DIVERSITY IS NECESSARY TO UNITY 

While there may certainly be diversity without unity, there can never be unity without diversity. It is true of all that is beautiful, whether a painting or a symphonic composition, that variety and diversity are so mingled in creating symmetry as to make for something lovely. It is true of all nature, whether a single atom or our entire solar system, that its diverse elements are so proportioned as to make for unity and orderliness. To achieve symmetric beauty and order a bouquet of flowers or the planets in their orbit do not have to bring their diverse elements into conformity or sameness, which would be an absurdity anyway, but only to bring their various elements into the orderly scheme of their Creator.

Plato wanted his students to watch the behavior of the planets, thinking it would build order into their lives. It is the unity in God's diverse cosmos that staggers the imagination and arouses wonder in man's mind. The unity and diversity of the Bible is no less marvelous to behold than the wonders of the universe.

It would be folly to suppose that the church of God on earth would be anything different. The unity for which Jesus prayed had to be a unity in diversity, for the background of the apostles ranged from that of a Roman tax collector on the left to a dagger-carrying Zealot on the right. But it was Jesus who made them one in Himself, making them brothers together by the gospel. True evangelism conforms men to the likeness of God through Jesus, while it takes indoctrination to conform them to a sect or party. Conformity to doctrine may be necessary for fellowship among sectarians, but it is conformity to the likeness of Christ that makes men children of God, and surely there is a vast difference between the two. Those who are thus conformed to God by transformation of fife enjoy unity in diversity. There can of course be no other kind of unity, man's nature and God's nature being what they are. If God made man to be free, and if indeed man is free, then diversity is necessary.

The scriptural images of the church make unity in diversity an obvious fact. The church is both as much one and diverse as a human body: "For Christ is like a single body with its many limbs and organs, which, many as they are, together make up one body" (1 Cor. 12:12). It is this diversity in the Body that challenges the church to be united: "But God has combined the various parts of the body, giving special honour to the humbler parts, so that there might be no sense of division in the body, but that all its organs might feel the same concern for one another" (1 Cor. 12:24-25).

Marriage provides another image, with the church as the Bride of Christ, and what serves as a more beautiful picture of unity in diversity than the oneness of a man and his wife. As Phillips' rendition of Eph. 5:32 puts it: "The marriage relationship is doubtless a great mystery, but I am speaking of something deeper still — the marriage of Christ and his Church." In terms of the problems that divide us, this image of oneness may be more practical than we realize, for every married person realizes that it is love and devotion that holds a marriage together, not conformity of viewpoint.

The last one of us would have to denounce his marriage and "withdraw" from his partner if the basis of unity was unanimity of opinion. We can only conclude that it is love that "binds everything together in perfect harmony" (Col. 3:14), and that it is something less than love that has caused all the divisions. Any marriage could end in a day if love did not hold it together.

The marriage symbol is extended to include the family, for God's church is referred to as His household, with all of us as brothers and sisters together (Eph. 3:14-15). God chooses us to be His sons, the Holy Spirit confirming this by crying "Abba, Father" within us (Gal. 4:6).

It is not that we select each other as brothers, like we might choose fraternity buddies. All who are in God's family are brothers and sisters, and the Spirit does not have to get an OK from any of the rest of us before He dwells within them as the Guest of heaven. The question of fellowship is just that simple: all in whom the Spirit dwells share in the common life (which is what fellowship means) and they are made one by His presence. If we do not determine in whom the Spirit dwells, then we do not determine who is in the fellowship, however much different he may be from ourselves.

If it is necessary for us to be different in our physical and psychological makeup in order to he free individuals before God, then it is essential that we be different in our spiritual or religious makeup and for the same reason. We cannot be free spirits if we are but clones of each other. This is the beauty of Christian unity, that we can all be different in our thinking (and even be wrong!), and yet "all speak the same thing" when it comes to what really matters. We are not really free in Christ until we realize that a sister or brother may be wrong about a lot of things and still be right about Jesus Christ. It is the circumcision of the heart that really counts, if we can rely upon the testimony of Scripture.

Unity is one of the essential traits of the true Church of Christ on earth, along with holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity. The true church cannot be divided any more than it can be parochial or unholy. So unity is not merely desirable; it is essential. And that unity is necessarily diverse, for otherwise it would not be unity. — the Editor