The Church is not a zoo ... and
that is why unity, not diversity, is its communal value. As Aristotle rightly noted, ethics develop
from clarity about what is our end or goal (Nicomachean Ethics 1094a). To make diversity our end rather than unity
will produce an entirely different ethic for the Church. The present essay will, positively, explore
the significance of unity—and a particular unity in Christ—as the Church’s
moral end by considering Paul’s words on the matter in 1 Corinthians 12, Romans
12.4-7, and Ephesians 4.1-6.18. It will
also address, negatively, the errors that result when diversity replaces unity
as the Church’s community value—including when unity is regarded as a product
of diversity seen as a value in itself (e.g., ecclesial multiculturalism). The essay functions as a plea for a Biblical
understanding of the Church at a time when our Christian ecclesiology is in
tatters and many are advocating an error stemming directly from the culture
rather than Scripture.
Community understood in terms of
diversity may be examined with reference to the nature and purpose of a
zoo. We go to a zoo to see a variety of
animals. The greater the diversity, the
better the zoo. On a visit to the zoo,
we don’t just want to see pandas from China but also platypuses from Australia,
pythons from Africa, and pumas from the Americas. Each separate identity of the animals
provides value.
The Church, on the other hand,
values unity. Value is not in the separate
identities of the individuals but the gifts they bring together for the common
good (1 Corinthians 12; Romans 12.4-8).
That common good is called the ‘body of Christ’. That is, the unity is itself not any sort of
unity but Christ-unity, with Christ as head.
This unity is also described as unity in the triune God (1 Corinthians
12.4-6; Eph. 4.4-6). It is not communal
unity, as though being united in community is the value. This is frequently misunderstood: being
together does not make unity. During the
breakup of denominations that forsook Christian orthodoxy and ethics, many
contended that unity needed to be maintained.
There is no Scripture to support this view, though attempts were made
(John 17 is often misinterpreted along these lines, for example).
Unity that is unity with Christ
as head of the body, the Church, is a unity that is founded upon the
truth. Ephesians presents this in a
memorable, trinitarian affirmation:
There is one
body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to
your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is
over all and through all and in all (4.4-6).
This trinitarian confession about unity in the Church seems
to have been Paul’s general thought. That
is, he already articulated this in 1 Corinthians:
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there
are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of
activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone (12.4-6).
In Ephesians, the trinitarian basis of unity (Spirit, Lord, and God and Father—in the same order as 1 Corinthians) is expanded into confessions about beliefs (hope and faith) and concrete realities (body or Church and baptism). Each is unifying. Moreover, both 1 Corinthians 12.4-6 and Ephesians 4.4-6 place an emphasis on unity through the word ‘all’. These unifying gifts, beliefs, and realities and this unifying triune God produce a unity for all in the Church that results in community but is a divine work. That is, the Church is not a mere assembly, a human institution. Its unifying factors are not in its human elements or diversity of human attributes but in its divine work of Spirit-giftedness, faith, baptism, and moral righteousness or holiness (more on this later from Ephesians 4 and 5). The Church is not a human institution with divine validation. It is not a servant of Christ—though that captures aspects of what it is—so much as the body of Christ. It is raised to an organic unity with God, as Jesus’ high priestly prayer in John 17 so clearly also presents in agreement with the theology we have explored in Paul:
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will
believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you,
Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world
may believe that you have sent me. The
glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as
we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so
that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me
(John 17.20-23).
For by the grace given to me I say
to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to
think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith
that God has assigned (Romans 12.3).
The passage then continues with
the litany of gifts that make individual Christians ‘members of one another’ (v.
5). We might, to grasp the gravity of
this, contrast this with what occurs when diversity replaces unity. If diversity were the value, then humility would
not be the supporting virtue. Individual identity is ushered forward as a
crowning virtue instead. One’s value for
the community is made to lie in oneself: my accidental attributes (ethnicity,
gender, or social class) constitute a distinctiveness that is my contribution
to the group, not my humble service. Rather, when unity is the value, the
members make their contribution to and for the body instead of revelling in
their distinctiveness: ‘If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do
not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body’
(v. 15). Directly contradicting a
theology of diversity, Paul says, ‘If all were a single member, where would the
body be?’ (v. 19). With diversity, the
parts feature prominently; with unity, the body features more. With diversity, human attributes feature;
with unity, Christ features more.
Gifting by the Spirit deprives
individuals of thinking that their contribution to the Church is something that
is theirs. Each is gifted by the Spirit
for the common good. Some gifts are in
persons—apostles, prophets, teachers (Ephesians 4.11 adds evangelists and
pastors)—while others are in activities—miracles, healing, helping, administration,
speaking in tongues (v. 28). Natural characteristics
(ethnicity, gender) and life circumstances (social status) are not the contributions
individuals make to the body. The value of unity is not supported
through human measures but is a work of God.
Each gift is a work of the Spirit, as Paul emphasizes in 1 Corinthians
12.7-12. The Spirit baptizes all (Jews,
Greeks, slaves, free) into one body (cf. Galatians 3.27-28).
Those thinking of the Church merely as a diverse community completely
misconstrue the theology of unity. It is
not human diversity but the unifying work and gifting of the Spirit that is Paul’s
point. The ‘product’ (end, goal) is not
diversity but a common good (v. 7). In
Ephesians, the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers ‘equip
the saints for the work of ministry (diakonia, service) for building up
the body of Christ’ until they reach unity of the faith, knowledge of God, and
maturity in Christ (4.11-13).
