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I find myself in two minds about such theological refrains, which flow freely from nearly all denominational headquarters nowadays. I find them encouraging because they voice genuine concerns in meaningful scriptural categories, such as Paul's metaphor of the church as one body consisting of diverse members (1 Cor. 12:12-30). But the excessive reliance on unity-in-diversity-language, indeed the near obsession with it, seems also to conceal an apology for the rampant pluralism and heterodoxy that is sweeping the church.

Such language sometimes leaves me feeling as though I am playing a game of Scrabble in which the object is no longer to spell a word with the various letters in my hand, but rather to gather a hand of disparate letters from which no word could be spelled. Is the object of the game to spell a word, or to celebrate odd letters? What amazed Paul, after all, was not diversity but the mystery that the diverse members formed one body (1 Cor.12:20). The mystery is particularity working toward unity, rather than, as in a prism, a unity being refracted into particularity. We see this mystery described in the prayer group of Acts 13, which was composed of a Cypriot, two persons (probably of color) from North Africa, an aristocrat from the Herodian dynasty, and a Pharisaic Jew. A diverse group of pray-ers, but one prayer. Or, more remarkable yet, the honor roll of 30-plus names at the end of Romans, among which are women, men, slaves, free persons, aristocrats, Jews, Greeks, and Romans. It is a veritable cross-section of the ancient world—wide diversity, yet one church.

How did the early Christians do it? The Book of Acts and the epistles of Paul employ a virtually unknown term that, in my judgment, is a key to understanding the early church's unity in diversity—and to resolving the present challenge of addressing the one hope of salvation in Jesus Christ to all people, irrespective of ethnicity, nationality, color, sex, or ideology. The term, in Greek, is homothumadon.

Homothumadon occurs like a signature refrain in Luke's description of the harmony and unanimity of the early church. Immediately after the ascension of Jesus, Luke describes the 11 disciples and family of Jesus gathered in the Upper Room "with one accord" in prayer (Acts 1:14). Shortly thereafter, the growing Christian community was headquartered in the temple, continuing "with one accord" and sharing common meals in homes (Acts 2:46).

After the arrest and release of Peter and John by the Sanhedrin, believers glorified God "with one accord" (Acts 4:24). Again, after mighty works performed through the hands of the apostles, the fledgling Christian community gathered "with one accord" in Solomon's Portico in the temple (Acts 5:12). We are told that people in Samaria listened "with one accord" to the gospel preached by Philip (Acts 8:6) after the death of Stephen. Finally, after the Council of Jerusalem, Luke writes that the early church was "of one accord" in promulgating the decision of the Council to Gentile believers in the Diaspora (Acts 15:25). Both Luke and Paul employ homothumadon in order to designate the exemplary harmony of the early Christian community.

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August 6 2001, Vol. 45, No. 10