Unity Around What?

A Nation Cannot Unite Around Comfort Alone

In Australia, there have been numerous calls of late for increased unity. Those calls are very apt given the tensions that have been expressed over various issues that have arisen in our nation.

But that begs the question – unity around what? Are we a nation that is still under the blessing and authority of the Creator, as explained in the preamble to our Australian Constitution? It notes there that the people gathered “humbly relying on the blessing of the Almighty God.”

But what does that mean? What actually helps build community in different contexts? Those involved in researching this question through Community Psychology have spent much time trying to define what is essential in building a sense of community. The classic core elements have included mutual membership, influence, and need fulfilment that can lead to shared emotional commitment.

Is this what it means to build unity in Australia? What kind of mutual influence encourages people to contribute to this society? For example, how does a multicultural and multifaith society meet so many diverse needs? And how is appreciation for everyone expressed through the subgroups in our nation?

A number of social historians have identified only one kind of membership that can truly cut across these kinds of social categories. It is well summarised by the short statement, “Belonging by grace, not by race.” Or, in more contemporary parlance, “Belonging by grace, not by identity group”.

That is, only within societies that allow Christian influence, are judgmental categories of heritage, social status, monetary influence and innate capacities overcome. From the Old Testament to the New, those who desired to live as the Creator made them to live were treated as part of the family of God – no fear of man, no favour due to social standing.

I see this around the world. Whether in Africa, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong or Europe – I see deep acceptance and communion¹ when people meet under grace. But what do we suggest is the glue that holds Australians together? The closest I can find is the Australian Values Statement. Visa applicants must sign it, and it is reinforced at citizenship ceremonies. The statement looks like an honourable declaration of respecting people’s freedoms, dignity, religion, and the rule of law equally applied and accepted by all, while offering compassion to the needy, equality of opportunity and an effort to learn the English language.

While this is a noble list that indeed can invite and encourage civility, it is technically focussed on the middle two elements of sense of community – that of mutual influence and mutual needs. There is a lack of depth of vision beyond the pragmatics of living together. This can too often lead to a shallowness in commitment to each other, because there are undercurrents of belonging to other communities. Those deeper associations are where identity is forged, and thus where the most meaningful shared emotional connections are experienced.

For example, we live in a country with outstanding physical features. There is abundant wealth (when managed properly). There is (relatively) little direct corruption within public officialdom. There are ballooning welfare and health systems and many different modes of educational opportunities (elements within some of these structures might struggle from time to time, but they are still superior to most of the rest of the world).

So, in Australia, it seems that the deepest level of our membership seems to be that we can be comfortable together. But a membership around the striving for comfort does not transcend the more basic identity groups – it simply conflates the means and ends. That is, our means is being comfortable together, and that becomes our end.

In our current context, it is our emotivist and therapeutic lenses that means we put our faith in our self-help desires that we hope will lead towards self-achievement for self-comfort. If we have some company on the way, like a forgiving family, that is a bonus.

But what is the calling to our humanity beyond all of this? Do we have anything like the calling that the Jewish people cling to, that holds them together and teaches them to be committed to ‘presenting the light’ in the face of horror and evil? One recent outstanding example of this is the 14-year-old teenager, Chaya, who appealed for us all to “listen harder” and look for that light, after she had covered two young children with her body amidst the shooting and deaths at Bondi. She took a bullet because she was called to the task as a member of a called people. She extended that invitation to us all during the remembrance service at the Opera House.

Compare that to the comments from some of our leaders. From them, we have calls to ‘tone it down’ and to ‘keep the temperature cooler.’ Such public platitudes are empty, hollow and utterly unsatisfactory in the face of the rage and anger that wants revenge in our community because of competing belongingness. It is the kind of revenge that is aimed at the perceived offences of others who are guilty because of the identity that they carry. It was that kind of self-righteous revenge that led to the shooting of others.

Other leaders also talk in terms of social cohesion. Yet that cannot happen without shared emotional commitment. And such commitment is experienced through knowing what is good and right (within mutual influence) and being proactive in helping each other (within mutual need fulfilment). But none of that happens without a transcendent calling – a membership that reminds us that we are more than higher order animals demonstrating that the fittest survive. Animals do not extend grace. That is only a human possibility.

And it is only a possibility when people see the Creator for who He is, and accept His righteousness and mercy, through grace. Thus, when the apostle Paul cried out, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?”² [ii] he found that the answer, of course, was transcendent – i.e. deliverance comes through the Word above all other words. That Word is He who can hold us together across all other former belongings that we have carried in this world.

Oh, that more of our leaders may also call out and find that answer, so that the welfare of our cities might be good, so that we can live more freely to do good before our Creator because of his mercy.

1. “communion = community in union”

2. Romans 7:24