How should we think about diversity in our contentious political climate, especially when racism, xenophobia and general fear of the ‘other’ increasingly rear their ugly heads? Do we lose something by retreating into enclaves populated only by people like us?
The World is Flat
Once while visiting New York City, we went to Jackson Heights, an Indian community in Queens. As I loitered on the streets teeming with Indian people, Indian music, Indian aromas wafting from the food stands along the sidewalk, it suddenly dawned on me that I was the only Caucasian within sight. We entered a local grocery where almost every fruit and vegetable was a complete mystery to me. I could have been in Calcutta. A couple days later, I happened to read in the New York Times that a high-ranking Indian official wanted by his government was hiding out in Jackson Heights. Where does a Indian fugitive go to blend in? Not somewhere in India, but on the streets of New York!
This slice of life experience reminds me the world is flat. In 2005, Thomas Friedman, three time Pulitzer Prize winning columnist, wrote a book with that title. Of course, process he describes has accelerated exponentially since 2005. Friedman writes in The World is Flat:
“The net result of this convergence was the creation of a global, Web-enabled playing field that allows for multiple forms of collaboration—the sharing of knowledge and work—in real time, without regard to geography, distance, or, in the near future, even language.
No, not everyone has access yet to this platform…but it is open to more people in more places on more days in more ways than anything like it ever before in the history of the world.
This is what I mean when I say the world has been flattened.”
Here’s another flat world slice of life. Our daughter went to Thailand on a semester abroad during college. The professor leading her group often invited them into his home in Chaing Mai where he lived several months every year. He told the group that if he or his wife ever needed elective surgery, they always postponed it until they returned to Thailand. Why? The quality of medical care in Thailand is equal or superior to that in the States, at only a fraction of the cost.
The world is flat. People from all over the world are crossing borders, overcoming barriers, and communicating and collaborating with each other as never before.
The Impact of Diversity
Harvard social scientist Robert Putnam did a massive study of 30,000 interviews in 41 U.S. communities on the subject of ethnic diversity. He found that people in ethnically diverse settings don’t want much to do with each other. Much of this work later found a home in his best-selling book Bowling Alone.
“Inhabitants of diverse communities tend to withdraw from collective life, to distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, to volunteer less, give less to charity and work on community projects less often, to register to vote less, to agitate for social reform more, but have less faith that they can actually make a difference, and to huddle unhappily in front of the television.”
As someone who wants to extol the value of diverse people rubbing shoulders as a way to learn and grow, I do not find this result comforting. One exception to this rather bleak conclusion, however, is what Putnam found in evangelical megachurches.
“In many large evangelical congregations the participants constituted the largest thoroughly integrated gatherings we have ever witnessed.”
Apparently the old saw that “11:00am Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America” is no longer true everywhere. Many churches still self-select based on race or socio-economic status. But there is hope. Indeed, while churches increasingly find themselves at the margins of American society in many ways, here is one way churches can offer a positive example of diversity.
Diversity in the Church?
The Bible is clear that Jesus Christ died on the cross to create a flat church. (Ephesians 2:14-16)
“The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this, both non-Jewish outsiders and Jewish insiders. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He repealed the law code that had become so clogged with fine print and footnotes that it hindered more than it helped. Then he started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody.” “Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility.
Jews and Gentiles who were indeed “separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion.” But a consequence of Jesus dying on the cross is breaking down the wall of hostility that had separated them and creating “a new kind of human being.”
In Greek, there are two words for “new”. There is neos, which means new in point of time, e.g. a computer just out of the box is new, even though thousands just like it have already been made.
And then there is kainos, which means new in quality, e.g. utterly new and unique, like a new painting or symphony that has never existed before.
Paul uses kainos in these verses. He proclaims that Jesus Christ doesn’t just make all Jews into Gentiles, or all Gentiles into Jews. His death on the cross literally empowered “a new kind of human being”—a Christian. And a new kind of human community—the church.
We experience the wonder of this truth every time we rub shoulders with Christians from different races, ethnicity, or socio-economics backgrounds than our own.
The church I served in California began a relationship with fellow Christians in the former East Germany in 1989, only months after the Berlin Wall came down. Over the next 20 years, literally hundreds of American and German Christians visited one another on annual trips that were all about building relationships and, ultimately, partnerships. The same thing happened when we created a sister church relationship with a Hispanic congregation in a poor neighborhood about a mile away. In both cases, as Christians from different backgrounds got to know one another, everyone gained.
In a NewYork Times article about Putnam’s research, Scott Page, author of “The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies” identifies the issue with diverse people rubbing shoulders: “Because they see the world and think about the world differently than you, that’s challenging,”
However, he goes on to say:
“But by hanging out with people different than you, you’re likely to get more insights. Diverse teams tend to be more productive.”
In other words, those in more diverse communities may do more bowling alone, but the creative tensions unleashed by those differences in the workplace may vault those same places to the cutting edge of the economy and of creative culture.
I would testify that the same creative tensions can accomplish great things in any church willing to act on the truth Paul proclaims. If Christians are “new kinds of human beings,” let’s act like them!
The more opportunities we create for ourselves to share with Christians in different camps from our own, the more more a skeptical, unbelieving world may sit up and take notice…even Havard sociologists!
Rich, I wish I were as optimistic of diverse individuals and groups’ coming together. The events of the past year do not encourage me. Almost every day I hear or see Christian leaders disparage these very connections between people that I believe Christ encourages. I hear faith leaders support political positions and social attitudes that Tear apart rather than bring people together. I am a big fan to Thomas Friedman’s work, but even his latest writings lament that it’s just not working out the way he thought it would.