The arc of God’s redemptive energy within creation is directed toward the reuniting of all things. His divine work is generative oneness and unity, harmony, and peace. This is no goal outside of God, but rather the realization of God’s own nature of oneness eventually being expressed in everything. What was created “out from God” is destined to return to be “in God.”
He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He set forth in Him,regarding His plan of the fullness of the times, to bring all things together in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. Ephesians 1:9-10
The destructive energy of evil, the corruption of what is good, and all forces that work in opposition to God are directed fundamentally at division, separation, fragmentation, and disunity. Human tribalism is what results when pride and ambition displace God, the source of all union, as portrayed in the Tower of Babel story.
The forces at work in society right now, of separation, division, party loyalty, ideological conflict, the demonization of those unlike ourselves, and every dehumanizing portrayal of other groups of people, are the antithesis of God’s salvation. We need to recognize them as such.
There is no Jesus-honoring way to view others as less than ourselves, to justify for any reason their inhumane treatment, or to believe that we have no common bond in God with all. There is one human family, brought to be by God with astonishing diversity, and yet fundamental oneness. We have one Father. Paul is unambiguous.
For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. Ephesians 3:15
He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation. Acts 17:26
We must consider that, perhaps unaware, we may hold tribal perspectives. Those divisions may be along various social differences, including race, sex, class, age, national origin, religious affiliation, and many other distinctives. But all such differences are irrelevant in light of our shared humanity from the Fatherhood of God. We are one humanity.
God’s love for the whole world, Christ’s death for all, and our ministry of reconciliation, which is the proclamation of God’s bringing everything together in Christ through his cross of self-offering love, makes it impossible to accept or foster any tribalism. Christians are those who see an innate oneness of all humanity through our bearing the image of God, despite any and all historical, cultural, social factors or differences of belief.
The ways we differ, which can be significant, are temporal and transitory, but the image of God is eternal. Christians are those for whom God, and God’s presence in our neighbor, supersedes infinitely whatever earthly dissimilarity there may be between ourselves and our neighbors.