Schism Is As Schism Does

I have been watching the Episcopal Church by peeking through my fingers at the slow moving train-wreck for a number of years. By no small effort the EC-USA has been the tip of the spear when it comes to jettisoning orthodoxy for "progressive" political correctness and that has led to the demographic implosion that the Episcopal Church and other "progressive" denominations have experienced. Like a snake swallowing its own tail the progressives keep telling themselves that they need to just take one more step away from orthodoxy to bring people back but all they accomplish is ecclesiastical suicide.

Today the latest bit of bad news came down from the Anglican Communion,  the worldwide circle of churches which included the Episcopal Church. In a nutshell the Anglican Communion, which is far more vibrant and orthodox in countries outside of the U.S. and the U.K., announced a suspension of the Episcopal Church from the Communion for a period of three years. The exact wording is below:

7. It is our unanimous desire to walk together. However given the seriousness of these matters we formally acknowledge this distance by requiring that for a period of three years The Episcopal Church no longer represent us on ecumenical and interfaith bodies, should not be appointed or elected to an internal standing committee and that while participating in the internal bodies of the Anglican Communion, they will not take part in decision making on any issues pertaining to doctrine or polity.

That is a pretty stinging rebuke from the worldwide Anglican body but the critical point cam earlier in the statement"

2. Recent developments in The Episcopal Church with respect to a change in their Canon on marriage represent a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of our Provinces on the doctrine of marriage. Possible developments in other Provinces could further exacerbate this situation.

What needs to be crystal clear is that "conservatives" who walked away from the Episcopalian church are not the ones who are causing schism. Rather the Episcopal Church by embracing a deviant understanding of marriage, gender and human sexuality has willingly placed itself outside of the boundaries of what can legitimately be called the church. They have departed from the church, not the Anglican Church in North America or other groups and churches that have left the Episcopal church. When someone or an organization deviate from the boundaries of the Kingdom, the only proper response is to separate from them. Despite the faux unity some propose, sometimes separation is the only proper response to those who embrace sin. Those who have left have departed not from the unity of the church but have returned to the unity of the church.

The Episcopal church has responded to the statement as one would expect including the obligatory obscene eisegesis of that most oft misapplied verse, Galatians 3:28:

Before the Jan. 14 vote, Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry told the primates gathering Jan. 11-15 in Canterbury, England, that the statement calling for the sanction would be painful for many in the Episcopal Church to receive.

“Many of us have committed ourselves and our church to being ‘a house of prayer for all people,’ as the Bible says, when all are truly welcome,” Curry said in remarks he later made available to Episcopal News Service.

“Our commitment to be an inclusive church is not based on a social theory or capitulation to the ways of the culture, but on our belief that the outstretched arms of Jesus on the cross are a sign of the very love of God reaching out to us all.  While I understand that many disagree with us, our decision regarding marriage is based on the belief that the words of the Apostle Paul to the Galatians are true for the church today: All who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for all are one in Christ.”

“For so many who are committed to following Jesus in the way of love and being a church that lives that love, this decision will bring real pain,” he said. “For fellow disciples of Jesus in our church who are gay or lesbian, this will bring more pain. For many who have felt and been rejected by the church because of who they are, for many who have felt and been rejected by families and communities, our church opening itself in love was a sign of hope. And this will add pain on top of pain.”

The comment section is very instructive, including the frequent threat to withhold funds from the Anglican Communion.

The Bible is crystal clear. The same Paul that Mr. Curry so grossly misquotes is also the apostle who had the most to say about marriage, sexuality and how to deal with sin in the church. It is the undeniable witness of Scripture that one cannot simultaneously embrace and celebrate wanton sin and call oneself a disciple of Jesus.

So what? If you are reading this you likely are not Episcopalian or Anglican so why should you care? You should care because this disaster is a warning for the rest of the church, a warning that compromise with sin invariably destroys the church. The rest of the church should be constantly vigilant because what we see on display here can happen to any of us if we let loose our grip on the Bible as applicable and authoritative and clear on this and many other topics. I take no pleasure in the death throes of Episcopalianism but some of the most tragic events are the most instructive.

