Unity is Overrated and…Divisive!

Gabriel Garnica

Unity…wouldn’t you like a penny for each time you have heard this word praised as some Shangri-la of human goals? I think that I will cough out a lung the next time I hear someone was poetic about how God brings us unity, or how unity is a symptom of peace and brotherhood or, take a deep breath, how unity is the path to salvation. I am here to tell you that there is enough hogwash in this twisted notion to equal the amount of ice water dropped on everyone who has done an ALS Challenge.

Unity is Safe

We are told that we are all God’s children, and that God is Father to all of us, regardless of who we are and how we look. Fair enough so far, unfortunately many take this view down the wrong logical (or should I say illogical) path. They “reason” that, if we all belong to God, whether we like it or not, we are all called to be, and reach our ultimate fulfillment in being, united as one under God.

If you step back and think about this idea, you may eventually realize that there is an innate absurdity in its premise, which is that our fulfillment depends on being together. I do not know about you, but I was not made aware of the fact that my salvation was a package deal. I will have to keep this in mind so that I can remember that I cannot reach my full destiny unless Larry the plumber, Ted the cashier, Sam the lawyer, Ruth the politician, and Sue the doctor are with me!

I think this notion that “united we stand, and divided we fall” comes from a concoction of good old patriotic fervor, innate fear of cosmic payback, and safety in numbers psychology. To begin, patriotism is always depicted as an “us against them” premise. The almost hilarious irony is that its basic essence is that we all want to be together so we can divide or be apart from those we do not want to be together with!

Secondly, since many of us have a national, cultural, or ethnic history of separating from something we did not like, we have a paradoxical aversion to being separated from those we actually want to be together with. It is almost as if we want to be united with those we choose to be united with while being separated from those we would rather be apart from.

Ultimately, then, unity is a subjective and almost whimsical desire to choose who we want to be united with. At the end of the day, however, the last two notions all point to the third, which is that we all feel safety in numbers.

Jeremy Bentham and others are associated with the notion of utilitarianism, which is the philosophical view that what is good is what makes the most people happy. Obviously, this view does a job on minorities, but ironically people like to be safe first and then, if they are in the mood, reach out to outcasts whom they decide that helping is a noble thing to do.

Note how many wealthy or educated people will form cliques and only associate with their own and, after appropriate social and intellectual exchanges, feel the need to play nobility and give to some charity or tap an outcast on the head. At its core, much of such people’s charitable work becomes merely a way of pretending that they are good, compassionate, sensitive, and kind.

Unity Can Often be Safe, Paradoxical, and Even Cowardly

Psychologists have long studied the notion of the Bystander Effect, wherein people prefer to hide in anonymous crowds than help someone in need. The murder of Kitty Genovese near a Long Island Railroad Station in Kew Gardens, New York in 1964 was a classic example of this dreadful cocktail of cowardice and apathy. The bottom line is that true heroic acts often come from those who choose to step away from the crowd, not follow the company line, and accept discomfort in a world obsessed with comfort.

We never hear of someone being heroic, for example, for having the desire to “blend in with the crowd” or “keep his nose out of other people’s business.” Usually, in fact, we have reached the point where being special often means pushing away from unity and daring to divide oneself from the usual, the safe.

Why is it that, to be special, one has to be different than the majority? Shouldn’t the majority be inherently right and moral? Sadly, here we find another paradox.

Depending on which research finding and topic you study, our national majority is either more or less moral and ethical than what the Word of God would indicate. Sometimes most people have it right and, as one would expect, sometimes most people are a bit off from the ideal.

In either case, however, the politically correct and “progressive” mainstream media can be counted on to spin, twist, and depict their agenda as coming from the majority of sane, rational people. Those who do not tow the media line are depicted as haters, narrow-minded, ignorant, fanatical, out-of-touch, and a host of other negative labels.

Ultimately, we end up getting a biased, twisted, and very skewed depiction of reality and majority while being indoctrinated in the notion that said fabrication of the majority is the right way to go. Inherent in all of this drivel is the underlying idea that being an obedient follower who submits to majority ( read politically correct and socially acceptable) agendas and views means you are acceptable and worth listening to.

Conversely, if you are different ( read traditional Judeo-Christian belief) than what this society favors, you are divisive, radical, fanatical, a hater, and dangerous. It is not a coincidence nor a shock, for example, that federal groups, agencies, and forces have been caught labeling Christians as dangerous people to be watched, mocked, and persecuted in one way or another.

The bottom line is that it is increasingly safe to seek unity with this society and its notions, regardless of how inherently inconsistent, toxic, and completely contradictory such notions may be to following Christ.

Moral Mentors Did Not Preach Unity

Contrary to the twisted, selective, and absurd notions spewed by many politicians, celebrities, and everyone else with any social cache today, our great moral mentors did not preach unity. Christ, Our Blessed Mother, John The Baptist, Peter, Paul, Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, Thomas More, Edith Stein, Maximilian Kolbe, Padre Pio, and Mother Teresa would not have done what they did by relentlessly obsessing over unity.

