Multiculturalism, or diversity as it is also known, is all the rage in our contemporary culture. Value is found in almost any and every form of cultural expression. It is loudly touted that this kind of cultural diversity enriches our society. It is vehemently asserted that only a fool, and a bigoted, prejudiced fool at that, would discountenance the benefits of cultural diversity. No matter how pagan or primitive, no matter how racked with superstition and depravity, any culture is to be valued for its contribution to this diversity. The fact that the values of these alternate cultures are often at radical variance with the traditional values of our own culture doesn’t seem to matter and only seems to enhance the appeal of the alternates.

In fact there is generally only one exception to this drive for diversity and to this exaltation of diverse cultures, and that is to cultural expressions of Christianity. Christianity alone is considered outside the pale. Christianity alone is found to have no redeeming value that merits its acceptance in the family of cultures. Christianity alone is exempt from the tolerance that makes it politically incorrect to criticize other cultures. In fact it seems that the Apostles of multiculturalism are prepared to be totally inconsistent in this regard. Why is this? Is it because they have properly realized that Christianity alone is the misfit that will never fit into their scheme of things?

Why is Christianity the lone exception? There are two significant reasons for this. One is that Christianity, Biblical Christianity that is and not some contemporary counterfeit as peddled by the liberal churches, is uncompromisingly against this trend. Christianity claims an exclusiveness that is intolerable to the apostles of multiculturalism. Christianity states that it has the truth and all other religions are false. Christianity teaches that Jesus the Christ is "the Way" and that all other ways lead to perdition. Christianity claims to have an infallible standard of truth, the Scriptures, by which all other religions must be judged.

Secondly, as many such as Rushdoony have said, "culture is religion externalized." And among religions as we have noted above Christianity is unique. Christianity is not only an exclusive religion: Christianity is not only the one true religion: Christianity is a divinely established religion. It is from above. All other religions have one thing in common, they are man made. Therefore ultimately, all other religions are but variant expressions of humanism. Therefore it is easier for them to tolerate one another and accept their mutual cultural expressions.

However, in spite of all that, multiculturalism still doesn’t appear to make sense. Why should a people who have been so successful as the American people adopt such madness. A nation that has come to dominate the entire world economically, politically, militarily and culturally is a strange candidate for multiculturalism. For such a nation to denigrate its own culture and place it on par with cultures that have only produced superstition, ignorance, fatalism, and poverty is indeed strange; strange to the point of madness. After all historically we valued our own culture over all others. Our founding fathers saw it as a blessing of providence that we were a unified people. They saw it as providing a stable foundation for the republic that they established. They rejoiced that we were one people, with a common language, a common history, a common culture, and a common faith. For at the time of the founding of the republic we were overwhelmingly an Anglo-Saxon people, speaking English, with a common tradition of Western civilization and the English common law, and a common faith, Christianity. In fact, at that time, Bancroft tells us that the United States was 98% Protestant and 67% Calvinist. We were one people. Diversity need not apply!

This commitment to national unity over against diversity was reflected in our immigration policies. Initially immigration was generally restricted to such White Anglo-Saxon Protestant nations as England, Scotland, the Netherlands, and Germany etc. Later this was relaxed to allow for immigration from the Catholic nations of Europe. Eventually it was relaxed to allow for immigration from nations practicing non-Christian religions. Unity, not diversity was historically cherished by the leaders of the American nation. [Two significant departures from the generally wise policies of the founding Fathers have come back to haunt America. One was to allow Jewish immigration into a Christian Republic. We have paid a high price for this mistake. The Jewish community in America has in general been extremely liberal, extremely influential, and extremely intent on undermining the Christian character of the American Republic. Hollywood and the media, both significantly influenced by the Jewish community, have been waging war on traditional American culture for decades, and they have been highly successful. The second tragic mistake was the importation of Negro slaves. Much of what is degenerate in American culture can be traced back to its origins in the Negro subculture. Sexual promiscuity, immoral music and dance have come into the main stream from their origins in the Black community. As God warned Israel, allowing subversive, non-Christian cultures in our midst, would turn out to be a curse to us as a nation and truly as thorns in our sides.]  And although I would say nothing to attempt to justify the historic treatment of the American Indian nations, with the long litany of atrocities, injustices, and broken treaties, one thing is clear. Historically Americans were determined to have one culture. And that culture was to be an Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture. They had no intention of seeking to coexist with the cultures of the 500 odd Indian nations that existed at the time of America’s founding. The goal was the civilization and the Christianization of the Indian peoples. 

