University, Not Diversity

When Differences Are, and Are Not, Our Strength

“E puribus unum.”

Out of many, one.

“Diversity is our strength!” How many times have you heard that in your lifetime? I was raised on it. “Social Studies” in the public school, at least when I was a kid, seemed to have this as its primary mantra. We didn’t learn much history, we didn’t learn much literature, but we did learn what chubby little kids on the other side of the world ate for breakfast and we celebrated cultural diversity in a way which would now be called “cultural appropriation” by bringing foods from other people’s culture, listening to native folk lore stories of other peoples, and dressing up in other people’s traditional dress. My generation was fed on a steady diet of how good it is that America is made up of all different kinds of people with different cultures and beliefs. Today it has progressed so far that the only culture we should be ashamed of is our own (if we are even allowed to admit that Americans, particularly white Americans, have a culture).

Now let me grab your attention right here for a moment. Do I have it? Do I really have it? Because I am not about to go on a pro-white America rant right now. In fact (do I still have your attention?) I don’t care one whit about skin color. I don’t even care if one day everyone looks the same and there are no visible differences in people’s skin colors because we have all intermarried and “different races” have become an antiquated notion of the past.¹ So, hear me out, I don’t care about race because I don’t think it’s a meaningful category. People are just people.

The problem with diversity is not about what people look like. The problem of diversity is about what people believe, what convictions they hold, and how they act as a result of those beliefs. Ideas have consequences. Actions flow from convictions. Diversity of belief in any particular body, when those beliefs concern the most fundamental issues in life, is not a strength but a weakness. Whether it is a family, a business, a church, or a nation, when the constituents of that entity hold diametrically opposite beliefs about fundamental issues it is a weakness and it is one that can, and often does, bring ruin and disaster to that entity.

The term “university” is a combination of two terms, namely “unity” and “diversity.” Since the term is most closely associated with higher education let’s consider it in that light for a moment. The difference between going to a “college” or going to a “university” is lost on most people today. Technically a university is a conglomerate of colleges. A university will have “the college of fine arts” and the “the college of humanities” and “the college of applied sciences” and “the college of mathematics” or some set of colleges with like names spanning the various academic disciplines. The value of the university, in theory, is that a student may Major in a certain discipline and spend the majority of his time at one of these colleges while still being able to take classes from the other colleges to round out his education. The diversity of disciplines work together for the singular purpose of producing one well educated person.

Take also the term “universe” which, again, comes from the words “unity” and “diversity.” When one considers all that exists there is, indeed, great diversity in the kinds of biological life, in the elements of the composition of material things, in the kinds of heavenly bodies, etc., but there is also a unity, a harmony, which allows life to exist and thrive. The way the various forces of gravity and electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces work together so that the planets do not spin off randomly into space but orbit the life preserving sun and the way our molecules adhere together to keep us from a similar dissipating disaster, the way water evaporates into the sky to be redistributed by the clouds allowing vegetation to grow and feed land animals and people, etc., etc. There is indeed great diversity, but there is also incredible unity.

The founders of our nation understood these things plainly when they began employing the Latin phrase e pluribus unum, putting it on our country’s “great seal” in 1782, as well as putting it on much of our country’s currency. As a nation made up of distinct states we also were a diverse people in various ways. Not only did our people come from many different nationalities, though mostly European originally, our states were various in geography and natural resources. But these diversities, as long as they worked in unison to produce a stronger republic with a common set of values, made us indeed stronger than we would have been otherwise.

To give one last example of university, as opposed to mere diversity, I appeal to the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:12-26.

¹² For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

¹⁴ For the body does not consist of one member but of many. ¹⁵ 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. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? ¹⁸ But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. ¹⁹ If all were a single member, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” ²² On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, ²⁴ which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, ²⁵ that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. ²⁶ If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

The church at Corinth was struggling with division, as Paul makes clear at the outset of the letter by noting that some were saying “I follow Paul” and others “I follow Apollos” or “I follow Cephas” and still others “I follow Christ.” Paul labored on the point that the whole church, though diverse in their makeup with their giftings and though including both Jews and gentiles, must have unity based upon working together, like a body, to serve the head (Jesus Christ). Only when their diversity was laboring toward the same goal and end could they hope to function as they ought and to have peace with one another.