Artificial Distinctions

I read a couple of posts yesterday that dealt with the issue of "local church" ministries versus "parachurch" ministries. It seems that the more we focus on the "primacy of the local church" the more suspicion we get about so-called "parachurch" groups. Before going any further, what exactly is the difference?

Local churches are where you go on Sunday, where you are "under the authority of elders/pastors", where you have your "membership" and where you get baptized and have communion. Oh yeah, and the first place you should donate your money. An example is the typical church you find in any town, First Baptist Church of so and so or Grace Presbyterian Church.

Parachurch ministries is a pretty broadly defined idea typically are more global in scale, crossing denominational and ecclesiastical boundaries. They don't have regularly scheduled "worship services". They tend to focus more on mission or service work than "churchy" stuff. Groups like aid ministries (Samaritan's Purse) or theological groups (The Gospel Coalition) or even local pregnancy resource centers would all sort of fall under the umbrella of "parachurch" ministries.

As I said, the existence of these parachurch groups that are outside of the direct control of local churches, funded and administered independently, make some people quite nervous. Here is one example from well known blogger and Boyce College professor Denny Burk regarding a demotion of a Campus Crusade for Christ, er "Cru", employee for being a complementarian, When It Costs To Be A Complimentarian. The story itself is interesting because of the irony but something else he wrote grabbed my attention. He makes this interesting and common claim (emphasis mine).....

From time to time, I will hear people argue that complementarianism only applies to the church and should not be applied to parachurch groups. This has never been a compelling argument to me. It is true that parachurch groups are not the church. They cannot baptize or administer the Lord’s supper. There is a worthwhile discussion to be had about the existence and role of parachurch organizations in relation to local churches. At the very least, I think everyone should agree that parachurch orgs should never adopt ministry practices which would undermine the teaching and discipline of actual churches.

So a "parachurch" organization cannot baptize or "administer the Lord's Supper". Says who? In fact where in the New Testament do we see anyone "administering" the Lord's Supper? This division between "local church" and "parachurch" makes a mockery of what the New Testament teaches about The Church. If someone comes to Christ and is baptized by a person who is part of a Samaritans Purse mercy mission, praise God! That is a cause for celebration, not finger wagging because some parachurch group is getting uppity and  not submitting to the proper "local church" authority.

The Lord's Supper you say? Let's see your membership card.

Does the Bible make a distinction between kinds of ministries? Does service of one kind trump others because it happens under the auspices of one legal entity rather than another? Can only certain types gatherings of Christians baptize new believers or celebrate the Lord's Supper?

I don't think so. These distinctions are completely artificial and arbitrary. I simply don't find Paul or any of the apostles drawing lines around certain types of ministry as being more important because it happens within the immediate vicinity or is controlled by clergy or benefits people you see more often versus a more global ministry. So why do we have so much strife over "local church" and "parachurch"? Easy answer to that....

Money and Power

Every nickle that goes to a "parachurch" ministry is likely a nickle that isn't making it's way into the offering plate on Sunday. When Christians baptize new believers or celebrate the Supper outside of the box that the institution has created, the institution loses control. That won't be the rationale you hear from any of the defenders of the exclusivity or preeminence of the "local church" but that seems the most likely motivation that has led to this division in the church. So much of the life of "local churches" revolves around bank account and membership numbers

So what can/should a "local church" do that a "parachurch" cannot? Not much because we don't have any Scriptural guidance for division between this kind of church expression and that kind of church expression. In many ways certain parachurch groups act more like the church as see it in the New Testament than most local churches. We don't see the early church doing common local church activities like Sunday school, worship services, sermons, VBS, etc. We do see the early church doing food distribution, taking up collections to support missionaries and banding together to provide mercy relief for others. So from my point of view it can be argued that "parachurch" is more like "real church" than "local church"!

That doesn't negate the importance of regular, local gatherings of the church. There just isn't warrant in Scripture to denigrate some expressions of the church working together for the purpose of ministry over other forms. When we make an idol of the "local church" it is just as bad as any other idol especially when it appears that some of this raising up of the "local church" comes with ulterior motives. We need more ways for the church to work together and to do so on more than just Sunday morning, not less and trying to turn "parachurch" ministries into the proverbial red headed step-children of the church is not helping.  The future for the church is clearly going to demand that we start thinking outside of the local church model as the end all and be all. Parachurch ministries have their own issues but they are and will increasingly be a critical part of the church.

