Recently, at a company meeting, Howard Shultz, CEO of Starbucks fielded a comment from a shareholder complaining about Starbucks’ endorsement of same-sex marriage.
Shultz responded by saying that Starbucks chooses to “embrace diversity. Of all kinds.” The crowd burst into spontaneous cheering and applause, causing Shultz to pause before inviting the disgruntled shareholder to consider investing his money elsewhere.
Embracing diversity. That’s actually something Christians are called to do. The New Testament speaks of Christians coming from very diverse backgrounds: “Jew, Greek, circumcised, uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free” (Colossians 3:11). The Church is designed by God to be built up by the diversity of spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:27-31). Heaven will be populated by an extremely diverse group: “a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people and language” (Revelation 7:9).
So when it comes to cheering for diversity, Christians can join the ovation. With one very important qualification: we are for human diversity as long as it bows to God’s authority.
Since God is the designer of diversity, He has the right to set its limits. He not only can create a diverse array of trees in the Garden, He can also tell us to steer clear of one of them. In the case of marriage, God has designed it with a man and woman in mind (Genesis 2:24). To morph marriage into something else is to disregard and disobey His divine design.
The prevailing cultural winds are blowing strongly in the face of those who dare to assert that diversity must bow to God’s authority. If you dare to challenge the prevailing cultural orthodoxy, you can expect to be shouted down and invited to take your viewpoint elsewhere. You will be told you are on the wrong side of history.
But you can rest assured, you are the right side of eternity.
Rick and Linda Reed 