How Diverse Thou Art

Genesis 1:1-19


Diversity, Diversity, wherefore art thou, Diversity?

Diversity and Tolerance have become the guardians of thought in our present day. One can scarcely exercise one’s brain and express an opinion without having to slip it past these thought Gestapo.

I think I am a fairly tolerant person. I pretty, much “Live, and let live,” as I go through life. I have become much better at not always expressing the first opinion that forms inside my head for concern that I might offend someone (or, that I will be rightfully called up on to have to apologize and seek forgiveness).

Part of the problem in this current culture is that people are so ignorant that they don’t have any idea what words mean. It is English, you people, your primary language (for most of you); you should have a better command of it. For example, we have been persuaded that alcoholism is a “disease” (though it is not contagious), that people are “gay” (I have yet to meet anyone brightly colored, though I do know some who are extraordinarily cheery, yet would not describe themselves as “gay”), that people, inanimate objects, etc. “suck” (not considering that this is a transitive verb requiring an object, and not considering what that object might be—they don’t even know how vulgar they are being).

The truth is that alcoholism is a condition resulting from alcohol abuse, which would be biblically categorized as a word that gets less and less use—sin. Those who practice homosexuality may or may not be gay, depending on whether they dress in gray or as a stick of Fruit Stripe gum. Things do not suck, unless that thing is a vacuum cleaner.

People often use words they don’t understand. So it is with tolerance. People say “tolerance” when they mean “acceptance.” Christians are often characterized as intolerant. I sense that we are extremely tolerant, perhaps to a fault, but that doesn’t mean that we accept everything we see. Tolerance is not acceptance. I tolerate the fact that I must stop at a red light at 11pm when there is no traffic for miles—but I don’t accept or agree that it is a great idea.

When speaking of diversity, people will often champion it as the highest ideal, the greatest of virtues. Diversity just means difference. It is not a value in itself. People or things are not better or worse than other people or things just because they are different, or diverse. One can be different in good ways or in bad ways.

No one has exemplified diversity as well as God has. I don’t mean that God is whatever someone wants Him to be. I am referring back to Creation, when God created day and night, land and water, plants and animals, the sun and the moon, male and female—wow! Why not just create a place of daylight where people are all one color, all the same height, who perpetuate themselves or just never die, who can subsist on oxygen and never need to eat or drink, and are able to warm themselves without sunlight? ‘Cause that would be boooooorrr-ing.

Frankly, I am for diversity. I am glad that God has created things as He has. So is He, for when He was finished each step, He stepped back, looked over His handiwork, and said, “It is good.”

Of course, we ought not to speak of diversity in this way—it involves God, and the speech Nazis would consider such talk intolerant.