by
Viola Larson
During the years of the flower children, my husband and I became part of an independent Church called Warehouse Ministries. The church possessed two qualities that attracted us. The people of the church cared for the hippies that our own church was rejecting, and the pastor preached the clear word of God. Jesus Christ was the only Lord and salvation was offered through his redemptive death on the cross. I watched God do amazing things in the lives of a diverse people. It was a time when drug addicts, prostitutes and abused young people found Christ, a time when people of every social class, age and ethnicity found new life through God’s word. The church was, at that time, truly a warehouse of diverse ministries and people. It was a community where sinful lifestyles changed. But the people’s culture, their simple lifestyles, dress-style, and their music stayed the same. From those ministries came Charlie Peacock, Aaron Smith and the 77s. Barry McGuire (remember The Eve of Destruction?) and John Michael Talbot sang some of their first Christian songs there. That was God’s time, but it is always God’s time. He always calls us to lay aside our own prejudices and cultural hang-ups, reach out with the message of God’s love given through the death of his Son on the cross. This desire for a multiracial, diverse church lies deep on the heart of many of us in the Presbyterian Church USA. But, “cultural proficiency,” the ability and will to understand, welcome and work alongside the other, must not be separated from the message of God’s word, the call to keep Jesus Christ Lord of our lives and Lord of our Church.
Within this same context, coming in 2008-9 is a women’s bible study “on marginalized people in the Gospel of Luke.” Kikanza Nuri Robins1 has been chosen as the author by the Bible Study Committee for Churchwide Coordinating Team. http://www.pcusa.org/pcusa/horizons/bibleupcome.htm. Kikanza, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church, offers spiritual counseling through her consulting organization. She states that she believes “we are spiritual beings having a human experience and therefore our task is to live authentically into our spirituality.” Kikanza has also spoken and consulted with various groups within the Presbyterian Church USA, as an expert on cultural competence, or “cultural proficiency,” a method she has written about and uses via her organization The Robins Group, http://kikanzanurirobins.com/index.htm.
One of the important aspects of cultural competence, as Kikanza puts it, on her web site, is to “Align your actions and your work with your stated values.” As stated above, Kikanza’s expertise in this area is widely used within different organizations in the Presbyterian Church USA. For instance, in 2004 she led sessions on cultural proficiency for the 2004 Multicultural Conference. The advertisement for this event states that Kikanza “has been a consultant to the Presbyterian Center for the past year helping the staff to create a healthier church corporation culture using the tools of cultural proficiency. In deed, the “Cultural proficiency initiative (904-03)” states that their team along with the Associate for Racial Justice and Advocacy worked with Kikanza “to learn and suggest ways that our corporate work life can successfully integrate church values and the best business practices, and help us achieve our vision of being an inclusive community that values diversity.”2 Now “a new position has been created in the executive director’s office, [of the GAC], to ensure that cultural proficiency gets plenty of attention.”3
Kikanza has also written several articles for the Presbyterian Women’s magazine, Horizons. In the January/February 2004 Horizons she wrote an article, “Working for Justice;” in that article Kikanza explained the meaning of cultural competence. Using concepts first propounded by Terry Cross, “a First Nation clinical social worker,” she states that the methodology “focuses on changing behaviors rather than values. At the same time, it is based on values that can be easily aligned with the core values of any organization that wants to foster healthy relationships among people who differ from one another (5).”According to Kikanza one keeps their own core values and the principles of cultural competence are integrated into those values. She states that this is a behavioral method rather than an emotional one. In the July/August 2004 edition of Horizons, she wrote another article entitled “Living an Authentic Life.” Kikanza’s article focused mainly on personal values and the choices we make. In that article Kikanza does mention the authority of Scripture. She writes, “It is important to be in alignment with your understanding of the mystery we call God. What is it that God calls you to do and to be? As Presbyterians, we rely on the authority of scripture. At the same time, we teach that God alone is Lord of the conscience.”4 However, Kikanza’s views of scriptural authority, biblical doctrine and how one comes to a relationship with God are unorthodox. Kikanza’s views on diversity are also rather incomplete.
