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Good morning. The EU election results suggest widening political divisions across Europe. I’ve been reflecting on this in the light of two biblical narratives. The story of the tower of Babel in Genesis tells of how, as a common people who all spoke the same language, our mythical ancestors feared being scattered as they spread across the earth. They decided to make a name for themselves by building a city with a tower that reached to the heavens. God said, ‘If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.’ So God confused their languages so that they couldn’t understand one another, and scattered them throughout the earth. The story of Babel is sometimes contrasted with that of Pentecost, which Christians will celebrate the Sunday after next. The New Testament Book of Acts describes the Holy Spirit blowing through the house where the followers of Jesus were gathered and settling upon them like tongues of fire. Each began to speak a different language. Crowds came from far and wide to hear them, astounded to discover that each was being addressed in their own native tongue. I think these two stories invite comparison, not contrast. Pentecost heals the divisions of Babel by sanctifying cultural and linguistic differences. This is unity in diversity, not the uniformity sought by those early empire builders of Babel. Among those who voted for leave parties, maybe there are fears that the EU is like the tower of Babel – a homogenising project that will eradicate cultural differences in the service of corporate domination. For those who voted for remain parties, perhaps the EU seems more like a Pentecostal community of harmonising differences by accommodating diverse languages, cultures and religions. I think there’s justification for both these positions, which is why we are experiencing such polarisation and conflict. Yet Brexit or no Brexit, I’m dismayed that there is diminishing demand for modern languages in British schools and universities. Speaking another language means learning to co-habit with others who are different from us, and that is part of what it means to be human. Diversity is an essential aspect of culture as well as of nature. There is no harmony without variety. The challenge we face is to seek unity without uniformity, and to recognise that any identity is enriched by encountering difference and otherness.