At a more human level in the body, the weaker or
less honourable parts are given greater care as needed (vv. 23-25). This is no affirmation of intersectional
identity politics, where the marginalized are valued for their collected minority
attributes or status. These parts are
not valued because such attributes are more honourable (such as when some minor
ethnicity, gender and the like are given privileged status) but because they
are given value by the other members.
(Nor are immoral identities or theological errors given any affirmation,
let alone privilege.) One of the recent
twists in logic in western culture is the notion that minority groups are more
valuable than majority groups, such as Christians versus other religions, women
versus men, certain races versus others, certain sexualities over
heterosexuality, etc. Adoption of the postmodern
value of diversity has allowed these fundamental errors to march through the
front door of the Church. Individuals
bring their self-worth to the altar rather than being bestowed with worth,
unworthy as they all are, through Christ.
The Eucharist provides frequent clarity on this central feature of
Christian theology: our worth is not in ourselves but in what Christ grants
through His sacrifice. As Paul says,
Indeed, I count
everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my
Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as
rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a
righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through
faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may
know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings,
becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the
resurrection from the dead (Philippians 3.8-11).
Several other related
dispositions, virtues, practices, and dynamics are related to ecclesial
unity. Empathy is a characteristic of the
Christian value of unity, such as sharing in others’ suffering or being joyful when
another is honoured (1 Corinthians 12.26).
Love, like humility, is a virtue of Christian unity that undermines any
focus on diversity as the value. It is preferred
to gifts precisely for the reason that gifts—good as they are—can be
misconstrued as one’s own possession.
Having some kind of deep spirituality, such as prophetic powers,
spiritual knowledge, or deep faith to perform wonders can lead to one’s own
sense of self-worth, but love bestows worth on another (1 Corinthians 13.2). In addition to humility and love, gentleness,
patience, forbearing, and peace are virtues of unity of the Spirit (Ephesians
4.2-3). Also, an important practice of the
community to preserve unity—growing up into Christ, the head of the body—is to
speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4.15).
This means to put away falsehood (v. 25): speaking the truth might be
understood with reference to the earlier trinitarian statement of vv. 4-6,
already quoted. In other words, the ‘truth’
is theological truth, not something weaker like being truthful. Later, the fight for truth will be described
in terms of being equipped with God’s armor and prayer needed to stand against
the devil’s schemes (6.11-18). Truth
matters because unity is not simply communal unity, where people may agree to walk
together despite disagreements on key matters.
Communal unity is the product of unity in the truth, not a relaxation of concern over truth for the sake of communal fellowship, otherwise it is a
false unity obstructing mature growth into Christ.
Unity also involves the cessation of activities that
produce discord: bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, slander, malice (Ephesians
4.31). Replacing these are actions that
promote unity: being ‘kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another’
(v. 32). It further involves a
transformation of moral character, no longer engaging in sexual immorality,
impurity, covetousness, filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking (Ephesians
5.3-5). Wrong in themselves, these
behaviours also contribute to disunity in a community. Unity in the Church also involves unity in
the household (Ephesians 5.22-6.9).
Conclusion
The postmodern value of diversity has become a central value in contemporary theology and ethics. The Church’s universal mission and consequent multicultural identity has come to be confused with a moral end of diversity. The fact of the Church’s diversity is thereby turned into an ethic. However, the pages of Scripture offer no support for this bending of Christian ethics to the left. Instead, other virtues, practices, beliefs, and morals are formed around an opposite end to diversity: unity. The purpose of this essay has been to demonstrate, first, that the two ends are not compatible—as though we might say that the Church’s unity is found in its diversity. That sounds good, given the fact of the Church’s multicultural existence, but it is simply false.
The second purpose of this essay has been to examine texts, particularly 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12.4-7, and Ephesians 4.1-6.18 to develop a theological understanding of unity and of the Church itself. While some might think that 1 Corinthians 12 is a text to celebrate a general value like diversity, this is not at all the case. The point of such texts is always unity. What this unity entails has been positively summarized in various ways, working towards a theology—an ecclesiology—that is Biblically established, even if only in part here. The needed reformation of the Church in the 16th century resulted in correction of certain doctrines of the Church but left the matter of ecclesiology somewhat unclear. In our day, we have reaped the consequences of this in the disarray of the Protestant world (and this is not a way of praising Orthodox or Roman Catholic alternatives). We need to reach far back into Scripture to regain an ecclesiology at a time when everything regarding our understanding of the Church is in nothing less than a shambles (denominational heresies, independent churches, a loss of mission, merely human notions of community, replacing ‘ministry’ with ‘leadership’ concepts, reduction of ‘church’ to a service of worship, the loss of worship during lockdowns due to a virus, and so forth).
Third, the
purpose of this essay has been to demonstrate in what ways diversity leads to a
human philosophy of community over against how unity is framed theologically. The result is a more theological conception
of the Church as the body of Christ, divinely constituted and empowered. As Paul says, ‘In him [Christ] you
also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit’ (Ephesians
2.22). This trinitarian understanding of
the Church is precisely the basis for a theological doctrine of unity over
against an anthropological notion of diversity.
Indeed, the Church is the body of Christ, ‘the fullness of him who fills
all in all’ (Ephesians 1.23). This unity
in Christ contrasts with the collection of separate, accidental identities—diversity—that
exist apart from him. In a word, the
present focus on diversity in churches, denominations, theological seminaries,
mission organizations, and so forth is a value derived from postmodern culture
and is a theological error with far-reaching consequences.
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