In fact, their greatest asset was the ability to step away from unity with any view or position inconsistent with following God and refusing to accommodate or compromise with anyone holding such views. None of these people played it safe, and precisely their refusal to tow the societal line is at the core of that heroic morality.

The Only Unity That Matters is Unity with God

Those who twist morality into progressive social justice will argue that service to God entails service to others, but they then proceed to throw God out of the equation while feeding the poor, clothing the naked, visiting the sick, and erasing the unborn. History shows that, when we become so obsessed with helping ourselves and others that we forget God, we end up helping ourselves and others to think we are, in fact, our own gods.

Service without God is self-service; love without God is self-love; justice without God is self-justice. Without God, unity is only separation from God in community. With God, unity is true brotherhood, love, service, and charity. If I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and treat the sick, but I do so in total exclusion of God, am I not merely serving the physical and temporary in exclusion and denial of the spiritual and eternal?

Give a man a fish and he will eat for one day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life. Bring a man closer Christ and you will save his soul for all eternity. What good is unity, if that unity is apart from God? Would you rather go down standing for Christ than save yourself denying and rejecting Him?

Jesus did not come to please everyone, to seek everyone’s approval and acceptance, or to preach a fuzzy, unifying, compromising, diluted, wimpy morality. He knew that He was going to rub many people; often very powerful, influential, and dangerous people, the wrong way. Despite this, He did what He had to do to bring people closer to God, to seek their unity with The Almighty, and not with the prevailing cultural, social, political, and popular views.

Divide and Conquer

This society teaches us to conform, accept, compromise, dilute, not offend, respect, “progress”, and tolerate, but we need to always pass the world’s standards through God’s before we drink the Kool-Aid this society is selling. Ultimately, and increasingly, we will find that our salvation may very well depend on our ability to divide, to separate ourselves, from the flimsy, temporary, superficial obsessions of this world, and to do our best to help others do so as well.

Society likes to depict Christians in general, and traditional Catholics in particular, as spaced out, radical, intolerant, hateful bigots who only like to judge and point fingers at people. Many people call themselves Christian and Catholic who ultimately seek to dilute, rationalize, and distort the core foundations of what following Christ is all about.

Our ability to conquer this society’s morally destructive lies may very well depend on how effectively we can divide and separate ourselves from the grip of those very same lies, and help others gripped in them separate from them as well.

At our final judgment, we will see God Almighty separate and divide the wheat from the chaff. May we all hope and pray that we have realized that dividing and separating ourselves from this world’s obsessions is ultimately the only way that we will be able to conquer death, and find eternal salvation for ourselves and others as well. Seek unity with God before unity with others, and do not be afraid of standing away from the crowd if that away is toward Our Lord.

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21 thoughts on “Unity is Overrated and…Divisive!”

  1. The Only Unity That Matters is Unity with God

    This is actually a divisive statement. The unity that matters is the unity that is shared by clear thinking, rationale and humanistic people who do not give in to nationalism, religious extremism, intolerance and hate. Religious fanatics will never participate in the unity that we need for all of us to get along. Uniting against Islamist extremists is a good place for all of us to start. We don’t want unity with them, nor should we try to achieve it.

    1. Ok. Where to begin. I just clarified my statements by saying that those who truly believe in God and a given faith are not called to be buddies with everyone, including those who do not give a rat’s butt about God. If you believe that the statement you quoted is divisive then, by logic, you are implying that the opposite of that quote, which would be something like “There are other unities that matter as much, if not more, than unity with God” is unifying. However, that would only be unifying to those who agree with you. In other words, what you are really saying here , “I do not agree that God should be what matters most, and you are dividing those who agree with me from those who agree with you.” Guess what, by definition, that is precisely what I am trying to do. If you think that what is divisive to you matters more than whatever I say, then you are the one getting all worked up about what is or is not divisive. The rest of your statement is merely a litany of subjective determinations of whose view matter in your mind. Your “we” implies that you and those who agree with you are what matter, which seems a bit divisive to me as well. The difference, however, is that it does not bother me if you want to distinguish yourself from my view, but just your assumption that your view is sane and mine is not. As you can see, my point is made; expecting unity according to one’s subjective terms is foolish. I do not expect nor do I want unity with anyone who does not put God first. You do expect and want unity in rejection of religious “fanatics” with the purpose of “getting along” on your terms. Who is pushing whose views on whom?

    2. I do not expect nor do I want unity with anyone who does not put God first.

      The notion of there being a deity whom it is more important to treat with love and respect than it is for you to treat, say, me with love and respect is indeed divisive. You owe me more respect than a fictional character from the Bible.

    3. Respect is earned, and you stopped earning it the moment you brushed off my respect for God as some foolish notion. Your last statement is a paradox, because you demand respect with an arrogance that loses it. I will respect your view on this when you respect my right to place God first in my life. I do not go comment on sites which promote ideas and things I do not believe in, so I guess you do not have better things to do.

    4. I will respect your view on this when you respect my right to place God first in my life.

      That seems fair enough. Respect for other people’s religious beliefs, I suppose, would bring more unity among honest, decent people, since many honest, decent people adhere to religious beliefs that encourage honesty and decency.