My friends, this is the point: Mere Diversity is not a strength, University is our strength. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Many today associate that quote with Abraham Lincoln, and indeed he said it, but he was quoting Jesus when he did so. As usual, Jesus was right. Whether it is your own home, your own company, your own school, your own church, or your own nation, we have to agree about what is most fundamental in order to thrive (or indeed remain in existence). This is not a discussion about what kind of icecream everyone likes, it’s fine to disagree on trivialities. This is not even a discussion about more important issues such as how to achieve a goal we have in common. It’s about the main goals themselves.

Historically speaking both Republicans and Democrats would have said they wanted the same thing, a strong country with a thriving citizenship. They disagreed about the means to that end with conservatives favoring a smaller government and more entrepreneurial spirit among its people whereas the liberals tended to favor big government and more social programs. This disagreement is significant, but as long as they wanted the same ultimate thing, a thriving people and a strong nation, there was hope of being able to move forward. You might have noticed, things have changed.

I don’t think one political party is all sunshine and roses and the other is pure evil, that’s far too simplistic, but it is evident that the two party system we have inherited now wants fundamentally different things. Today’s Republican party is yesterday’s Republicans and Democrats in one party, against the new radical Left. Republicans are now a party of co-beligerence. We have gone from two different parties with differing opinions about how to make America great to debating whether or not America should be great or whether it should even continue. We are now fundamentally divided whereas we used to have a meaningful kind of unity despite important disagreements.

How has this happened? It has happened due to a simplistic commitment to diversity for diversity’s sake. It has happened by failing to recognize that diversity is only a strength insofar as it is aimed towards supporting a point of unity. There are those who do not even think we, as a nation, should continue to exist. Whether it is because they want globalism or because they want to destroy American to build a different nation in its place, there can be no unity between those who love our people and want us to continue and do well and those who hate our people and think we should cease to be. This kind of diversity it literally destroying us.

The great idea of a “pluralistic society,” as in we can just throw everyone together no matter what they believe, this idea which has been so cherished for decades is essentially a lie. But like any good lie, it is built on some truth. Diversity is our strength when that diversity works together towards a common purpose. Diversity for diversity’s sake, however, is a fatal weakness.

How then forward? I make no apology for what I believe would be best for our nation. I want a Christian nation. I state that as my goal plainly. Though many of my fellow American would disagree with this goal of mine I think many of my fellow Americans can and would agree with my reasoning for it even if they don’t agree with my Christianity. I want my people to thrive, to be happy, to do well in life. If we can agree on that point, we can disagree about the best means towards that end and still have a lot of unity. But we can have no unity with those who want America to end or who want to silence opposition through violent acts of terrorism. We cannot have peace with people who want to pretend like we have an equal responsibility to the whole world as we do to our own people. I do not say that we should not care for the world at large, but the man who feeds the poor in a distant country while letting his own children starve is a monster. It’s not better to bring the poor here and feed them either if one does it to the detriment of those who are owed one’s first care. One has to have priorities.

We have to agree that America is worth the having and worth making strong and healthy. The healthier we are the more we will be in a position to do good to others also (as we should). “Put on your oxygen mask first before helping your neighbor,” says the flight attendant.

I want everyone to be a Christian and, as a result, I want my nation to be Christian and, indeed, the whole world (it’s an organic thing, you see, not a top down enforcement). I want all the nations to be Christian nations. But I am happy to live next to non-Christians who disagree with me on important issues but who, nevertheless, believe fundamentally that every person has a right to “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”² That’s a person I can talk to. That’s a person I can reason with and share the gospel with who won’t shoot me for merely speaking to them about something they may not like. I don’t care if people immigrate to my country from other countries, I don’t care if they look different than me, I don’t care if they prefer various kinds of foods that are out of the norm for me, I care whether they agree to embody the spirit of America and believe that this is a place where people should be free and they want to help this nation thrive and for their neighbours to be happy and do well. But where we are importing people who want to wave the flag of foreign nations and terrorist organizations and enjoy a rousing chant of “death to America” we have a very real problem and our government should put an end to it. If you cannot say “I want this country to thrive and for my neighbor to be safe and happy” then you are simply an enemy to what is good and decent. If you wish others harm rather than happiness, then you are the problem. If you act on those hateful wishes and cause harm to your neighbor then you should be stopped with as much force is necessary until the lesson is learned, “we don’t do that here.”

1. I do care that Christians only marry Christians, but if one is white as the moon and the other black as the night is irrelevant to what actually matters, namely, what we believe.

2. This is, of course, a Christian idea, but let’s not confuse the issue with plain facts.