In our rush to be united and positive, can we miss God’s point?
I keep hearing things about how we’re ‘all the same’ – like the tv show ‘Embarrassing Bodies’ slogan, ‘there’s no shame, we’re all the same’, and today I heard a pastor say, ‘When God looks at us, he doesn’t see Black and White, he sees his children’.
Well, I say She does see Black and White. Deliberately so. I say we’re not all the same.
I do understand that point – and the idea that ‘we’re all the same’ is about our shared humanity – and that’s an important point to make – yes – we are all equally human, in all our marvellous diversity of colour, ethnicity, sexuality, levels of ability, neurodiversity, gender identities – nothing makes us more or less important than someone else. Yes!
But the subtle danger of this message can be to say that our differences don’t matter. In the sense of all being human, they don’t. Not at all. I’m with Jo Cox on, ‘we…have far more in common than that which divides us’. Of course. Yes.
But actually as someone who loves diversity and is serious about inclusion, I also want to affirm that we are different, deliberately so, and that that is good.
When God looks at us – Black and Asian and White and… , or cis or trans or non binary or intersex, in all our variety and diversities, God sees ‘someone God loves’ and sees someone who is Black, someone who is Asian, someone who is…who they are… God sees someone cis, someone trans, someone non binary, someone intersex. Our identity is not peripheral to our humanity but part of our humanity. Our diversity is not a distraction to our beauty in humanity, but an essential component.
When we take that seriously, those differences become part of the beauty of creation that we want to appreciate, explore, listen to, understand.
I have a friend who has a ‘leaf identity app’ – no more for him saying, ‘what a lovely tree!’ – he is there with his phone app taking a photo, identifying the tree and then learning about it. He is fascinating to go for a walk with! ‘They’re all just trees, they’re all the same’ you may cry… ‘ah, but see this leaf pattern, see this bark, see this flower, this fruit – see this diversity’…
This is the spirit of appreciating diversity in humanity too. When we really value diversity, ‘we’re all the same’ is the starting point which underpins all people in shared humanity, and we then want to understand all our ‘varieties’ (ref to the trees!), which with people usually means meeting, listening, talking, sharing, asking what matters. And often we may start to understand not only how wonderful diversity is, how interesting to learn about the experiences and lives of others, but also that this diversity sometimes has a cost.
The cost of diversity is often (though not always) because a diversity is not a majority group in the context the person lives in, they often face discrimination, prejudice, misunderstanding, even abuse and violence. This can run to laws – local and national – which make their lives hard or even impossible.
People not affected by that discrimination then have their ‘moment’ to step up and take action. Because truly – when you value diversity and learn it’s under threat, you want to do something. We can’t just shrug our shoulders.
People who are in the majority in their context may never face those threats. Which is good – but it is easy to then feel it’s ‘not our issue’ if it isn’t affecting us. That’s called ‘privilege’: when we can just choose not to mind about an injustice – because people being daily and routinely disadvantaged or discriminated against don’t have the luxury of not minding about it.
If I am in a majority group, I am not expected to explain myself, reveal who I am, ‘come out’, answer the repeated question ‘where are you from?’ or be repeatedly asked if I’m really disabled if I’m not using a wheelchair, or ‘why are you in a wheelchair?’ or other intrusive questions which are actually not a strangers business.
Those of us who say we love diversity and are inclusive, have work to do. Yes in listening, sharing, meeting with people (online at the moment?!), reading up, educating ourselves, and then in standing/sitting together with others, learning from people what they need and what we need to campaign about, joining with them in working for a just world where they can just live their lives as equally human and not having to hide (or constantly explain) who they are; using any leverage or influence we have to make sure they are heard, consulted, listened to – by us and by others.
In our humanity, ‘we’re all the same’, and of equal value. In our appearance, understanding, identity, culture, language, experiences of life – we all differ – and that’s wonderful – to be celebrated not overlooked.
Finally then, I don’t think God looks at us and sees we’re all the same. I don’t believe God is colourblind, or genderblind, or anything else-blind – I am very sure God made our diversity because God finds it beautiful. It is deliberate and planned that we are NOT all the same in our expression of humanity. Moreso, it is an expression of being made in God’s beautiful image. All of us. None of our diversity and difference is supposed to be overlooked, and neither is it a reason to exclude, judge, lecture, discriminate, abuse or do violence to someone. It’s meant to be beauty that we appreciate, enjoy, discover, defend.
“For you are beautifully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139 verse 14)
gathering thoughts 