Introduction
The Presbyterian Church of Scotland in 1637 was the poster child of church disunity. With the spirit of the Reformation clashing with King Charles’s Catholic regulations, it was becoming normal to see congregations break up service by shouting loudly “the mass is come amongst us” or glimpse a volley of bibles and a stool being flung at the pulpit. In one hilarious incident, the Bishop of Brechin was forced to conduct his service with a pair of loaded pistols. The disunity we see in our churches today might not be as bad, but we must admit we’ve pointed our fair share of syntax-charged, linguistical pistols at one another in 2020.
It has been a divisive year. Many of us, intentionally or not, drew dividing lines politically, racially, and even relationally from one another. We were disconnected physically through Covid-19, fractured politically through the election, and divided ideologically through the murder of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. The remnants of those wounds still carry on over to us in 2021. It’s still normal to scroll down your timeline and read messages like “unfollow me if you …” , “miss me with that relational politics”, and “come follow me on Parler”. In a socio-political climate with brokenness and division, it is even more essential that the body of Christ reflects the rich and deep unity of the biblical Church. But what basis does the Church have to be unified and what if the church has serious political disagreements? Unity is easier said than done and it is only through looking at the scriptures that we can draw out any practical applications.
Where does our Unity come from?
We are first introduced to the substance of unity in Genesis 1:26. When God breathes life into man, God also marks man with His own image, immediately making man deserving of dignity, respect, and worth. After a series of “it is good”, God reveals the climactic twist of creation and decides it is not good that man is alone, creating woman out of man. The moment man sees woman for the first time, he appropriately bursts into poetry, praising the unity that God had now bestowed. In the relationship of man and woman, we see the beautiful image of unity and diversity. In their perfect diversity, compatibility, and unity, we see in a small scale of God’s own diversity, compatibility, and unity. Just like how Adam and Eve were diverse in anatomy and roles, the persons of the trinity are diverse. Just like how Adam and Eve were unified and compatible, we see the three Godhead unified and compatible, forever in fellowship.
In the New Testament, we see this image of godly unity on a much larger scale. In Ephesians 1:5, Paul makes a profound statement of adoption through Jesus Christ, connecting all Christians as a family under the fatherhood of God. Children mimic their fathers and it is clear from the scriptures that Christ desires his children to not just be images of God, but also internally be transformed to His character. Like how an orphan’s life is transformed when they are adopted, our identities are profoundly affected when we become a Christian and join the unity of the Church. In this identity shift, all other identity markers of our lives take one step back from the center of who we are. But the goal of the unity of the Church isn’t just mere uniformity or to be a model for the Godhead. We can see in both Isaiah 49:6 and John 17 that our unity is a vehicle Christ intended to woo the world to the gospel. Corporate witnessing speaks powerfully to those outside the church.
Maintaining Christian Unity
It doesn’t take much to realize that Christian beliefs and norms that used to characterize our society are becoming viewed as dangerous and out of date. The traditional discussions that divided churches, like baptism or the sacraments, are becoming secondary to more prominent issues like race, sexuality, and social justice. So when the Gospel Coalition listed Race and Gender as the top theology stories of the year, it isn’t surprising. However, I’ve seen churches where there are true seeds of division either beginning to grow or have grown on the soil of these different ideological fault lines and threatened the foundation of church unity. So, how can we maintain church unity despite all our political and ideological differences? We need to remind ourselves of what unifies us.
Biblical Principles are what Unites Us
Despite all differences in our ethnicity, class, and lifestyle, we come together to celebrate Christ together on Sunday mornings because we are all attracted to the gospel. This should color the lens of how we interact with one another. If I see a politically-charged post from Jack or Jill that antagonizes people, the first question I need to ask myself is if the individual is sinning. For example, are they explicitly promoting racism, abortion, or other sinful behavior. If it’s a matter of sin, then I need to address Jack or Jill based on Matthew 18:15-20 and Matthew 5:13-16. However, if we’re in the area of Christian freedom, then I may consider not addressing the post but the tone he or she used to convey the post. Maybe it wasn’t loving or peace-producing and in error of Romans 14. In either case, I should never stop loving Bill or Grace nor dissociate myself from the members of my church. We should never lose recognition of the more foundational things we have in common or the principles that we all hold to as Christians because of policy differences.
It is critical for Christians to recognize the difference between biblical principles and policies. It is in this space of Christian freedom where we are free to disagree. We might all disagree about whether we should pay reparations or mandate affirmative action, but we can agree that all races are equally deserving of dignity and respect under the finished work of Christ. We might disagree on the death penalty, but we can all agree that life has meaning because Genesis 9:6 says we are all made in the image of God. We might not agree about economic socialism, but we can all agree from Romans 12:16 and Proverbs 31:9 that we ought to fight for the rights of the poor. Biblical principles should unify us more than the policies that divide us. We see examples about this both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Ezra and Nehemiah both had the biblical principle for rebuilding the temple but enacted very different policies in achieving that objective. In Acts 15:36-41, Paul and Barnabas disagreed on matters of personal opinion and practical procedure, but both agreed on the biblical principle of sharing the gospel with the world.
And this Christian unity under biblical principles has real world effects. A perfect example of the effects of Church unity was recorded by a man named Bill Anderson. Bill Anderson taught a class at Harvard called “The Madness of Crowds”. The course examined the emergence of mass psychology by addressing things like New England witch hunts, urban legends and financial panics. Despite his background studying crowd psychology, Bill was awestruck when he visited Capitol Hill Baptist Church. He wrote that he was “struck with the genuineness of the diverse Christian fellowship” and commented that relationships here seemed “highly uncommon…these Christians interacted not as subdivided coalitions of people with similar interests, but as a single unit”. Eventually, this interaction would lead Bill to the gospel and began a new life in Christ.
Conclusion
Love can exist in a community formed around something other than the gospel, but it is never as true, deep, or lasting. A community and fellowship seen in Alcoholics Anonymous is not comparable to the sacrificial love that Jesus describes in Philiphians 2:3, John 13:35, and Romans 12:16. We need to remember that the world giving the local church reasons to divide are not new. However, in all the turmoil of today, the world needs to witness the deep-rooted unity of the church that stands despite the political or ideological earthquakes. In the bloody history of the 1600’s where religious tensions were at the highest, Rupertus Meldenius wrote. “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity”. The same principle can be useful today. Christan love is demonstrated when we wildly disagree about Trump, but still claim one another as brothers or sisters who love the gospel. Unity is an active thing, and requires more than just passive apathy. If we agree that gospel unity is the true light for the problems in the world, we need to cling to that lighthouse.