Kikanza gives the listener a hint of her views of scriptural authority in a recent sermon preached at Newhall Presbyterian church on April 3, 2005, and entitled “Blaming God. [1] ”5 Kikanza, reaching the end of her text in Exodus states, “If we have to pick and choose our way through scripture this is the verse I would pick.” (She is referring in particular to verse seventeen of chapter 33 where God tells Moses “you have found favor in my sight and I have known you by name.”) Earlier in the text, at the place where God tells Moses, “I will send an angel before you and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite,” Kikanza complains and raises several questions, including, “Did not God create them” and “How come God doesn’t like them, what did they do?” When in the text the Lord tells Moses to have the people go on to the Promised Land, but he will “not go up in” their midst, because they are an “obstinate people” and he might destroy them, Kikanza’s comment is “Gods mad again.” She states that this is a picture of God as the Holy Parent. Kikanza has earlier suggested that those who grew up with Old Testament stories of God see God as an angry and judgmental entity and her emphasis in this particular sermon is to help the congregation see how important it is to shape their theology of God to fit who they are as people. Kikanza is in some sense using her understanding of cultural competence to aid others in developing a God who will fit their inner value structure. She asks “What it is you have created in your mind in your heart that represents God,” and then asks “is it working for you?” Since Kikanza believes that humanity possesses a spark of God within, the concept of rethinking who God is to fit your inner values would be for her a natural methodology.
In fact, earlier, in the sermon, Kikanza explains that the anthropological perspective is that “God didn’t create the world, humans created God.” Her understanding is that doctrines and theology are formed by humanity in order to answer the unanswerable questions and to give meaning to our lives. This undoubtedly is why she is able to pick and choose among the verses of scripture. And in picking Kikanza reshapes Christian theology. She suggests that Jesus Christ was sent because for four hundred years there were no stories told of God which were personal. For Kikanza, Jesus is the mediator for those who can only think of God as the Holy Parent and therefore need a better connection with God; as she states, “If you can’t get to God directly you can get to God through Jesus.” Kikanza also suggests that there are those who are so enveloped by the Holy Spirit that, although they never use words like God or Jesus, they are directly linked to God. According to her sermon the evidence of their connection to the Spirit is in their faces as the Spirit shines from their eyes and by the way they treat you. Evidently, for Kikanza, Jesus Christ is not the unique and only way to God the Father. This is perhaps the reason that, until recently, on her web site, http://kikanzanurirobins.com/bio.htm, Kikanza offered mainly links to people who are decidedly new age and Eastern in their religious outlook such as The Forge Institute, Susan Quinn, and Phil Goldberg, Director of the Forge Institute.6 She has recently changed her links, removing the New Age ones and putting instead a link to Horizons as well as another consulting organization.* Nonetheless Kikanza has failed to un-involve herself in efforts at syncretism. She is, it seems, still part of The Forge Institute’s “Community for Spiritual Wisdom,” a group created in 2004. Kikanza is on the board of Spiritual Directors with such new age leaders as Robert Forman. Kikanza is also on the “Enrollers Team in that organization.” 7 The Forge Institute is an organization whose leaders are attempting to bring together various people and groups to, as they put it, “foster a renaissance of spiritual wisdom in a pluralistic world.” Also, they, “value being open to the sacred,” and they, “acknowledge that the infinite oneness that surrounds and permeates all forms is not confined to any single spiritual style or pathway.” Aligned with this value is their belief that everyone is an expression of the divine. On their page about their visions for the future they include, under their vision for three years hence, “Guild members now approaching colleges, hospitals and other social institutions in more coordinated ways; less faddish, more substantive conversations in medicine, education and other professions about trans-traditional spirituality.”8 Under their seven year plan, they write, “Common efforts to spiritually transform large institutions: many in the public elect to work towards new forms of marriage rituals, life-change ceremonies, work life patterns, and aid the underprivileged.” It might be added that Kikanza still sets as one of the goals of her spiritual counseling, to “Discern the movement of Spirit within you,” and “Discover and grow in the presence of Universal Love.”
