One of the things I wonder at in the military is the opportunity I have to join in a Christ-based unity with believers of other backgrounds--whether they be racial or denominational. For example, I currently minister alongside a black, Baptist chaplain (and friend) and now Puerto Rican Methodist chaplain. Both are evangelical believers who desire to see God glorified and preach Christ crucified.
After the service I led this morning, two soldiers--one African and the other Hispanic, came up to me and asked for prayer for a fellow soldier who lost his 21 year old son in a car accident last night. A very diverse group of us gathered together in my office and prayed for this broken dad. In all of these things, I appreciate the foretaste of Heaven, when believers from every tribe and tongue and nation will gather around the throne of Christ.
Of course, we must always beware those false unities made in the name of Christ but really under the banner of compromise and multi-culturalism. The throne of Christ is the orientation point of unity for believers of different backgrounds today, as it will be in eternity. Attempts to coerce such a unity in any other guise, or by watering down one's beliefs, are antithetical to the true unity that comes in Christ.
