Monday, February 18, 2013

Welcoming diversity, maintaining identity

In her Friends Journal article Diversity and Unity in the Religious Society of Friends, Lynn Fitz-Hugh writes, " I do not feel that being welcome means that one gets to change the nature of Quakerism. I do not expect that a welcome guest in my home may move the furniture around. Even though I do not identify as Christian, I do not get to change Quakerism from being a Christian religion."

I agree with that.

As different cultures meet, they will change each other.  As individuals meet, they change each other.  That is the nature of things, it's inevitable.  But it's also the nature of things they were are not all one uniform blob.  That cultures and individuals have differences from each other. I think sometimes people take it too far, promoting diversity in a way that implies it's not okay to maintain your own identity.

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