Diverse in Culture, Nation, Race

The County Ecumenical Officer reflects on a hymn about human difference, reconciliation and belonging, and why its words speak so powerfully to the search for Christian unity

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At the Vigil Mass this week, we sang Diverse in Culture, Nation, Race, written by the American theologian and hymn writer Ruth C. Duck in 1991 and sung to the familiar TALLIS’ CANON. As we sang, I found myself thinking about its words from the perspective of Christian unity. The hymn, of course, is not specifically about ecumenism as its vision is much wider, embracing human difference, reconciliation, justice and belonging. Nevertheless, several of its images struck me as speaking particularly powerfully to the ecumenical journey., 

The hymn begins with difference. People diverse in culture, nation and race come together by God’s grace. Then comes its first image: the prayer that we might become a “meeting ground” where hope and healing love can be found.

Diverse in culture, nation, race,
we come together by Your grace.
God, let us be a meeting ground
where hope and healing love are found.

That prayer really stayed with me because, from my experience, ecumenism begins with meeting. For me, Duck’s choice of the words “meeting ground” suggests something more than simply being in the same place. A meeting ground has to be made and maintained: somewhere people can come without first requiring the other to become like them. Her next words deepen the image. This is to be a place where “hope and healing love are found.” From the perspective of Christian unity, that really matters, because our encounters should not simply make us better informed about one another; they should change the quality of our relationship.

There is an interesting philosophical parallel here. The Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor argues that human identity is fundamentally dialogical: we come to understand ourselves through our relationships and exchanges with others. As he puts it, “My own identity crucially depends on my dialogical relations with others” (Taylor, 1994, p. 34). Recognition of another person, therefore, does not require us to erase what is distinctive about either of us.

Indeed, the purpose of Christian unity is not the creation of a Church in which everybody becomes the same. Pope Francis repeatedly made this distinction. Speaking specifically about the ecumenical journey, he described the unity towards which the Holy Spirit leads Christians as “true unity, which is not uniformity.”

Duck's hymn then moves from a meeting ground to a “bridge of care”. I find that progression particularly interesting. A meeting ground brings people together; a bridge acknowledges that there is still a distance to be crossed. Duck is also quite unsentimental about what can create that distance. She names “fear and hate” and the “lust for power that separate.” 

God, let us be a bridge of care
connecting people everywhere.
Help us confront all fear and hate
and lust for power that separate. 

Her concern here is much wider than relations between Christians, but Christians cannot assume that our relationships with one another have been untouched by these things. Our divisions have their theological dimensions, but their histories have also involved power, suspicion, rivalry and, yes at times, hostility.

A bridge requires us to cross some of that distance. Ecumenism asks us not merely to observe another Christian tradition from our own side, but to encounter it seriously enough to understand something of how Christian faith looks from there. 

The philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre provides a helpful way of thinking about this. Genuine engagement with another tradition requires us to learn something of its language and reasoning from within, rather than judging it only by the standards of our own (MacIntyre, 1988). Crucially, that does not require us to abandon our own tradition or convictions. We cross the bridge not because differences do not matter, but because understanding them properly sometimes requires us to see, at least for a while, from the other side.

Duck’s image of the bridge also got me thinking beyond relationships between our different traditions. Christian unity is surely part of our witness to the world. We live at a time when division and polarisation have become increasingly prominent in public life. We all recognise this: political disagreement quickly becomes personal hostility; questions of nationality, migration, culture and identity separate people into opposing camps; and social media rewards outrage rather than understanding. In such a climate, Christians crossing boundaries, remaining in relationship despite disagreement, and recognising one another as brothers and sisters in Christ are a visible sign that difference need not end in division and conflict.

That does not mean Christians will agree about everything. We clearly do not and, I strongly suspect, never will. Perhaps precisely for that reason our unity matters. If Christians can demonstrate that deep conviction and genuine difference need not end in hostility, our life together says something important to a fractured society. Jesus’ prayer “that they may all be one” is inseparable from his words which follow: “so that the world may believe” (John 17:21). Christian unity has a missionary dimension. The way Christians relate to one another is part of what the world sees of the Gospel we proclaim.

The third verse takes us somewhere more demanding. When “chasms widen” and “storms arise”, Duck turns explicitly to the Holy Spirit and then to solidarity: the resolve “to stand with those who suffer wrong.”

When chasms widen, storms arise,
O Holy Spirit, make us wise.
Let our resolve, like steel, be strong
to stand with those who suffer wrong.

That is an important movement in the hymn. Meeting and bridge-building cannot become comfortable ends in themselves. Reconciliation has consequences. It should change where we stand and how we respond when the dignity of others is threatened.

For all our traditions, this ought to prevent ecumenism becoming an inward-looking project concerned principally with relations between ourselves. Christian unity also finds expression in common witness and common service. Across Norfolk and Waveney, much of our ecumenical life already takes precisely this form. When Christians discover that they can serve their neighbour more faithfully together than separately, it is an important expression of our growing communion. It also makes that communion visible. A society accustomed to seeing people retreat into competing identities can instead see Christians crossing boundaries in order to stand alongside others.

Duck then gives us her final image: the table. It is a table spread with gifts of love and broken bread. It is a place where people find welcome and grace, and where something extraordinary becomes possible: “enemies arise as friends.”

God, let us be a table spread
with gifts of love and broken bread,
where all find welcome, grace attends,
and enemies arise as friends.

For someone thinking about Christian unity, that is perhaps the most challenging image in the hymn. The table lies at the heart of Christian life, and it is also where the continuing reality of Christian division becomes particularly visible. Christians who can pray together, read Scripture together, work together and recognise one another as brothers and sisters in Christ cannot always gather together around the Eucharistic table.

We should neither disguise that wound nor allow it to obscure how much communion already exists between us. Indeed, perhaps the pain of what we cannot yet fully share should make us value more deeply what we already receive from one another and strengthen our desire for the unity for which Christ prayed.

Looking back over the hymn, I am truly amazed by just how much meaning and relevance Ruth Duck manages to convey in it. The movement from meeting ground, to bridge, to standing alongside those who suffer, and finally to the table offers a remarkably rich picture of what Christian reconciliation involves.

Duck may not have written Diverse in Culture, Nation, Race as a hymn specifically about ecumenism. Its vision is much wider, addressing human difference, injustice, reconciliation and our life together. Perhaps, however, it is precisely that breadth which explains why, singing it at Mass, I found myself hearing so much in those four short verses about the continuing search for Christian unity.

You know, there are moments in worship when familiar words seem to speak to us afresh. This was one of those moments for me. I felt unexpectedly moved by the hymn and truly conscious of the Holy Spirit at work, drawing my attention again to the unity for which Christ prayed. I left Mass genuinely grateful for those four short verses, and with a renewed and energised sense of why the search for Christian unity matters.

References
Duck, R. C. (1991), ‘Diverse in Culture, Nation, Race’. Chicago: GIA Publications, Inc.
John 17:20–23
MacIntyre, A. (1988), Whose Justice? Which Rationality? London: Duckworth.
Taylor, C. (1994), ‘The Politics of Recognition’, in A. Gutmann (ed.), Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, pp. 25–73.

Concept, article and image by Dr Ian Watson, County Ecumenical Officer for Norfolk and Waveney. He writes regular reflections exploring Christian unity, ecumenical encounter and the life of the Churches across Norfolk and Waveney.

 

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