Paul’s universalism for the Church is not about diversity but about inclusion of all through confession of Christ as Lord. ‘Diversity’ is a postmodern value, and recently some have attempted to use certain New Testament texts to make it a Christian value. This is a misreading of the texts, and it leads to very bad theology.
In Colossians 3:10-11, Paul encourages believers to “put on the
new self being renewed in knowledge of the One who created it, wherein there is
no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, or free
person, but Christ is all and in all.”
Notably, Paul locates his sociological groups in a Creation and
Christological framework. By doing so,
he relativizes the examples of distinctions he mentions. In fact, he obliterates them in the
alternative “knowledge” of creation and Christian existence. His argument is that human distinctions of
ethnicity and society do not apply to creation, on the one hand, and they are
dissolved in the unity that exists within Christ, on the other. At the heart of any social stratification,
including slavery, lies a recognition of diversity that neither applies in
creation nor in Christ. Paul’s solution
to social stratification was not to celebrate diversity or to make
multiculturalism a virtue but to undermine the distinctions in the first
place. They are at best matters of
indifference. This is why his
words in Colossians 3.11 are in the negative, ‘There is not Greek or
Jew….’
Similarly, in Galatians 3.28, Paul says,
There is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Once again, the statement is in
the negative. If Paul were celebrating
diversity, such as Jewish culture and Greek culture, then we would need to
argue that he was celebrating slavery as well.
Of course, he is not doing this. Precisely because the point is unity in
Christ, not human diversity, Paul did not say, for example, ‘There are both Jew
and Greek, both slave and free, and both male and female’ in Galatians 3.28.
When Paul addresses cultural
distinctives among the Jews and Gentiles in Romans 14, he treats them as matters of
indifference and, when emphasized by one party over another, as views held by
the ‘weak’. So much for celebrating a
multicultural church in Rome. Paul’s
purpose in writing Romans is to remove the divisiveness of the diversity in the
Church by focusing on the one Gospel for both Jews and Gentiles.
In 1 Corinthians 9.20, Paul says,
To the Jews I became as a Jew, in
order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though
not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.
He is referring to cultural
practices, and we might assume he has in mind things like Jewish rules about
food, festivals, and—in the case of his associate Timothy—circumcision (cf. Acts
16.3). Paul’s words are about accommodating to culture for the sake of the
Gospel, not because he is some sort of starry-eyed, first century tourist
who just loves to travel and experience other cultures.
In 1 Corinthians 12.13, it is not
the distinctives of ethnicity or social status but the unity of the Spirit that
Paul identifies as crucial for the church:
For in one
Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and
mall were made to drink of one Spirit.
The whole chapter is an emphasis
on unity—a message that the Corinthian church needed to hear as they had become
divisive (1 Corinthians 1.10-13). Paul's inclusive Gospel is inclusive not for its celebration of diversity but for its singular focus: 'For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified' (1 Corinthians 2.2). The
diverse gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12 are just that, gifts of the Spirit. They are not persons' ethnic or cultural
contributions to the church. They are
things like utterances of wisdom or knowledge, miracles, or prophecy. It did not matter if you were a Jew or a
Greek, a slave or a free person; what mattered was if the Spirit of God had given
you a gift for the body, the church. These
gifts of the Spirit are not about the person who has the gift but about
how the gift benefits the church. Not
a word about celebrating cultural diversity—nary a one.
The New Testament’s virtue of unity
in Christ has been twisted around in our day to conform to Western culture’s
celebration (well, partial celebration) of diversity as a virtue. As we see from these Pauline texts, however, Paul’s
very point is the removal of diversity as a value since an emphasis on diversity
forgets God’s creational purposes and elevates human distinctiveness over
Christ’s work. We don’t have in Genesis
1, when God created humanity, a statement that he spent part of the afternoon
forging different cultures. In fact,
when we finally get different peoples emerge in Genesis in the story of the Tower of Babel, diversity is a matter of God's judgement
(Genesis 11).
When Paul describes the
fulfillment of his mission thus far in Romans 15.19, he mentions his geographical
accomplishment of taking the Gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum. His goal is to go to Rome and then to
Spain. He is not basing his mission on ethnicities
but geography. He has the purpose we
find in a passage like Matthew 24.14: to proclaim the Gospel throughout the
whole world as a witness to the nations.
