Entropy and Unity
Creating community is difficult. It becomes more difficult when you have people from opposing view points or with different end goals. That is the predicament Hong Kong found itself in for decades. There were the native Chinese people who came to Hong Kong for a living but were still committed to their communities on the mainland. There were the British government officials who were there for the sense of duty they felt to the nation. Also there were the British expatriates there because it was an English speaking outpost in the far east. Lastly, there were the immigrants from other places in the far east looking for a living, but similarly to the native Chinese they were committed to their communities in their native lands. For the majority of the British occupation of Hong Kong this situation worked out because there was not a reason for a unified community on the island. Then the communist revolution happened on the mainland and suddenly those living in Hong Kong had a reason to unify.1
The lack of a unifying force has a unique capability of preventing people from desiring unity. So long as there is nothing there either encouraging or forcing people to unify they generally will not. Humanity’s desire to subdivide and categorize each other into competing groups is truly astounding. From the somewhat benign United versus City to the truly horrific in ethno-nationalism and ethnic cleansing, as humans we want to find a reason to not be unified.
That being said, this is a two sided coin, with that division also comes the unity of us against them. It almost seems that humans choose to divide themselves in order to find where they belong and what group they can cling to with the least amount of work. There is a whole theory of church growth based upon this very principle. The idea being that churches will grow faster if they are made up of “homogeneous units”.2 The line of thought goes on to say that the church universal will be better served by a plethora of homogeneous churches rather than heterogeneous churches. While the creator of this theory is not wrong in his assumptions about human nature there is some push back now that theologically the theory is not helpful to the process of building unity within the church universal and also contributes to wrong attitudes about those not part of the homogeneous unit.3
Back to Hong Kong, even after the catalyst of the communist revolution on the mainland it still took some time to start moving toward a culture that was unique to Hong Kong. It would not be until a full generation had grown up in Hong Kong, economic conditions had improved, and the colonial government had started offering public education that the uniquily Hong Kong culture started to emerge.4 These uniting forces, though disparate, were enough to help the people of Hong Kong to see themselves as somehow different than the people living on the mainland in the PRC. That a large part of the population does not want to be reunited with the Republic of China5 twenty years after the handover of Hong Kong to China is perhaps proof enough that the work of unifying the culture during the later years of British rule was successful.
I am not sure if there is a way around humanity’s desire to group and divide, but knowing that it exists is important and as G. I. Joe use to say “knowing is half the battle.”6 The knowledge of this natural entropy away from difference and toward sameness is a key point of leadership I think. If a leader knows where the dividing lines will likely be drawn they can work towards strengthening unity at those points rather than impotently letting division happen.
When our middle child came to live with us he was an ideal child. He was polite and trustworthy. He did well at school and did his homework without any trouble. About a month before we adopted him we let him know it was going to happen. From that point his behavior started to decline ever so slowly. On adoption day, a day that should have been a joyous for him, he was in a sour mood and he let us know exactly how much he did not want to be part of our family. The next couple of months were a struggle with regular outbursts of rebellious behavior and/or rage. More than once I had to pin him to the ground to prevent him from hurting himself or others. We found him a therapist as soon as we could. She quickly found out that he was convinced that if he was bad enough we would give him back. We could not understand why he would want to be put back in the system. His therapist explained that at a certain point the only thing he could count on was chaos. In adopting him we had removed that chaos and he was trying to get it back. She explained to him in no uncertain terms that it was not possible for us to give him back and that he needed to learn to trust us. Since then his behavior has greatly improved, not to that ‘ideal’ child state because he has decided he hates school, but close. He is learning to trust us and our unity as a family has grown as a result.
Building unity is never easy, whether it is a family or a city-state. Knowing that difficulties will arise and how to deal with them is a key to success.
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1. Tsang, Steve Yui-Sang. A Modern History of Hong Kong. I.B. Tauris, 2011. 180.
2. McGavran, Donald A. Understanding Church Growth. Irving, TX: ICI University Press, 1996. x.
3. Hyatt, Erik. “Missions Sunday: From Homogeneous to a Heterogeneous Unit Principle.” Christian History | Learn the History of Christianity & the Church. Accessed September 12, 2018. https://www.christianitytoday.com/edstetzer/2017/january/from-homogeneous-to-heterogeneous-unit-principle.html.
4. Tsang. 182.
5. Phillips, Tom. “’We Wanted Democracy’: Is Hong Kong’s Two-Systems Experiment over?” The Guardian. Last modified June 30, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/30/we-wanted-democracy-after-20-years-of-chinese-rule-is-hong-kongs-dream-over.
6. “G.I. Joe.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Aug. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Joe#Television.
About the Author
Sean Dean
An expat of the great state of Maine where the lobster is cheap and the winters are brutal I've settled in as a web developer in Tacoma, Washington. As a foster-adoptive parent of 3 beautiful boys, I have deep questions about the American church's response to the public health crisis that is our foster system.3 responses to “Entropy and Unity”
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First thanks for sharing such a compelling and personal story it brought your already great post to life at a different level for me.
It is truly amazing how human nature tends to bend toward the arch of division rather than unity, but it brings the prayer of Jesus for unity all the more into focus for the church and as you pointed out for leaders.
I had not heard of the attentional church growth strategy of homogenous but in a “let’s grow as big and as fast as we can” mindset it makes sense. In saying that to me it does not look like the church, the Bible paints a picture of which is heterogeneous. Diversity does not mean division but in fact is always apart of the fabric of unity. As you made the right move in taking your son to a therapist, maybe more appointments with the Holy Spirit (Counselor, John 14:24-26) is what we in the church need.
Your comment about the different models of church growth as it relates to the issues of homogeneity and heterogeneity are interesting. On the one had I do see that homogeneity in culture is ideal. I suspect that was the case before the incident at the Tower of Babel. God’s people disobeyed him and confused their languages which resulted in heterogeneity in cultures. I’ve often tried to dichotomize this. Was is good, was it bad?
God’s ways are mysterious, to state the obvious, but I’ve learned to frame a lot God’s work in the work in terms of the idea of redemption. I believe, all the evil and brokenness in our lives and in the lives of others ultimately serve one purpose: to teach us to be better citizens in the new heaven and new earth where we will collectively (Rev. 7:9) praise and worship God. Perhaps that’s when we finally get a glimpse of the true nature of what it means to be human.
Sean,
Thanks for your post and thanks for connecting it with your own personal experience. In your view, what would unity look like in Hong Kong since it is not sovereign and independent of the PRC? “If a leader knows where the dividing lines will likely be drawn they can work towards strengthening unity at those points rather than impotently letting division happen.” Pragmatically, what would this look like within a diverse community whether in a church or in a municipality?
Thanks again for your unique perspectives, H