If there is anything we can learn about God from creation, it is that the Creator had incredible imagination and loved diversity. The world is filled with mind boggling complexity, millions of different expressions of the Creator's concept of life, and an ever changing and evolving universe. Sometimes we contribute to the diversity of creation. Think of the many different breeds of dogs that we have developed. But we've also been prone to do things like settle in on one variety of wheat, of corn, etc., and global conformity. We are starting to learn our lessons about the pitfalls of this, but slowly.
And then there are humans and our limited capacity to deal with diversity. Bananas. 1,000 different varieties of bananas and we prefer to have only one, the Cavendish, available in our stores. Why? I suppose its because we simply want to know what to expect. There are all sorts of examples of this tendency of humans. We gravitate towards McDonalds, not local diners with a varied menu. "Bud Light, for the many not the few." Cultural norms and expectations limit the scope of our uniqueness. We like to know what to expect and so we push conformity. As humans interact, rather than increasing in our biodiversity we tend to allow a dominant culture to emerge and to overwhelm the various regional, ethnic, and cultural differences. The American experiment is especially telling. With immigrants from every continent we pushed an anglicized uniformity. Speak English. Melt into one. Do the American thing. And then watch as "Westernization transforms cultures throughout the world." Chinese people wearing blue jeans. And Starbucks is opening 3,000 new stores there.
And then there is the church. One, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. Doctrinal conformity. Inculturation. Should the church be transformed by the variety of cultures in which it is present or should the church transform those cultures toward a unified expression? We haven't done so well with cultural diversity. And when diversity divided the church we saw that as a curse, not a blessing. The single largest question in this regard is whether it was God's will that humans express their religious inclination in a uniform way, or whether God intended from the beginning for our spiritual lives to be a diverse as our physical and mental tendencies.
How do we deal with anomalies? You know, those deviations from the norm. "Deviant" is a negative word. I'm bipolar. What that means is that my capacity for mood swings from highs to lows exceeds the norm. My highs are higher. My lows are lower. My medication is designed to eliminate that and achieve a culturally acceptable middle ground. Are variations from the norm a disease or God's diversity coming into play? Good question.
Sexuallity. How often have we tried to force a spectrum of expressions into a culturally defined and rigidly maintained duality. Its just not quite as simple as "male and female he created them". Ironic that the Creation story that details the vast diversity of God's creation is used to force a compliance with cultural norms and a condemnation of deviation from those norms. Again, "deviant sexual behavior" is used to condemn. This in spite of the fact that we, as humans, exhibit "diverse sexual expressions". We struggle to understand. "LGBTQ" is an evolving expression. We're not even always sure what those letters stand for, or how many variants are present within them.
I'm not into 'anything goes'. Child abuse, whether physically, sexually, or mentally is always immoral and should be severely punished in my mind. But what is abusive, and what is nurturing? By the way, I'm not much into abusing adults either. . .
It's all so mind boggling. Hence we tend to settle in on normative behaviors and discourage variations from the norms. And God is used to enforce those norms.
I love my church, but I deeply regret its lack of diversity. We are the whitest denomination in the United States. We set a goal to become a church with a minimum of 10% people of color or whose primary language is other than English. That was 1988. The only significant change in color of our church since then has been the greying of our hair. Fact is that we are not the church catholic. We can only become an inclusive, diverse, church through ecumenical work. And an ecumenism that celebrates diversity, not one that seeks uniformity.
I am convinced that there is a reason God created platypuses. Perhaps just for the shear delight in it. And not every bird should be a bald eagle, as majestic as that bird is. And the thought that one day, through generations of interracial marriage we will emerge as a unified race is appalling to me. What I hope for is an appreciation of diversity. Deviation from the norm is the norm, by the way. And God said it all is good.
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