Diversity Has Always Been a Very Important but Elusive Quality for Christians

My dad’s hero was Abe Lincoln. I marveled at that being an unlikely choice for my dad – growing up as he did in the 20s in rural Texas – only 50 years after the Civil War and the ‘reconstruction’ that followed. But Lincoln’s legacy lived on for my dad and many others -- even in the South.

Mr. Lincoln was always an unlikely candidate, but it became apparent that the nation needed him -- as it tried to deal with a divisiveness that showed up clearly even before the country’s founding, when the drafters of the Constitution argued over slavery amid contentious feelings between the northern and southern colonists. Some historians have claimed that only one-third supported the American revolution, one-third were loyal to Britain, and one-third were non-committal or indifferent. However, by 1865, few if any had feelings of indifference about the significant cultural differences (slavery was ‘only’ one) between the rural south and the more urbanized north -- where the much-heralded “melting pot” was already underway.

Our families were part of that exploding diversity. With names like Lougee and Unger, our great-grandfathers represented different areas of Europe and settled in New England and the South, respectively. Members of these families, as well as those of the Mitchell and Smith families, eventually migrated to Texas and the rest is our history. The Lougees had a mill in New Hampshire, and my grandpa Unger worked as a conductor for the Cotton Belt Railroad in Texas. My dad’s uncle in Uvalde, Texas, did genealogical study that showed two Mitchell boys were killed fighting for the Confederacy -- and in Exeter, Maine, Sandy and I found the headstones of two Lougee boys who died fighting on the Union side.

In the South, we were taught that slavery was only part of the reason for the war. Other more ‘important’ issues were economic survival and states’ rights. Much has been written also about the ‘plantation culture’ and southern aristocracy, but I suspect that southerners of the time were far more likely to be poor than part of any aristocracy – and very likely to consider themselves quite different from their industrialized northern neighbors. Most Protestant denominations, including Baptists, split into northern and southern groups. It took the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) – in which I was ordained -- another forty years to do so, but by then the division became more clearly urban vs. rural, with all the diverse viewpoints those lifestyles typically involve.

Interestingly, both the northern and southern branches of churches have strived to limit or deny diversity in maintaining their quest for the ‘one New Testament church’ for many years after they split. Today most scholars recognize there were many different models of the church in existence during the first two centuries. The Apostle Paul’s churches in Asia Minor differed radically from each other and from the Jerusalem church. There was extreme resistance to Paul’s insistence on full equality for Gentile Christians, as recorded in Galatians, other of his letters, and in Acts. In truth, Paul died fighting for diversity, and that struggle may be seen as the central historical theme of the New Testament.