Unity As Witness. Or Not.

At the close of the Last Supper, as Jesus prepared to face the cross, He prayed what is known as His High Priestly prayer (John 17). It is one of the greatest utterances recorded in the Bible and one of His last recorded acts before His arrest and trial. As such it should hold a particular importance to us. Of course everything that Jesus said and did is important, otherwise He wouldn't have done it, but when the end was coming and He had just a few hours left with the disciples that would be the servant leaders of the new church, His words and deeds hold special importance. I want to look at one portion in particular, His prayer for unity...

“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. (John 17:20-21)

Ponder that for a moment. In the waning hours of His earthly ministry (and He clearly knew the end was right around the corner), how did Jesus spend His time? Well obviously He spent it with the disciples but what was He doing? Not giving them an exposition of the Five Points of Calvinism or a lecture on the importance of liturgy. He didn't have any words for them about the correct mode of baptism or the proper form of church government. No. He spent His last hours with His disciples breaking bread with them in the form of a meal, washing their feet as an example for them to imitate and in prayer for them, specifically for unity among the brethren.

I want to focus specifically on something Jesus is saying here, namely that unity is a form of witness to the world. I would point out that Jesus is not merely speaking of unity within His “inner circle” of the twelve but “also for those who will believe in me through their word”, in other words those who would in the future believe in Jesus, whether those who would believe on the day of Pentecost or a new believer who came to Christ this morning.

Jesus taught and prayed in His High Priestly prayer that as the church we are in Christ as Christ is in the Father, and through our community we are witnessing to the truth of the Gospel to the world and proclaiming Jesus as king. More specifically our unity with one another is one of the ways that people will believe that Jesus lived, that He came from the Father and was who He said He was. That is a pretty powerful and sobering statement and it really ought to be something that trumps our own personal preferences and pet peeves. Apparently it doesn’t because even among highly similar groups the notion of real, functional unity would be laughable if it weren’t such a sign of rebelliousness. We like to think that annual conventions or bi-annual conferences touting how “Together for the Gospel” we are suffices to override the fact that most of the time we see each other not as fellow redeemed sinners on a common mission for the Kingdom but as competitors who are doing something wrong on Sunday morning.

The flip side of the issue is far more troubling and often more pertinent in our day. If being one in the church is a witness to the world, doesn't it hold true that division is also a witness? Imagine that someone sincerely seeking to know Christ comes to a typical Christian and asks what they should read in the Bible. If they are like me, I would recommend the Gospel of John. Now imagine the confusion of this sincere seeker when they read what Jesus prayed on behalf of His disciples in His High Priestly prayer. Jesus prayed for one thing and those who claim to follow Him do precisely the opposite. If you needed further proof of God’s sovereign election in salvation it would be that anyone comes to Christ at all when faced with the splintering and division that the world sees when it looks at the church.

What does our division and disunity say to the world and also say to Christ?

It says we either don’t believe Him when He says that our unity is a witness or it says that we might believe Him but we don’t care, that our boundaries and creeds and denominations, our notions of doctrinal purity, are more important to us than winning the lost to Christ.

I am not sure which is worse. I do know this, in spite of the frustrating and seemingly Quixotic nature of the pursuit of Christian unity, we have no other choice. I will not be a party to the division of the Body of Christ and I cannot in good conscience sit by without doing everything I can to see the walls that divide the church torn down. I may never see even the smallest result from these efforts but I cannot do otherwise. There is nothing more important than taking the Gospel to the lost and therefore there is no excuse to not remove every barrier that we have the power to remove between the lost and the Savior.

Jesus is not a polygamist

Unity: The weird cousin no one talks about of doctrines

People are people. That might be redundant or obvious but it is also simply true. Because we are people, even after we are born-again, we still tend to act in some of the same ways that those who are not born-again do and often we don’t even notice it or see anything amiss. As Christians one of the places where we see this most often is in how we deal with differences in the church. Let’s face it, there are going to be differences. There were in the first century and there has been ever since. Sometimes those differences lead to splits, sometimes to persecution and all too often murder and martyrdom. Because we are people we tend to prefer comfort to discomfort, familiar to unfamiliar, easy to hard. Sorry to say, Jesus never promised us an easy path would come along with the life of a disciple. Differences happen and we have to deal with them.

