Campus CrossWalk Magazine: 2006 Spring Issue -- E Pluribus Unum

On the back of every quarter, we find a call to national unity: “E Pluribus Unum” It means “Out of Many; One.” This affirms individual diversity while exalting our common values as Americans.

This motto may have been inspired by an ancient Latin poem titled Moretum about cheese, garlic and herbs, blended into one color. Augustine’s Confessions (AD 397) also used this phrase to describe the friendship bond. In 1776, "E Pluribus Unum" was offered by the first Great Seal Committee as our national motto. Charles Thomson finalized a design in 1782 with that motto written on a scroll carried in the beak of the American eagle to signify the union of the thirteen states.

An act of Congress in 1956, signed by President Eisenhower, officially changed our national motto from “E pluribus Unum” to “In God We Trust."

Unity has long been an America passion. Many corporations contain words like “united” or “consolidated” in their names because they know that working together is essential to success. The very name of our nation (the United States) also highlights our passion for unity amid diversity. We even fought a costly Civil War, at least in part, for the sake of unity.

In 1994, Vice President Al Gore turned our old motto up-side-down in a speech to the Institute of World Affairs. He was pushing a multicultural model for America when he claimed that “E Pluribus Unum” meant "Out of One, Many."

Oops!

Some might also say our churches in America have gotten it backwards. What God made as one, we made into many. America has seen many spiritual leaders who never stopped building, reforming, refining and in some cases, splitting. Despite countless unity movements (or perhaps because of them), America is a very mixed bag, culturally, politically and spiritually.

On the surface, this worries many idealistic believers. For example, America's religious diversity around 1820 deeply disturbed an idealistic fourteen-year-old boy in New York state who could not choose between all the different church options. So God the Father and Jesus His Son, allegedly appeared to this teenager to tell him not to join any of them. According to those heavenly personages, not one church or denomination was right. So young Joseph Smith started his own movement with some controversial new twists in doctrine and family structure. Ultimately, his complaints over Christian disunity did not stop Smith from fracturing us further.

Smith's problem was that he could see no good at all in the churches around him. Such blind idealism is not healthy. I wish Smith could have read Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the great German pastor and patriot of the 20th century who knew how dreams for unity could spoil the real thing. He wrote:

: “He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions my be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, p. 27.

Some religious idealists love their dream of unity more than they love real people in real churches. Since real people can never live up to our dreams, we begin to see them as impediments to the ideal. And idealism always feels justified in criticizing others in theory rather than loving them in practice. It’s like being in love with love, rather than a person.

Bonhoeffer continued; “Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.”

How much better to call for participation than for dreaming? If only young Joseph Smith had been more willing to work with flawed churches in reality than dream of perfect unity while walking in the woods.

America's religious diversity does not bother me as much as it used to. I know God can use even our conflicts to purify and strengthen His church even through our tears and disappointments. Today, my trust in God (i.e. our current national motto) trumps my anxiety over the diversity that comes with freedom. God may not need as much visible and structural uniformity as we think we do from here on the ground in order to see true unity of the Spirit in His people.

If Joseph Smith had opened his eyes to the vast common spiritual ground that the diverse churches of his day really shared instead of focusing on the surface differences, he might not have told his story about God Almighty and Jesus Christ appearing in the woods telling him to shun every Christian church on earth.

“E Pluribus Unum” was an American motto meant to affirm individual diversity while exalting our common values. We need such an affirmation again today in our churches and our nation.

Joel Mark Solliday , B.A., M.Div., is the editor of Campus CrossWalk and the pulpit minister of the Northern Light Church of Christ in Minnesota. A Pepperdine graduate, he later worked in their Campus Life Office. He served as a Missionary in Residence at ACU. He earned his M.Div. at Fuller Theological Seminary. His wife Katie is a fine school teacher and a great listener.