The world is becoming more global while at the same time more tribal. Pentecost gives us the key to living in a world that is becoming more different and more alike at the same time.

We live in a time when our horizons are both expanding and contracting. Never before has it been so easy to be in direct contact with people from all over the globe. Uplinks, downlinks, e-mail, tele-conferences, Internet, bulletin boards all these various electronic pit stops (and sometimes potholes) on the information highway offer people the chance to interact and interconnect in a nanosecond. In ways we have yet to comprehend, the "global village" has become a reality right under our noses and right at our fingertips.

But instead of one global village, we have created a host of distinct and almost self-…