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| Overcoming the vast divide afflicting our nation today seems as difficult as leaping the Grand Canyon in a single bound. |
A blogger friend of mine recently addressed the subject of
unity. This got me to thinking: Our nation is called the United States of
America, but in some ways it seems we’ve never been more divided. Perhaps – and
I tread gently as I say this – even more divided than during the days leading
up to and during the Civil War.
Politics, an arena in which compromise and negotiation once
seemed possible and desirable, has become divided to such an extreme the only
common ground is agreement that “never the twain shall meet.” Achieving “middle
ground” appears as realistic as crossing the chasm between the north and south
rims of the Grand Canyon with a pogo stick.
Ideologies concerning gender, socio-economics, beliefs, lifestyles
and even race despite progress we’ve celebrated since the 1960s, seem just as
severely separated. Other divisions currently afflicting our once proudly United States come to mind. Perhaps national spell-check got confused and switched the spelling to “untied.”
Without intending to sound simplistic, one factor in these
growing disunions could be confusion between unity and uniformity. The
differences are considerable.
I remember back in the ‘60s – yes, I’m old enough to
recollect them. Those were days when the hippie generation and young people
across the country were attempting to display unity by length of hair, clothes
they wore (and didn’t wear), the music they listened to, and the vocabulary
they spoke. But as they conformed to their unique brand of non-conformity, what
they really demonstrated was not unity but uniformity.
Bell-bottom pants, tie-dyed shirts, determination to be “out
of sight” (which morphed into “far out”), espousing the virtues of free sex,
the pressure to “turn on and tune out,” along with a resolve to “question
authority,” had many of us marching in the lockstep of uniformity for a time.
Conformed to a singular image of non-conformity, but united? Not really. For
the most part, everyone was just looking out for themselves in the comfort of a
crowd.
Seeds of that era have spawned current versions of
uniformity (political correctness) and disunity (intolerance of anyone holding
a view contrary to your own opinions and ideology).
Maybe it would be good to grasp the differences between uniformity
and unity, recognizing that while a house divided against itself cannot stand, as
Jesus stated in Mark 3:25, all the parts of the house don’t need to be
identical.
It’s amazing how, in one way or another, the Bible talks
about unity and its importance. It presents unity in terms of teamwork: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens
another” (Proverbs 27:17) and “Two
are better than one, because they have a good return for their work…. A cord of
three strands is not quickly broken” (Ecclesiastes 4:9,12).
When God created man and woman, He did so to provide unity
and a complement for the other. Uniformity obviously was not the goal. As the
French saying goes, “Vive la difference”!
And writing to believers in the ancient city of Philippi,
the apostle Paul placed great emphasis on unity. “If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any
comfort from his hope, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and
compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same
love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing from selfish ambition or vain
conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you
should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of
others” (Philippians 2:1-4).
That’s an intriguing definition of what unity should look
like. At the same time, Paul made clear this unity did not require uniformity.
In fact, uniformity would have impeded unity. He wrote, using the metaphor of
the human body to describe the Church, “The
body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts, and though all its parts
are many, they form one body…. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of
you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:12-27).
So how can we once again become united in the midst of
diversity, truly United States without having to become Uniform States? As the apostle wrote above, stop
focusing on our own interests, cultivate true humility, and strive to become one
in spirit and purpose. Emphasize the common bonds that can unite us rather than
the differences that can divide us.
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