Elusive: Exposing the Mythology of ‘Multiculturalism’

The greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings.”

From "Elusive: Exposing the Mythology of ‘Multiculturalism’' by The editors at the Family Security Foundation, posted 8/8/07

“What happens when a liberal scholar unearths an “inconvenient truth”? This is the conundrum explored by the Boston Globe in a commentary that reveals the downside of “diversity” as reported by – amazingly enough – liberal scholar and Harvard political scientist, Robert Putnam.

Professor Putnam became well known when he published “Bowling Alone” in 2000, which revealed that there has been a decline in civic engagement in America over the past several decades. Possibly prompted by the results of his earlier study, Putnam conducted a massive new research project designed to discover whether or not the cherished “ethnic diversity” and “multiculturalism” beliefs of left wing ideologues hold true.

After interviewing approximately 30,000 participants in a wide-ranging survey, his results unmistakably fly in the face of one of the main tenets of secular liberal dogma. Professor Putnam’s study is the largest one ever carried out on the topic of civic engagement. Its conclusions indicate that the more diverse a community is, the lower the level of civic engagement and shared sense of community cohesiveness.

Michael Jonas writes in his Boston Globe report: “The greater the diversity in a community, the fewer people vote and the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and work on community projects. In the most diverse communities, neighbors trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogenous settings.”

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Only a liberal college professor would be surprised by this.

The logical question is: given what we now know about the effect on our society, should we really make multiculturalism a goal?

And now, a not so surprising observation, from a Breakpoint column by Chuck Colson:

Putnam wrote that "in many large evangelical congregations . . . the participants constituted the largest thoroughly integrated gatherings we have ever witnessed." Putnam observed that "for part of the week, there is some identity that is more important to them than their ethnic identity . . ." In these churches, people are not "hunkered down" but are "quite comfortable around each other."

Of course, that's because underlying all the racial and ethnic diversity is their essential unity in Christ. This is why Christians can acknowledge and even celebrate the diversity within their churches without fear of "hunkering down"—the person sitting next to you may be different from you in many ways, but he is the same where it counts.

Our politically correct postmodern notions of "diversity" can't offer that assurance, since they deny things like universal truth. So when your neighbors are concerned about a problem like this, tell them where they can come to find the right balance: Join you in church.