The Church is the best place to create unity.

So if you consider me your partner, receive him as you would receive me.

Philemon 17

This may be one of the most shocking commands in all of the New Testament. Paul upset societal structure with the request to Philemon. He asked his Christian brother to receive back a runaway household slave who probably had pilfered from his master, and to accept him not only as a new believer in Christ, but also with the same grace and hospitality that Philemon would have given to the apostle Paul himself. Paul just placed himself, a Roman citizen by birth, on equal standing with a criminal slave. All is pardoned by Jesus! All people are equal in the fellowship of the church of Jesus Christ when they have believed the gospel. We must recognize and celebrate this in every brother and sister in our fellowship. All of us are equally forgiven at the cross and we forgive one another with that same standard when wronged.

Now is a great cultural moment for the church to be shockingly unbiased. The world wants to corner the market on equality, but they have no holy work preceding their call to change. The result is that we can’t really be equipped to love one another by the social justice movement. Sinners just can’t really do that. The selfishness of sin even corrupts the noble call to unity, equality, and inclusivity, turning it into  another kind of violence and disagreement. This winds up creating further judgmentalism.

Yes, the church has a long way to go still in repenting of sinful discriminations. But we do have the power to change for three very exclusive reasons; 1) Jesus forgives us and we are clothed with His righteousness. We can thus repent of our prejudices and receive all people through Christ. 2) We have the weight of repeated scriptural teachings that call us to love God, love our neighbors, and love one another in holiness and with balance. We CAN do this! 3) Christians are indwelt by God’s Holy Spirit. He can provide the strength and power to receive one another when a sinful world can offer only a system that leads to judgmentalism, anger, and platitudes without power.