Unity and Diversity

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

I posted this comment several days ago on a friend's blog, in response to his post about the "One Worldism" of the last days.

To date he hasn't "published" my comment, and I'm not sure why.  But I think God put some of His wisdom about "unity" and "diversity" in my comment; so I publish it here.
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Yes, your words highlight some essential truths.  Our choices are between the unity Jesus prays for us (John 17:20-21): joined in Him, the Father, and the Spirit of Truth: or the world's (and the enemy's) counterfeit unity.

Unity is a good thing: else why would Jesus have prayed it for us ?  The world too recognizes so, saying "in unity there is strength."

But the world (and the enemy) cannot create anything good: they can only pervert the good which God creates, and imitate it.  Indeed, the most successful perversions of God's good are those that most closely counterfeits what He creates: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, for example, in counterfeit of the Church of Jesus Christ.

But the world's counterfeits, like its counterfeit coins, have base metal at their core.  God enacts unity through diversity (I Corinthians 12:4ff, Romans 12:4-5, and elsewhere).  Only God's wisdom could even conceive of such a thing: and nothing but God's power could do it.  But the world's (and the enemy's) idea of unity is rigid "likeness."

We see the world operating on its false idea of "unity" in so many contexts.  "Tea Party" Republicans try to "unify" and "strengthen" their party by driving out all who don't share their ideology: Serbs try to "cleanse" their nation by killing its citizens of every other ethnicity.

We do well to question if those who scoff at "diversity" as wimpy "political correctness" understand at all that it is God's chosen vehicle of HIS unity ?

                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                              

Diversity

If we believe that God created the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them...as scripture says, and all Christian creeds affirm...we must believe that He made rain-forests, deserts, salt-marshes, prairies, mountains, atolls, woodlands, arctic tundra, swamps, and all other forms of land and sea.

We must believe that every variation of weather and time: Spring, clouds, heat, night, Winter, sunshine, wind, rain, and all else: is His sovereign creation.

We must believe that God created Letts, Mongols, Ibo, Gaels, Cree, Jews, Bantu, Finns, Malays, Aborigines, Poles, Ainu, Touregs, Maya, Basques, Inuit, Han, Franks, Tamil, Berbers, Cheyenne, and all the other tribes, races, and nations that people His earth.

We must also believe that God is the Author of every circumstantial permutation in which His creations combine: of every kind of weather He created, in every season and time He created, to every kind of people He created, in every single place He created.

It's fashionable, in the political faction the American Church identifies with, to mock diversity (narrowly defined) as "political-correctness," a "liberal" idea. It's unworthy that Christians join the chorus of mockers. But if any idea is as w i d e as creation, it is diversity: and our proper attitude should be worshipful awe, and praise for the One Who so liberally creates differences and variety in every aspect of all that exists. Diversity is first of all God's idea, a reflection of His uniquely powerful, joyful, creativity.

It's unworthy that we, even in our lesser role as American citizens (where the factionalists operate), hold diversity in contempt. In a nation whose motto is "E Pluribus Unum," disparaging the idea of diversity betrays ignorance of the central principle that makes us, in collective unity, America.

It's been suggested (somewhat humorously) that America's motto can be roughly translated "we're all in this together." The principle of unity-in-diversity that makes the Church one Body (I Corinthians 12) is as vital, on a lesser plane, to a nation: and factionalists, in the nation as in the Church, are a force of divisiveness and destruction. Those who love America cannot hate diversity, on which our national unity is based. Those who love God cannot hate diversity, the reality with which He lavishly adorns all His creation.

08-19-07