It has been a pleasure to serve the One People Commission (OPC) at the Evangelical Alliance for the past five years. As I prepare to leave, to lead Colchester Baptist Church, I have been reflecting on how the landscape around unity, integration and justice has shifted during those five years.

When I started working for the Evangelical Alliance in 2021, we were still living with the realities of the pandemic and the impact of the death of George Floyd was very much felt in church conversations, conferences, talks and gatherings. Fast forward to where we are presently; grappling with contested conversations around nationalism, Christian nationalism, immigration and protests and unrest in our nations. 

So, with that in mind, how can we achieve unity in diversity? I think in order to navigate this, there are some key things we must consider going forward.

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One humanity 

God created us all, meaning we all, whether male or female, white British or refugee, young or old, originate from the same source, which is God. This also means that we are all equal before God because He created us. Therefore, all lives matter equally to God. The beauty of His creation is that while God created one human race, He also created our distinctiveness. 

In essence, being created by one God in His image means that we are equal, but the fact that creation is expressed in different physical features, skin pigmentation, biology, history and geography means God also values diversity. God expresses this unity and diversity in His very being through what we understand as the Trinity. God is three distinctive persons in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, yet the Godhead is one in essence and purpose. 

Incarnation 

Secondly, our unity in diversity is incarnation. God, who created us in His image, decided to share our humanity through His Son by becoming human like us. John describes this process as the Word becoming flesh. The incarnation of Jesus expresses God’s solidarity with humanity in its entire diversity.  

God speaks to us through His Son. God communicates to us and identifies with us in our weakness and vulnerability, therefore giving us a framework for His mission in loving and advocating for the oppressed, marginalised and disenfranchised. That mission again is expressed for all humanity, which is why John could say that, ​“For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son.” (John 3:16) Jesus becoming one of us connected Him with the entire human race, which is why we call Him Emmanuel, God with [all of] us. 

God communicates to us and identifies with us in our weakness and vulnerability, therefore giving us a framework for His mission in loving and advocating for the oppressed, marginalised and disenfranchised.”

Reconciliation 
Reconciliation has shaped much of my work for the OPC over the last five years; championing intercultural church conversations with local churches, producing conferences and a wide range of resources. Through this we have seen individuals and communities reconciled and churches healed. 


Reconciliation takes forward the ideas in creation and incarnation that, while Jesus was revealed to us in the incarnation, identifying with humanity, His death on the cross achieved reconciliation, therefore recreating humanity in a new image of God. 


The death of Jesus on the cross frames the need for reconciliation between humanity and God, but also between polarised communities. Reconciliation gives us a language of pursuing a just, integrated society where all humanity is reconciled and flourishing. The church is the new community modelling this new image of God in Christ. We are reminded in (1 Corinthians 12:26 NRSV), that ​“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together with it” . Each member of the body of Christ is important, irrespective of our nationality, culture or ethnicity. If some members are suffering through fear, exclusion, injustice or prejudices, we should all respond to that pain together, as a body, just as we should all rejoice together when the gospel advances. 


It is so important, especially in this season of fragmentation, that we model God’s creation, incarnation and reconciliation in our churches and contexts to reveal God’s purpose of unity in diversity.