The question becomes how to address the issues that we disagree on. This really isn’t all that complicated. There are really only two ways to deal with differences in doctrine in the church, surely with some variation but ultimately they boil down to one or the other.

The first way is the most common by far. You simply erect barriers around your church gathering, drawing boundaries to exclude others until they conform or leave. Most commonly we see this in statements of faith to clearly distinguish “this” group from “that” group along with systems of formal church membership. Unity is reduced to being unified in practice only with those who already conform to you or who will agree to conform to you. It is precisely this sort of “solution” that has led to the church being splintered into thousands of sects, denominations and local churches that not only do not cooperate with one another, they typically compete with one another, squabbling over minor points of practice and doctrine while whole neighborhoods of unbelievers go through their lives without a whiff of the Gospel.

The other way to deal with differences is to welcome one another into full fellowship and community in spite of, or perhaps because of, our differences and then in a community hermeneutic work through the Scriptures understanding that we will never come to a 100% consensus on every issue and we shouldn’t even be trying to. When the only qualifier for fellowship is being born-again, we start to experience the richness of community in Christ. Our unity in Christ cannot be secondary to our agreement on every doctrine. Certainly Scripture gives boundaries for fellowship and when someone crosses that boundary through open sin or outright heresy we need to divide but honestly very little that divides the church comes anywhere close to that level. I understand that this might be uncomfortable for us. It is of course far easier to simply surround ourselves with those we are in agreement with. I can say with certainty that Jesus places a higher value on unity than our personal comfort and I can also say that surrounding yourself only with those who agree with you, those who look and talk and think like you do, is the equivalent of theological in-breeding. I have seen this first hand in several different settings.

For example, there are three very similar groups in our area that meet separately from one another. All three are highly conservative Anabaptist groups that are in agreement on 99% of the questions, big and small, that might come up in the church. That is not hyperbole; I am dead serious about the level of agreement. I know this because we are outside of the boundaries in the same basic way in all three groups! If you were to meet and talk with a representative couple from each group I am pretty sure you would be unable to figure out which of the three groups each couple belonged to. Those are only three, I am certain there are many more just like them in the immediate vicinity. Many of these brothers and sisters, great Christians and warm loving people, have very minimal experience with the broader church outside of their circles. Because of that there are issues that tend to be considered settled in their circles generations ago that have not really been thought out well in contemporary settings. We rarely grow when we are not stretched and challenged, something increasingly unlikely to happen the more you wall yourself off from others. A Southern Baptist that only ever interacts with other Southern Baptists might be a great Southern Baptist but is likely missing some of the real richness of the church that only comes when you walk outside of your comfort zone.

Jesus is not a polygamist. He has one bride and one only. He doesn’t have five brides in this town and seven brides in that town. If we love Him we must as His bride come together in unity as the one body of Christ that Jesus died to redeem. That is really the only way to honor His sacrifice in redeeming His church.

Local churches are divisive

Alan Knox makes a bold claim in the title of a new post...

God does not view your local church as distinct from other local churches in your area

Yowza! That is a sharp stick in the eye to one of our most cherished institutions, something that many people identify with far more than they do with the universal church throughout the ages. It is also completely crazy for many people who cannot comprehend the church outside of our carefully constructed traditions.

Alan goes on to make some similarly inflammatory statements....

We cannot choose to love, serve, teach, encourage, etc. those who are part of a certain “local church” but not recognize our responsibility and privilege of serving other brothers and sisters who are part of our lives but who may not be part of the same “local church” as us.

In reality, the modern concept of the “local church” – a concept and division of the church that began during the Reformation – is a division among the church that is outside the scope of Scripture. There is nothing in Scripture written specifically about or to the “local church” but the “local church” – as it is understood and practiced today – is not found in Scripture.

I say amen to that. We can dress up our notion of "local churches" in all of the religious, pious language we want but the end result is extra-biblical traditions that lead to division. Check out Alan's entire post, it is worth your time!

