multi-ethnic groups emphasize that religion and faith transcend beyond ethnic divides. Thus, they try to come together as one Christian family under God. Connected by a passion for their faith and pursuit of social justices, they attempt to extend the spiritual healing beyond the confines of their own communities. In studying Korean Americans in both Asian American Intervarsity (AAIV) and Multi-Ethnic Intervarsity (MEIV) Christian fellowships, I came to the realization that though these two groups are both under the umbrella organization of Intervarsity, they are founded upon different community ideals that bond the members together. With the issue of Asian American ethnicity factored in, AAIV as a pan-Asian evangelical fellowship and MEIV as a multiethnic and mainline fellowship indeed have different senses of community and belonging. These differences transcend to and explain for their distinct purposes on the college campus, both for

their members and the larger communities of Northwestern and Evanston and Chicago.