A dated quote (25 June 2007, find the entire article here) from City Journal reads:
Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, is very nervous about releasing his new research, and understandably so. His five-year study shows that immigration and ethnic diversity have a devastating short- and medium-term influence on the social capital, fabric of associations, trust, and neighborliness that create and sustain communities.
SHAT! You mean all of our churches have been climbing the “diversity” ladder only to find out that it is leaning against the wrong wall? Not quite. The article goes on to say that Putnam “finds that in the long run, people do forge new communities and new ties.” In the mean time, in between time (sorry I had to throw that in there), diversity stresses the cohesiveness of our communities because people tend to withdraw into homogeneous groups. His study finds that even within homogeneous groups, trust and reciprocity decrease in the face of a broader diversity in the group’s social environment.
Putnam published his findings in the June 2007 issue of the Scandinavian Political Studies. I hope that we can expect more from Putnam on this research project in the future. As for now, I haven’t seen any evidence of further published works on this issue from him.
So what? That means that our country needs bridging institutions to stand in the gaps between the “old we” and the “new we”. If you haven’t already said to yourself, “Sounds like an opportunity for the church.”, then you haven’t had enough coffee yet today. Wake up! For the rest of you who got it, WOW! That means your efforts to bring different kinds of people together under the banner of Jesus the King matters to our country and its future. In fact, ethnic diversity is on the rise globally because of immigration patterns worldwide. The Kingdom of God pictures we take from scriptures like Rev. 7:9 are inspiring enough, but the world needs institutions like our churches (and neighborhood groups, and bowling leagues, and poker clubs, etc.) to be places where a new consensus of American culture can be formed in the midst of increasing social diversity. That’s exciting to me. It gives our diversity efforts a “Kingdom now” mission to complement its “Kingdom come” vision.
So keep at it. Resist the inclination to ‘hunker down’, and get out there. For my white friends, resist the urge to unnaturally impose the WASP cultural norms on the new consensus of the cultural “we” (I can speak to you as someone who, myself being WASP, must heed that warning as well). Allow the creative and cultural richness of a diverse community to enrich your life. Experience differences and forge new cultural agreements. Encourage your churches and civic groups to be safe places for cultural experiments and interactions.