THE PURITANS’ NETWORK

ADDITIONAL ARTICLES SERIES

DIVERSITY AS A MORAL PRINCIPLE? by J. Parnell McCarter

Is ethnic diversity within each nation, town, church congregation, neighborhood, educational institution, business organization, etc. a moral principle and a moral imperative?

Such diversity as a moral principle seems to be the prevailing view in our modern Babel.  For example, see the article at http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/920cf4b2-24be-11e4-9224-00144feabdc0.html#axzz3BgjodZIk entitled “Silicon Valley’s Diversity Reboot”.  Even many professing Christian church leaders have picked up on it, and are promoting it.  For example, in his article at http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/thabitianyabwile/2014/08/19/is-it-goodbye-evangelicalism-or-we-join-you-in-your-suffering/, minister Thabiti Anyabwile points out this quest for diversity in these words: “Around the country evangelical leaders participate in “racial reconciliation” conversations and repeatedly ask, “How can we diversify our church?” or “How can we attract more African-American members?” Why would diverse groups want to belong to an evangelicalism that does not acknowledge their diversity where it hurts when it matters? You want diversity in your membership roles? How about forgetting your membership statistics and further diversifying the picket lines and protests thronged by the disenfranchised in their just fights?”    It were as if one of the Ten Commandments read: “Thou shalt have ethnic diversity within each nation, town, neighborhood, church congregation, educational institution, and business organization.”  In reality, this supposed moral principle is absent from scripture, but rather an invention of man.

Let’s be clear, I am not referring here to the moral duty to be loving, just, equitable and kind to one’s neighbors of all ethnicities, nor am I referring to the duty of the church to evangelize all peoples, but rather the supposed duty to attain ethnic diversity within each nation, town, church congregation, etc.  Minister Anyabwile in his article cited earlier implies that in order to successfully do that, white Christians should join in protests such as in Ferguson, MO.  Joining in so called “social justice” movements often accompany diversity efforts, neither of which are Biblically sound.  It also often can mean efforts to adopt unsound worship practices, such as adopting hip hop music in the worship.

Of course, at the same time as this new principle is being added to the American code of ethics, most of the other principles in the original Ten Commandments are being shoved to the side.  For instance, to discriminate against sodomy is regarded as a moral wrong in this modern Babel, worldly entertainments are regarded as acceptable, and observance of the Lord’s Day is rapidly disappearing.

Every society has a code of acceptable conduct; the only question is whether it is truly derived from God’s word or contrived by man.