Why then this drive to diversity. Why a drive that can only end in national suicide. Why promote that which has been the death and destruction of so many nations? Why promote the kind of cultural and ethic strife that has torn apart so many nations from the Balkans to the Orient. After its independence in 1948 India was racked with sectarian strife between Moslems and Hindus that led to the creation of the Pakistani state. Since then Moslem, Hindu, and Sikh have battled for cultural dominance and massacred each other as opportunity presented itself. In the Balkans these age old rivalries have erupted in a series of wars in the last decade. From Northern Ireland with the strife between Irish Catholics and Scotch-Irish Protestants, to Canada with the strife between the Anglo-Protestant provinces and a French-Catholic Quebec, to the Basques Separatist movement in Spain etc., etc., diversity and multiculturalism has been a recipe for national disaster.

Why then promote an agenda that is tantamount to national suicide? The answer lies in the extreme enmity to Christianity and its exclusiveness. At the risk of destroying the nation our leaders are willing to advance any agenda that will undermine and destroy Christianity. For they know that Christianity and multiculturalism cannot coexist. Once it surrenders its exclusiveness Christianity has been destroyed. Then it is as the Scriptures state "salt that has lost its savour" and is only fit to be cast out and trodden underfoot. Only a virulent hatred of Christianity and its exclusive claims can make a nation tread the perilous path of multiculturalism. Surely, as the Scriptures declare, "All they that hate me love death."

For the Scriptures make it abundantly clear that multiculturalism is the death of the faith. For this reason God suspended the normal rules of war that he gave Moses and commanded Joshua to exterminate the Canaanites. For the corrupt and degenerate culture of the Canaan to coexist side by side with the culture established by the Mosaic economy would have been an impossibility. It would have destroyed the latter as God repeatedly warned.

"And the LORD spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; Then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places…But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell." Numbers 33:50-52,55

Israel was commanded to exterminate Canaanite society and destroy all the remnants of this culture. Having been delivered from Egyptian culture, Israel was not to celebrate the diversity that Canaanite, Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite cultures had to offer. The whole ceremonial law had as one of its purposes to maintain the exclusiveness of Israel and preserve her from amalgamation with the surrounding nations. The dietary laws were designed to minimize social intercourse with the heathen. All the requirements with respect to ceremonial cleanliness and all the inconvenient rituals for being cleansed from ceremonial uncleanness were designed to minimize involvement with heathen cultures. Israel was separated from the nations and called to be a holy people consecrated to the worship and service of the true God. Multiculturalism would have been the death knell for such a people. Repeatedly they were warned against intermarriage with the heathen. Constantly they were commanded not adopt the customs and traditions of the pagan and idolatrous nations that surrounded them. They were called of God to be a separate and distinct people, an exclusive people set apart for his special purposes.

And all this is of course also true of the Lord’s people today. We also are called to a separate people. Of us the Apostle Peter says, "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." (1 Peter 2:9). We too are commanded to be separate from the heathen and to us God commands, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." (2 Corinthians 6:14-18). For the Lord’s people today to adopt multiculturalism would be as deadly today as it was for Israel of old.

God condemned the multiculturalism of Ahab when he allowed his wife to place the worship of Baal on a par with worship of Jahweh. Nehemiah rejected the offers of the heathen to build Jerusalem together as a common enterprise, and he rebuked the Israelites who intermarried with the heathen. The former brought Israel under the Lord’s judgment and the latter preserved her from apostasy. These are lessons that we have to continue to bear in mind. Christians in America are paying a high price for having remembered them too late if at all. They are finding out that it is becoming progressively more difficult to function as Christians in a non-Christian culture. They are realizing now how difficult it is to raise up covenant children in the midst of an ungodly culture. Multiculturalism is the death of Christianity, which can only continue to exist in such a society in the catacombs as a persecuted and despised minority. A high price to pay for as a nation for having rejected the truth of God in favor of tolerance, diversity, and acceptance of that which God has rejected. May God forgive us and call us to national repentance for our folly!