Repost: How to change a culture of accepted disunity

I was thinking about unity in spite of differences this morning and thought back to a post I wrote in March of 2009, How To Change A Culture of Accepted Disunity. I grieved me then and it grieves me now that we seem to spend more time trying to find ways to divide from one another than we do trying to find ways to cooperate with one another in pursuing the command and commission of Christ. Perhaps worse is the shoulder shrugging that accompanies our disunity, like we are just saying "Oh well" to something that I am certain grieves our Lord Jesus Christ. This post was the third in a series, the first two are Sundering What God Has Put Together and The Fruit Of Sundering What God has put together and together they form some early thoughts on the topic of unity for me.

Our basis for fellowship in the church is our common salvation. That is it. We did not choose God and we don't get to choose the other people God has chosen if they meet our approval for fellowship. We are the Bride of Christ, even when we disagree vehemently with one another but we seem to think that we have license to divorce one another while keeping the same Bridegroom. This must not be so. Division in the church, even for the most pious and high-minded of motivations, serves the cause of the Enemy, not the calling of the Lord.

I guess the question comes down to this. What is our identity based on? Is it based on being "Reformed"? Is it based on our position regarding baptism? Is it denominational, "I am a Methodist" or "I am Baptist"? Or is it based on our identity in and through Christ? Unity in the church is not a nice add-on if we can work it out. It is not an option. Our willingness to be unified in spite of differences speaks at a fundamental level to our understanding of the Gospel and the resulting church. Again, if God has chosen a people from out of the entirety of humanity to purchase, redeem and adopt by the blood of His Son, then we don't get to decide who is unworthy of our full fellowship. Jesus knelt and washed the feet of His disciples, in spite of their deficiencies and errors (remember this "Get thee behind me Satan"?). Who do we think we are to tell God that we won't even associate with others that His Son died to redeem?

Anyway, take a look at this post (and the two post preceding it) and think it over...

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Talk is cheap. Complaints and hand-wringing over disunity is one thing, finding practical ways to overcome it is another. In this third and final post about unity in the church, here are some ideas I had to help us move past a culture of accepted disunity and into a culture that actively seeks fellowship among believers in spite of denominations and doctrines.

Number one, change our understanding of the church. Our view of the church has a direct impact on our acceptance of disunity. When we reduce the church to a strictly local gathering that erects barriers based on secondary doctrines and views itself as distinct from every other local church, disunity is sure to follow. Some of the notions that go along with that include the unspoken belief that if you attend a different group than the one you usually attend, you are somehow being unfaithful to your “home” church. We need to jettison this view of the church as a bowl of marbles and start seeing it as a single loaf of bread, made up of lots of different kinds of believers but all part of one united Body.

Number two, actively seek opportunities to meet even while recognizing (as has been pointed out) that you are going to have to meet people where they are. Waiting for others to come to you so you can be unified is not going to work. Unity is important and requires work and it requires sacrifice. We have hundreds of years of tradition that go back to the founding of this country, traditions that see nothing unhealthy about our division even though it runs in clear contrast to the teachings of Christ. The cultural church landscape most of us grew up with must not be allowed to continue driving our understanding of the church. We must instead take our cues from Scripture.

Number three, be willing to place unity at the same level as other doctrines. In other words, unity in the Body is something that needs to be given priority even when it runs up against traditionally divisive doctrines like baptism, church government, soteriology and eschatology. More often than not, unity takes a back seat. It is something that just happens by default after we have sufficiently divided ourselves from every other Christian who fails to adhere to our list of distinctives. Unity cannot be something relegated to the back bench because when we do that, disunity is always the result. How important we consider a doctrine will often drive our actions and as the church has demonstrated by its indifference for hundreds of years, we just don’t consider unity to be all that important and our witness has suffered immensely for it.

Number four, stop the name calling. I am not talking here about ignoring wolves among us or not calling out those who proclaim a different Gospel. I am thinking here about charges of heresy when what we are discussing fails to rise to that level. A prime example is found in the Calvinism-Arminianism debate. It is common, and I will admit to having engaged in this as well, for Calvinists to imply or outright claim that Arminianism is a heresy. I have also heard the opposite be claimed by Arminians. Many Calvinists seem to have a permanent sneer when speaking of Arminians and I have seen more than a few books and tapes being hawked that claim to debunk the “heresy” of Calvinism. As an unapologetic Calvinist I have to ask “Is the Arminian my brother?”. If he is a believer, he absolutely is my brother even if I think he is wrong on this crucial issue and I am his brother, even if he disagrees with me about Calvinism. In fact it is precisely because I am a Calvinist that I must recognize that I no more choose who is my brother than I chose who is my Savior!

