Practical Christian unity

When you're at the wrong end of a gun, things are simple.

There are many countries in which Christians are persecuted today. Imagine such a place, where a Christian is held at the point of a gun and an answer is demanded: "Are you a Christian? If you say you are, we'll kill you!". Now imagine that person responding with: "Well, it all depends on your stance concerning infant baptism - or the nature of the baptism of the Holy Spirit - or women in leadership"! Ridiculous! Yet these are issues that have divided churches...

Are you a Christian or aren't you?

So why does most of life seem more complicated? And why do so many such issues lead to division, shattering the unity among Christians that is commanded in the Bible?

Problem 1 - usurping God's role as Judge

The trouble is that we aren't content with having God answer the question of whether a person is a Christian, as that individual stands before Him. Instead, we are rather too determined to answer that question ourselves: if you don't meet my criteria for being a Christian, then I won't accept that you are!

We seem consumed by a need to be the judge, and so to usurp God's role.

What would happen if we left God to do his job? Maybe then we'd get on with our job, which is to love the Lord with all our heart and soul and mind, and to love our neighbours (whoever they are - Christian, Buddhist, Moslem, Pagan - it makes no difference) as ourselves (Matt 22 v36-39).

Problem 2 - confusing unity with uniformity

We too quickly turn to thinking: so which is the right group then? And having decided this - probably in our own favour - then the issue becomes: so how do we convince everyone else to agree with us and do the same as us? For then we'll have unity! And thence quickly to giving up, as these other annoying Christians don't seem to want to be 'converted' to our way of thinking!

No, the commanded unity is not about us all agreeing with one another.

Problem 3 - confusion over who we are fighting

Living in unity means understanding that we Christians face a common Enemy - and this is not another Christian denomination, not Islam, not a materialistic world - but the Devil.

Problem 4 - following Paul or Barnabas

We pride ourselves on following Wesley or Calvin or Luther or Wimber or ... or anyone really - rather than following Jesus. Paul dealt directly with this sin in 1 Cor 1 v 10-13.

Does this mean that we are to stop seeking the truth or stop being on our guard against heresy? By no means!

But we are very ready to take this to extremes. Either we fall into thinking that such differences are so minor as to be unimportant - 'we are all the same really' - and so end up with a wishy-washy, 'anything goes' Christianity and all are included.  Or we may be drawn to the other extreme, where we are so clear and firm on the rightness of our understanding of Christian doctrine that all others have already been mentally assigned to hell. (So it seems that heaven is either going to contain everyone, or just you.  But Jesus seemed to have own, different ideas!

Was Jesus wishy washy? Did he have an 'anything goes' attitude? Or was he so exclusive in his purity that he shunned all contact with regular sinful people? No, he held together absolute and unwavering truth with a loving embrace for all sinners who would accept him. We seem to find combining these two very difficult.

Practical unity

So how do we square this circle, hold this tension? Is it really possible for there to be Christian unity where people are so different, and have such different interests and emphases? It would have been so much easier if God had made all people the same!

Can such diversity really live in unity? Humanly speaking, no. But the church is not a human creation, and the qualities required - humility, forgiveness, love - are God-given, if we ask.

Maybe it starts with moving away from focusing on what's wrong with the other's position, to humbly seeking and learning from what God has revealed to them and which we haven't yet grasped? In what ways do they reflect God's grace better than ourselves?

For example, in my case, I may look to Protestants for a solid exposition of Biblical doctrine, but when it comes to being God's loving hands and feet in reaching out to ordinary people, to down and outs, or bringing God's love to slum-dwellers - then give me a Catholic any day.

So for me personally: I need to be living and working alongside Catholics in order to learn more about being God's loving hands in a hurting world, and alongside the Amish to learn more about God's simplicity in a materialistic and greedy world, and amongst Charismatics to listen more carefully to the Holy Spirit, and with Evangelicals in searching the scriptures, and with the Orthodox in better understanding sanctification, and with ... (Your list will be different.)

But now we're beginning to talk unity.