      However, that unity is threatened by religious fanatics who believe that they know the will of a deity who rules over creation and that theirs is the one true deity and religion.

      We should all agree that such beliefs are divisive and that none of us should act as if ours is the one true god and one true religion.

      The world will be a better place for all of us if we refuse to let our religious beliefs, or the lack thereof, separate us from seeking to achieve what is best for all of us: unity as fellow human beings and harmony in our interactions with one another.

    5. Progressive secular humanism is also a religion with a set of divisive rules and regulations people must live by, and those who do not are pilloried and put into the virtual stocks today (i.e., Paula Deen for using the n-word in private decades ago). Your God is yourself, but it is still a God. In my opinion, the world would be a much better place if politically correct haters such as yourself would acknowledge your own bitter hatred towards anyone who disagrees with you. The fact that you are bashing this writer here over and over and making yourself out to be the person in favor of “harmony” is an irony totally lost on you.

    6. In my opinion, the world would be a much better place if politically correct haters such as yourself would acknowledge your own bitter hatred towards anyone who disagrees with you.

      I don’t hate people. I hate religious ideologies that people accept as enforceable on those who have no religious beliefs or at least not the ones being forced upon them.

    7. Pot meet kettle. Your derisive disrespect of anyone who chooses God first is in itself divisive. Physician, heal thyself.

    8. Wow. Did you just completely miss the point of the article or what? Woosh! That’s the sound of the article flying right over your head.

  2. It’s really simple. Christ called us to be one, and that would be the ideal, but the reality is that when it really matters, on Judgment Day, there will be a division between those who are saved and those who are not. Likewise, Christ made many distinctions between some people and others ( wheat and chaff, true followers and the lukewarm, etc). Christ told those who follow Him to be one with Him, not necessarily one with each other to the exclusion of Him, which is what being perfectly united with many today would entail. As for not following the post, Paul said no divisions among the followers; he was not saying that the followers should, for example, just say the heck with it and join pagans for the sake of unity! You folks are not agreeing with this are focusing on the unity of those who follow Christ, which I have no problem with. What I am saying is that Christ never said we have to be united with those who reject Him since, by its very definition, that would be rejecting Him as well. Here is an analogy; all vegetarians should stick together to fortify their view on diet, but it would be absurd to say that all vegetarians should likewise unite to meat eaters for the sake of unity for to do so would betray the very foundations of what being a vegetarian is all about.

    1. Thank you for elaborating more on this! I understand more of what you’re saying. As a former Protestant, I recall hearing from the pulpit that Christ did not call us to be united. He said there would be division, so it was okay to have multiple churches. We are to be united with God, and the division from the chaff and unsaved is okay. Those type of statements always bothered me, since they did not challenge us to be one. Maybe I was getting distracted by those old sermons, when I was reading your post.

      We should be united and the Holy Spirit provides that unity in The Catholic Church. Even when those around us are uniting with the world, I have great comfort knowing that the communion of saints and baptized Christians are united in my stand against this world. That unity–by the power of the Holy Spirit–strengthens me each day at the Holy Mass. 😀

      Thank you for spending time writing and encouraging us to keep the good fight. Peace to You!

    2. Christ told those who follow Him to be one with Him, not necessarily one with each other to the exclusion of Him, which is what being perfectly united with many today would entail.

      You can either strive for the world to come together as one or for Christians to come together as one and act in opposition to the world coming together as one. We won’t have both unless the whole world becomes Christian. That’s funny because that is similar to what the Islamists are trying to do. They won’t be happy until the whole world is living under sharia law. You’re all a bunch of lunatics. The world never has and never will work that way.

    3. And you won’t be happy until the world is living in some sort of PC socialist (read: communist) utopian (read: dystopian) wonderland and all religion is banished. You are exactly what which you decry – a fundamentalist, intolerant person who wants to push your belief system onto others.

    4. I believe that religion has served an important function in the development of civilization. I just think it is built on false premises.

  3. Yeah, there’s this view, and then there’s what Jesus said in John 17:21 (“that all of them may be one just as I and the Father are one”) and 23 (“that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me”).

  4. I’m not sure I’m following your post. The Church must be one, which is united in Christ. Maybe you are just redefining “unity,” but the traditional sense is united as one. St. Paul urged us not to have divisions among us, and to be of the same mind & united in heart. Christ said there shall be one fold and one shepherd. John 17 says to pray that they may be one, as we are one. St Cyprian told us that through the Trinity and the Church, God’s people are “welded together…into a solid unity of the body.”

    1. No, Phil. That is not humankind’s single unifying factor. We are all human and sharing one planet. That is our single unifying factor.

      Some think we are in the image and likeness of our deity and others don’t. Any religious thoughts about a chosen people, a Heavenly Father, a savior, a prophet, an enlightened one, etc. are divisive, not unifying. We don’t need it. All we need is to be decent to one another.

    2. I would seriously like to be a spiritual fly on the wall and watch your shock when you die and realize you have a soul. You’ll probably be one of those atheists in the NDE stories screaming for Jesus like a kid crying for his mommy.

    3. You will never find out you don’t have a soul. You will just cease to exist when you die, as will the rest of us.

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