This is not about collecting cultures for the Church but the witness of
the one Gospel throughout the earth that all people might hear and
respond. Furthermore, Paul, as a Jew,
thinks in terms of two groups in the world: Jews and Gentiles (the term ‘Greeks’
can be used of Greek speaking Gentiles, even to a church in Rome, as in Romans
1.16). He is not checking off an expanding ministry of diversity to the Thessalians, Ionians, Lydians, and the like.
Similarly, Revelation 7.9 has
been read in more recent times as a proof-text for diversity.[1] It reads,
After this I
looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every
nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne
and before the Lamb….
The point in this verse is
similar to Paul’s point in Colossians 3.10-11.
John is not celebrating diversity but the unity of peoples throughout the world (universalism--the universal expansion of the Church) because of the Lamb. The diverse peoples gathering before the Lamb are not representatives for cultural diversity. Their diversity is the result of the universal mission. The Church's diversity is a fact, a condition, of a universal mission, not a value in itself. He does not celebrate their diverse dress or
languages or customs and so forth. This is no proof-text for a multicultural church or programme for diversity. Instead, those from the four corners of the world all wash their robes white in the blood of the Lamb (v.
14). Universal unity in Christ is the
point. There is no focus on human
distinctives that takes away from the blood of the Lamb shed for all. If the passage were a celebration of the
diversity of peoples from around the world, they would not have all ended up
with white robes washed in the blood of the Lamb. They would have stood there grinning at each
other in their ethnic costumes, sharing recipes, and enjoying a good laugh at the different words they had for ‘tomato.’ They would have voted on candidates for church offices based on gender and ethnic diversity. More importantly, the passage is not about
the people; it is about the Lamb. The
Lamb of God, by his shed blood, offers a salvation that is for all people, no
matter their origins or ethnicity. We confess belief in one, holy, catholic [that is, universal], apostolic Church. That is an entirely different theology and value system for the Church from the ecclesiology of diversity.
All this leaves us with a conclusion like the one we find in a verse
such as Philippians 3.20:
… our
citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ….
For Paul, cultures were matters
of indifference. Every believer took on
a new identity in Christ—a heavenly citizenship. That is all that mattered. This did not mean cancelling one’s culture—though
there were things in every culture that ran counter to the Gospel and needed to be rejected. Nor did it mean looking for how different
cultures added something wonderful to the Church. This thought is often expressed, but there is
simply no Biblical example of this. To
be sure, cultures showed up in the churches in a variety of ways because the Church
was for all people. If they did not
become a celebration of humanity and detract from the Gospel, such cultural
practices may simply have been matters of indifference—or ways to bring people
to salvation (1 Corinthians 9.20-23). If
they become a focus for the Church, though, they could be a form of idolatry, a
turning away from a focus on God and a celebration of ourselves.
Thus, Paul’s point was all about
becoming something new in Christ. He
says,
2Cor. 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has
passed away; behold, the new has come. 18 All this is from God, who through
Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19
that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their
trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
We live at a time when
the social sciences are in control of the university—sociology, political
science, anthropology, and psychology especially. The social sciences do not have 'truth' in their sites, only perceptions, attitudes, expressions, diverse groups, and so forth. This dynamic in the culture of the West
(despite there being many ‘cultures’ in the West) has become a dynamic in the
Church. Some people feel that they have to
promote diversity everywhere rather than focus on the Gospel of Jesus Christ
and His mission to the world. Worse, Marxist
theory has been welcomed—again—this time as a racist theory (Critical Race
Theory) about cancelling one culture (‘whitism’) in the name of diversity. It is actually a heresy in
its reconstrual of theological doctrines of creation, humanity, sin, and the
Church, if not more. In the name of social justice, division and hatred are encouraged. The celebration of
cultures has come as a package that also cancels another 'culture'. It ties the Gospel tightly to culture,
confuses the two, and then singles out one ‘culture’ (which is actually many, ever-changing cultures in Europe and the Americas) to cancel. This is
why Paul’s simple negative—‘not Greek or Jew’ (Colossians 3.11)—is so
important. In it is the basis for unity
in the Church and a rejection of the Western Progressive Theology of diversity.
[1] See discussion of this in much more detail, Rollin G. Grams, ‘What is
Progressive Theology? Part Four of Four’
Bible and Mission blog (Dec. 14, 2020); online: https://bibleandmission.blogspot.com/2020/12/what-is-progressive-theology-part-four.html.
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