Christ is not and cannot be divided if the church is to stand. Yet upon that single foundation of Christ, a multitude of diverse structures may be constructed.

Paul preferred the beauty and complexity of a choir to the elegance of a solo. He celebrated the diversity he saw in the churches he founded and attended, seeing their differences as potential for greater strength - not weakness. Our own preference today, however, seems to be for creating a cream-of-wheat church. Smooth, bland, tasteless and benign, a cream-of-wheat church slides down easily - but it hardly merits any interest or excitement. We need to reaffirm the power of piquancy, of differences in flavor, texture, spices and savor, that have kept the church a vital body of Christ for the past 2000 years.

A positive image and e…