Unity and Diversity

People love to talk about "Unity and Diversity". We live in a day where in most cities peoples of diverse cultures engage each other like no other time in history. As believers we know that God through Yeshua has created an international family. I think most of us would say that we accept we are all different, and that while we are called to be united, our differences are designed to enrich the whole group.

Yet while we may claim to value unity and diversity, living it out is another thing altogether. When it comes right down to it, we have tended to emphasize one over the other. Most of the time, unity has been the greater value, not that it has been attained, but more effort has been put into striving for unity than has been put into living out our diversity.

This is another case of our problem with integration. Deep down it seems that we believe that allowing people the freedom to be who the really are in God threatens the cohesiveness of a group. We don't believe that these two things can coexist.

Part of the problem is how we picture unity. While we may say that we don't equate it with uniformity, we have a hard time picturing unity any other way.

One of my favorite illustrations of biblical unity and diversity is an orchestra. There are so many instruments, all which make significant contributions to the whole. There may be more of some kinds of instruments and less of others. Some play almost all of the time, others once in a while. Some are in the front, some in the back, some in between. Some are naturally loud, some are not. But together, being true to each one's role, beautiful music is made.

Next time I will continue this illustration, and look at some of the things involved in making a good orchestra and how that can help us to discover true unity and diversity.