However, diversity has come to mean for our post-modern society is
really not diversity of race or gender, but diversity of ideas and values.
by William Smith
Our society has a remarkable uniformity on the matter of diversity.
Universities and businesses tell us that they celebrate and are committed
to diversity. Diversity is a core value of many institutions. One who
questions diversity is likely to be asked from what planet (or at least
what century!) he came. Diversity can accommodate almost anything except
being challenged. Those incapable of conforming to diversity will be
subjected to diversity training to produce the required uniformity.
But what does diversity mean? Well, in part, it is about skin color
and
gender. Those committed to diversity in their institutions will want to
have yellow, black, and white, and men and women (and perhaps homosexuals,
though homosexuality has nothing to do with gender) represented in their
constituencies in accordance with the make-up of society (or, to make
up
for past discrimination, perhaps in ways not reflective of society).
However, diversity has come to mean for our post-modern society is really
not diversity of race or gender, but diversity of ideas and values. There
are some interesting things to note about this diversity:
(1) It assumes that no idea can make real claims to truth and morality.
There is no truth or right in the traditional sense. There are ways of
knowing, and perceiving, and deciding, which are each valid for the person
or group using them and which each can lead to a statement of truth for
me
or right for us. The concept of the true and the good, which are
discoverable, communicable, universal, and timeless, is characteristic
of
the old Western way of looking at things, which, is not to be tolerated
in
the age of diversity.
(2) This diversity requires uniformity among some groups. For instance,
a
black person who speaks standard English, who thinks like Thomas Sowell
and
Walter Williams, and who believes in merit admissions and hiring, may
be
not black enough to represent his/her group. A woman who believes in male
headship in the home and puts children over career, maybe not be woman
enough to represent her gender. There is a limited amount of diversity
allowed among those who must represent diversity.
(3) Diversity rules out of court questions of value and quality. Willy
Nelson once sang about the cowboy, he aint wrong, hes just different.
That
is what diversity sings about everything - culture, music, painting,
grammar, moral systems. Nothing is allowed to be better. In fact, those
who
before were considered to be better and who have been given privileged
status (for instance the dead white guys who dominated the western canon)
must be diminished and demoted, if not dismissed and destroyed. One is
likely a racist, paternalist, cultural chauvinist, and religious bigot,
if
he says that western Christian civilization is the best yet produced by
man, superior, for instance, to those which are eastern or Islamic.
Diversity demands radical equality. (Dont misunderstand me here. One needs
only to recognize superior quality and know when it must be insisted upon,
not chose it at every juncture. I can keep on listening to Merle Haggard
and eating moon pies, as long, as I dont think its the same as listening
to
Bach and eating crème brule.)
The current diversity movement is absolutely relativistic. Christians
who,
out of good intentions, wanting to show humility, love, and acceptance,
accept current ideas of diversity, often know not what they do. They do
not
realize that by embracing a diversity of viewpoints they are in danger
of
relativizing the faith, that by questioning western paradigms of thought
they are putting at risk some of the most long settled matters of
theological certainty (e.g., the doctrine of the Trinity), that by assuming
the relativity of cultures they may lose the possibility of unity.
Embracing diversity (and its Siamese twin, multi-culturalism) is not
only
cultural suicide for the West, but will prove to be religious suicide
for
gullible Christians and churches. Does that mean we must react by
retreating to a colorless uniformity? Must the choice be between anything
goes diversity or boring uniformity?
There are three realities in the Bible which can give us an idea of
the way
to proceed.
(1) As Dr. Cornelius Van Til taught, the Triune God is Himself both
unity
and diversity. He is one God who is three distinguishable Persons. His
unity is not threatened by His diversity and his diversity in not
threatened by His unity. As the theologians would say, Gods the unity
and
diversity of God are equally ultimate realities.
(2) Mankind has unity nature and diversity of gender. We are all men
in the
generic sense. We are all human - bearing the image of God in the totality
of our existence. But we are men and women, with all that God made the
two
genders to be in their maleness and femaleness, including our physical
differences, role differences, and our psycho-somatic differences. We
are
one mankind in two genders. We are different and the same, and in these
twin realities lie our wholeness and oneness.
(3) The New Testament Church had unity and diversity. There were not
two
churches, as well there might have been - Jew and Gentile. There was one
doctrine (Jude 3), one worship (1 Cor.11:16, 14:13,14; 1 Timothy 2: 8-15)
-
one Lord, one faith, one baptism (Ephesians 4:5). Yet while all were one
in
Christ and in one church, men remained men, women women, Jews Jews, and,
for the most part even slaves slaves, and free free. Jews were not allowed
to retreat into a Jewish church, and Gentiles were not compelled to be
circumcised.
It is from the Bible, not post-modern culture, that we must learn how
to
handle diversity and unity. We are making our way to one God and one
eternal kingdom which shall consist of those from every tribe and language
and people, and nation (Revelation 5:9).
WILLIAM SMITH
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Huntsville, Alabama.