Kikanza’s incomplete acceptance of diversity comes out in her humor. And in fact, it is sometimes difficult to comprehend some of the theological ideas Kikanza expresses in her sermons and written works because of the tenor of her humor. That is, sometimes Kikanza’s joking entails making fun of others. In her sermon on blaming God she links non thinking with those she considers fundamentalist. Kikanza states, “Some people don’t go to Church to think, they go to church to be told how to think.” She then refers to fundamentalists and attempts to explain what that term means. According to her they have bumper stickers on their cars with the words, “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.” Also referring to Christians who, as she explains them, see God as a puppeteer, Kikanza states “some people call them Calvinist.” However, whether joking or serious, she often moves beyond the biblical teaching or creeds.
When speaking of the Trinity, Nuri Robins hurriedly states, “We say we are not polytheistic but we have Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” When writing of our knowledge of God and how little we can know, she takes on an almost Eastern view which accepts reincarnation. She states, “We tend to forget what happened before we were born.” And this is reinforced in her small writing journal in which she offers the writer positive affirmations. In that journal, Unspoken Visions: an Inner Journey, Nuri Robins writes, “I chose my birth family to learn some important life lessons.”9 The New Age and Eastern ways of experiencing self and God are keenly apparent in this book as is her suggestions for using the affirmations. Kikanza writes, “An affirmation is a positive statement about yourself or your state of being. It is stronger than a wish or a dream, because an implied belief is that the affirmation is true. Sometimes the statement is not true at the moment; the affirmation then acts as a reminder of things you are working on, or things you forgot about yourself.” For instance, she writes, “When I look in the mirror, I see the face of God.” As well as, “The person I can always count on is me,” and “The most important relationship I have is with myself,” and further, “I am peace.” These are certainly not affirmations that express the great truths of the Bible. Kikanza is an interesting, informative and funny speaker; still some of her funniness is at other’s expense. One questions why she should be addressing, for Christians, prejudice, stereotyping and diversity. More importantly, because of her views of scripture, God, and Jesus Christ, the greater question is, “why was she chosen to write a Bible study for Presbyterian women?”
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1 Since I have noted that most papers refer to Kikanza Nuri Robins as Kikanza I believe this must be her name of choice and will also refer to Nuri Ms Nuri Robins using Kikanza.
2 Papers on file at the office of Naming the Grace. http://www.naminggrace.org.
3 James D. Berkley, The Institute on Religion and Democracy, Presbyterian News Sept. 26, 2005, “Split Decisions at General Assembly Council”.
4 Nuri Robins cites, Book of Confessions, The Westminster Confession of Faith 6.109; Book of Order, GI.0301a.
5 See, April 3, 2005 – Blaming God Rev Kikanza Nuri Robins at, http://www.presby-newhall.org/sermons.htm.
6 See consecutively http://www.theforge.org/;http://www.thedeepestspirituallife.com/home.htm ;
http://philipgoldberg.com/index.htm
* NOTE: Some of these links to new age sites have been restored since this article was first posted. See Nuri Robins site [2] for restored links to The Forge [3] , Phil Goldberg, [4] and Susan Quinn [5] .
7 See http://www.theforge.org/images/forgeorgchart3.pdf
8 The Forge Institute’s definition of trans-traditional spirituality includes, “Being fully open to an infinite spiritual awareness” and “Consciously acknowledging that there are many valid spiritual paths, even while remaining centered in our own.”
9 Kikanza Nuri Robins, Unspoken Visions: an Inner Journey, (Watsonville, CA Paper/Mache Press 1996); This booklet consists mostly of blank pages for writing but most pages have an affirmation written by Kikanza.
http://www.theforge.org/
[1] http://www.presby-newhall.org/Sermons_Media_Player/042032005Kikanza.wma
[2] http://kikanzanurirobins.com/bio.htm
[3] http://www.theforge.org
[4] http://www.philipgoldberg.com/
[5] http://thedeepestspirituallife.com/