Diversity: Why too much of it can be harmful

A few years ago, I had the privilege (and I use the word lightly here) of working for the Walt Disney Company. It was a short-lived career due to the fact that the wages earned there are simply not enough to sustain any viable human being for more than a few days. This is a quagmire that still baffles me to this day: How a multi-billion dollar, world-wide entity such as Disney can pay its cast members so far below the minimum standards after what they pull in on a yearly basis. Can you say, “Wal-Mart”? As usual, I need to digress back into the main point here so as not to go too far off the track. I make mention of my short-lived Disney career for good reason: The topic of diversity. Every Disney employee (whoops, I mean ‘cast member’) goes through what is known as ‘Disney University’ on their first day of work. Simply stated, it is an 8 hour orientation of how everything flows at the big D. You get to do all sorts of fun things like stand up in front of a room full of 200 strangers and tell them who you are and where you’re from and why you want to work here so bad. I have no problem dealing with large crowds when it comes to certain things (music, entertaining, teaching, etc). This however, bugged me – and somehow I still managed to make them laugh with my answer. (When asked why I desired to work for Disney I simply replied, “Who wouldn’t want to work for a rodent? They’re just too cute, man”).

All that aside, one of the things they put us through that morning was a slightly-veiled form of diversity training. Whether anyone believes it or not, everyone has an agenda – even if they say they don’t. A video began to play up on a big screen – the scene opened up with these two women who were Disney cast members working behind the same counter (some kind of gift shop, I suppose). One was an older woman, the other was a young, twenty-something girl. They portrayed the older woman as an annoying Christian who was trying to share her faith with the younger girl (who seemed to be getting frustrated). The older woman pestered the younger girl many times about ‘getting saved before it was too late’. The point of the video was pretty clear: Working here, you will come across many different people of many different faiths and beliefs – basically, keep your faith to yourself while on the job. Why they chose to use my faith as a prime example spoke volumes to me at the time – why not use Islam as an example in your badly-produced videos instead? Perhaps Disney was afraid of the possible violent repercussions of such a thing from that so-called religion of peace? This annoyed me at first according to everything I hold to as a born again Christian. I later realized that even though I am called to share the truth of the gospel whenever I can, perhaps there are chosen times and places ordained by the Lord to do so. Even though this diversity training bugged me at first, I can sort of understand where Disney is coming from in doing this. Diversity in the work place is to be expected.

As a Christian, I am called to not only be a loving person towards all people; but also a patient person regardless of what they hold to. It doesn’t mean that I need to check my God-instilled truths at the door every morning before work – the truth needs to be defended at all times and at any cost – it simply means that we need to learn how to listen to the Holy Spirit’s prompting when necessary. Should this same diversified mindset be carried into the church? Absolutely not. The Bible is crystal clear about matters of ‘being in one accord’ when it comes to the core issues of our faith. A house divided against itself cannot and will not stand. We can agree to disagree on the non-essential matters of the faith (timing of the rapture, predestination, election, whether or not Christ wore LL Bean or Timberland sandals, etc). But the things that are etched in stone in the Scriptures, (virgin birth, Deity of Christ, the resurrection, His ultimate return, salvation through Christ alone, etc) – those things we simply cannot waiver on. There can be no diversity within the church walls when it comes to the essential matters of our faith.

I really hate to bring this up but I have to and for good reason: There is a certain car that is in our church parking lot every Sunday – I see it almost all the time. They have a bumper sticker on the back of their car that simply says, “Diversity”. I wouldn’t have a problem with this if it weren’t for the other obvious, glaring issue here: Each letter of the word ‘diversity’ is in the shape or symbol of a different faith…..with the “T” being the cross of the Christian faith. You have no idea how much this irks me as a believer in Christ. In my flesh, I want to just get out of my car and rip this thing off so bad. But in my Spirit, I know that the person who put that sticker there is a creation of God, too…..just like me. So I need to love them regardless of their misunderstanding. Let me close by saying this: As the body of Christ, we cannot tolerate different beliefs of the core issues of our faith within the church walls. Just like in the Old Testament, all sin must be purged from the camp in order for the Lord God Almighty to bless us abundantly. I’m not saying that we need to implement capital punishment and stone everyone who does this – we abide under the new covenant of grace now (and thank God for that). But we do need to take a stand in Christ whenever someone tries to bring some ‘new teaching’ into our midst. I need to repeat this: We cannot allow diversity in the body of Christ when it comes to the essential, core issues of our faith. By the way, in case you were wondering: I did manage to share my faith with a few cast members while I was there at Disney – and they loved the fact that I was bold enough to do so at the time – even though they didn’t agree with me. But here’s the key: I didn’t pester them. I suppose working for the rodent wasn’t all that bad after all.

-Primo Apuzzo