Strangely there seems to be inherent in all of us a propensity toward uniformity. On one hand, we’re drawn to it because we want to belong, we want to be in sync with those around us and so naturally we gravitate toward preserving this “unity”, this “sameness”. On the other hand, we are the ones encouraging uniformity when we want to pull others into our universe. We’re excited about where we are and, naturally, we want to get others to see the world like we do, to think like us, to be like us … so they can share our experience.
- Standardization is uniformity marketed at a mass scale.
The educational system is designed to make us conform. We’re sold in our society on a path to success that supposedly has a proven record, so who wants to reinvent the wheel? We live in a world where non-conformity seems to equal failure. So, we “mature”, we do the math and realize that choosing to play the game over following our own dreams just makes more sense so … we learn to blend in.
Since every area of our society has its own “way” (rules, standards etc.) that we either follow or we’re out, it’s only natural to expect Christianity to follow suit, right? In fact, when we take a look at the face of Christianity that’s exactly what we see. The various expressions of Christianity seem to each sell us on the notion that there is one way (usually theirs) to do this God thing. The mantra is:
- God wants you to conform
You need to change who you are (which is what repentance is marketed to be) in order to be accepted by God or be able to connect with God (depending on the particular version of Christianity you happen to be in). You have to think in a certain way, you have to have a certain view of reality, you have to behave in a particular way and on and on you are being given a matrix you need to fit in. Now, as a person who lived the first 18 years of my life under the Romanian Communist Regime, I can’t escape but be reminded of the communist “new man”. Communist ideologs have come up with a well defined version of how this “new man” should be and have designed complex and sophisticated mechanisms by which people are to be molded into this image. For many years I saw Christianity merely as a competing mechanism that’s supposed to produce a better version of the “new man”. I wanted so desperately for the Christian experiment to work, if for nothing else to prove those atheist communists wrong. As years went by I came to realize that Christianity is supposed to be anything but a conforming machinery. The matrix of conformity started to fade a way and I started to see a new kind of Christianity. One that embraces and accepts instead of trying to alter, one that celebrates and enjoys instead of being in a fixing mode, one that discovers and explores instead of obsessing with preservation.
In the next post I will attempt to explore this vision of Christianity and why it makes more sense from a theological perspective. Until then, let’s hear of your stories of conforming or non-confirming.
[This post is part of the Big Tent Christianity synchroblog]
Supposed homogeneity has simultaneously been the comfort of many Christians and the bane of many others. It has caused many weak Christians to fall away, or completely reject, the faith. It has also served as an easy target for those who would attack Christianity and prove its ultimate fallibility.
I came to Christianity as an adult and was not burdened by stereotypical brain-washing as to “how I ought to behave”. In my personal life, Romans 14:1-15:13 has defined my own individual “religion”. I am in personal relationship with God. I don’t get to invent my own religion, but I do get to live in the freedom that Jesus promised and provided to serve God in a way consistent with the way He made me. I am not a cookie-cutter Christian, yet (as far as I can understand today) I am completely authentic.
Great blog!
I agree that there is in us and around us a drive towards uniformity. On the other side, however, God created us as unique beings and, as a result of that, we all experience God in unique ways. I imagine God as a diamond with an infinite number of faces, an we, human beings, as dots places at various distances and in various positions in relation to this diamond. From the experience and perceptions allowed by those vantage points, we describe (and often debate) debate God, yet, what we see is just a partial view. Ad extremis, two people situated at opposite points to that diamond will have in common only the circumference and nothing else.
Thus, we are unique. Yet, ‘unique’, does not means ‘exclusive’. There is resemblance, in our uniqueness, too.
The Church has never been homogenous, even before the Great Schisms (and the two relatively smaller ones before, in 431 and 451, that we so easily forget). There always was diversity, even in that original unity.
Furthermore, for me, denomination are like illnesses: they are statistical abstractions gathering together ‘cases’ of people suffering from the same ‘theological disease’.
I don’t see Christianity proclaiming, expecting or requiring homogeneity.
There seems to me to be strong emphasis on individuality WITHIN community. I’d take as an organising text 1 Corinthians – which seriously wrestles with issues of unity, diversity, difference and disunity. The main point that I read is that individual differences and variety are given by God, intending that they weave together in power and harmony. The (central) problem created in Corinth seemed to be individuals seeing a very monochrome style of full Christian life.
As well as freedom of action and personality, there seems, in the New Testament writings to be a very small set of core beliefs – upon which systematisers over the centuries have built rather complex structures – but the initial cluster of credal beliefs seems small.
i see christian uniformity in our DNA (jesus christ, trinity, scriptures. this did not force me to be identic with others and did not force me to differ from others either. it’s my own choice. i hope it’s a good one. even with the same type of DNA i can agree or disagree with another christian. my brother is not my identical brother, i respect him, i hope i’ll be respected. no claims though…
on the other hand, if you read the musts of the OT, someone might wonder if omogenity is not a relativ term.
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