Kurt Vonnegut wrote a short story in 1961 called "Harrison Bergeron." The story portrays a dystopian, futuristic world in which everyone is forced to be equal by the government. Strong people must wear weights tied to their body. Smart people must wear an ear piece that makes loud noises in their ears every so often to confuse them. Beautiful people are forced to wear masks.
The goal is to make sure that no one's feelings get hurt when someone turns out to have an unfair natural advantage. Everyone is equal, and everyone is mediocre. The result is that the talent, intelligence, and beauty are suppressed. The things that we most value are eliminated so that no one's feelings will get hurt.
The Apostle Paul says that God gives different spiritual gifts (advantages) to different people. His goal is not that we would all be the same, but rather that He would shine through us in different ways. As a result of these diverse gifts, the church is edified and a lost world is reached with the Gospel. Rather than being jealous, we should celebrate one another's gifts, because their variety is part of the beauty of God's creation.
"If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body" (1 Corinthians 12:17-19).
During the Reconstruction Era following the Civil War, newly freed slaves faced the inconsistencies of their new “freedom” juxtaposed against the many new laws enacted, primarily in the southern states to keep them, quite literally, in their place. Jim Crow Laws, as they’ve come to be known, took their name from a minstrel song of the 1830s in which the character was named Jim Crow. The character came to be associated as the archetypical black slave.
Jim Crow Laws were a series of legislative mandates that assured blacks and whites “separate” places in society. From separate restrooms and rail cars, to separate water fountains and park benches. The laws were cemented under the banner of the 1896 US Supreme Court ruling in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson declaring the rights of blacks and whites to be “separate but equal.”
In a country founded on staunchly Judeo-Christian beliefs and ethics, it is all but unbelievable that such laws (in fact slavery itself) could have ever been tolerated. Scripture is clear on the point. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). In the High Priestly Prayer of Christ, Jesus Himself prayed, “Father, protect them by the power of your name--the name you gave me--so that they may be one as we are one” (John 17:11).
In God’s economy, there is no such thing as “separate but equal.” There is only equal!