welcome to the kingdom

I think its always interesting to hear how people outside the church culture perceive Christians and their actions. Being in the midst of a narrow group or agenda tends to promote homogeneous opinions and behaviors which can fog one’s own hypocrisy or thwart one’s critical thinking ability. I often find myself being seduced to polarization by the secular and non-secular moral division perpetuated through the christian media.

Offsetting sweeping generalizations and popular conclusions have been common for me the past year through dialogue with people who are different from me, people who don’t share my faith and people who come from unique backgrounds.

While I was taking classes at Regent, Gordon Fee said something about American churches that made me think. He said that the majority of churches in the US are the results of uniformity and not true unity. This begs the question, what is true unity? Is it indisputable codified creeds and standards that we all agree upon? I think that is how we define it now which is why there exists more uniformity than unity in the absence of alternative and varied voices within the church. Appreciation for ethnic diversity and cultural pluralism is a catalyst to modern unity. This sounds post-modern and nebulous in structure, but it takes a pinch of humility and a double dose of listening to fully embrace God’s diverse kingdom.