Is not uniformity lovely?

Recently I took an online course on Isaac Penington’s 1660 essay on religious toleration.  Towards the end of the essay he posits an objection from an imaginary critic:

But is not uniformity lovely; and doth not the apostle exhort Christians to be of one mind?

Penington answers:

Yea, uniformity is very lovely; and to be desired and waited for, as the Spirit of the Lord, which is one, leads and draws into one.  But for the fleshly part to strive to bring about fleshly uniformity, this is not lovely, nor spiritual, nor Christian.

The online teacher asked,  “In response to this objection, Penington suggests that the unity we are looking for is an internal unity, of all of us listening to the Spirit, the ‘pure’, the inner teacher, not in outward practices.  Have you had an experience of feeling that internal unity despite outward disagreements?”

Here is my first response:

I had that experience this Sunday morning.  Before regular worship, we had worship-sharing on one of the new NEYM Queries: “How does your faith relate to the Christian heritage of the Religious Society of Friends?”  We began with some very centered worship.  When Friends spoke, responses ranged from one person whose basic answer was "Not at all" through a wide spectrum, to perhaps the opposite end, one who spoke of Christ as "My Lord."  Throughout there was a sense of deep listening, trustful honest speaking, and a total lack of contention.  After everyone who wished had spoken, we sat together in silence a while more; it was so deep we were all reluctant to move on to the next thing.  Waiting outside the bathroom in the interval, an elder Friend who was leaving muttered to me, “I think I've had a spiritual overload.”  I have sometimes felt that way after gathered worship.  The regular meeting for worship was also very centered; there was not much vocal ministry and there was a clear sense of being gathered — not by our very different ways of thinking and speaking, but by That Beyond all Words which gathers us in love.

Later on, I posted another response:

“Is not uniformity lovely? ...”  “Yea, uniformity is very lovely.”

Hell no, Isaac!  You know damn well it isn't lovely.  Unity is lovely. Uniformity is always fleshly.  You sad it yourself a few paragraphs ago:  “how sweet and pleasant it is to the truly spiritual eye, to see several sorts of believers ... every one learning their own lesson, performing their own peculiar service, and knowing, owning and loving one another in their several places and different performances to their Master.”

Humanity plants flowers in rows, all the same kind, color, stage of maturity, etc.  God's gardens are messy, full of incredible variety, with weeds and decay mixed in among astonishingly beautiful flowers.  God created (still creates) incredible diversity, both now and in the millions of years before us.  God's ways are not our ways, and even in the snowflakes there is no uniformity.  Our desire to sit comfortably with people who look like us and think like us and act like us is natural, it's part of our human limitations, but it's not lovely.  What is lovely is the diversity God creates, in all its intermixing, chaotic multiplicity.  Uniformity is spiritually stultifying.  When we run into ideas or customs very different from our own, we should sing praises and thanksgivings to God, then humbly try to open our minds a little broader to something new.

P.S.

The course was offered by Quaker Studies, a program of Beacon Hill Friends House and Salem Quarterly Meeting of New England Yearly Meeting.

www.bhfh.org/qsp

The Penington essay on toleration is the last part of a long pamphlet which he wrote in response to the Boston law which banished Quakers on pain of death.

www.qhpress.org/texts/penington/boston.html#page377