Number five, and perhaps most importantly, stop being afraid of other Christians and other churches! We seem so afraid of other Christians and the churches they attend. Maybe if people from our church go to their church they will like the preaching or the music better. They may go and not come back! It is fear that drives much of our disunity, fear of one another caused by a belief that churches are called to compete with one another. If someone goes from church A to church B to serve, praise God! Find out what the other group is doing, see how you can be in fellowship with one another and encourage each other. How often do you pray for your church versus how often you pray for the other churches in town? They might not meet as you do and they may not have any interest in being in fellowship with you but many of them are brothers and sisters in Christ, no different than the people you see every Sunday or the believers we pray for overseas.

What are some other thoughts? I know I have raised this same topic in the past but it is on my mind again. The splintering of the church is simply unacceptable and every Christian, one believer at a time, needs to take concrete steps to rectify this wrong and pray for the unity of God’s people.

Leaving our preferences at the cross

I have been engaged in a pretty interesting discussion on Google+ centered around my prior post, Can We Just be Friends? It has been interesting because it gets to the very fine line between unity in spite of differences and unity in spite of heresy and sin. I think we are so used to division being "business as usual" in the church that suggestions that pehaps that division is not only not normal but even unacceptable are met with some pretty strong disagreement. We grew up in the church, whether as kids or as adults, just assuming that some people go to one kind of church and others go somewhere different and that is just normal and perhaps even healthy.

In comes a very interesing post from Michael Young, What I’ve Learned in Organic Church: The Difference Between Brotherhood and Buddyhood (this includes Sisterhood) that looks at the difference between brotherhood and buddyhood:

This is the difference in brotherhood and buddyhood. Brotherhood goes to the cross, dies to self in order to see the Lord’s goals are met. Buddyhood simply wishes to see others that I prefer to hang out with met. I’m not saying that we don’t become buddies in the church. We do. But it’s beyond that…much beyond.span>

I so get that. I think we all naturally gravitate toward those we feel the most affinity for. It is rampant in certain parts of the church, like in the Reformed wing where some Christians will drive very long distances just to meet with other Reformed Christians where they are most comfortable. Charismatics like charismatic churches. Presbyterians like Presbyterian churches. We get uncomfortable and ill at ease about change and differences to our religious routine that we end up just running in the same circles, reading the same books and blogs and doing things the same way because it is what we know and what we like.

As Michael puts it,

Now, there’s nothing wrong with this. But if organic church is to work, we must take our relationship preferences to the cross. We must let them die and allow the Lord to resurrect them.

We can’t make church work the way we want it to. We can’t meet around the fact that we are all into rock music, working out, sports, outdoor activities, hunting, fishing, surfing, or a long list of other things. We have to meet around the Lord Jesus Christ and our common bond to see His eternal purpose seen on the earth; that He would have a place to dwell, a temple made up of brothers and sisters in Christ. Without that, we become just another club. And the church of Jesus Christ is not a club. It’s something much deeper, much more grand, much more precious, and holds much more responsibility.

Taking our preferences to the cross and letting them die there. That sounds great but man is that hard! One of the hardest things about seeking a deeper sense of community is the inherent danger that when you let people in to your little world they are likely to make a mess and you might find that you don't like them or agree with them very much. On the other hand in our natural state we were enemies of God, sinners in open rebellion against Him and yet He still sent His Son to die for the sins of His elect and adopted us into His family. If He did that for us I guess we can learn to get along in spite of our differences and quirks and annoying habits!

Politics, Ron Paul, Israel and Division In the Church

Politics is said to make strange bedfellows. It also causes division like nothing else save perhaps religion (and sports depending on where you live). That is especially true in this day and age as we approach the Iowa caucuses and it is bleeding over into the church to a far greater extent that normal. Nowhere is this more apparent than in how Christians, especially Christians we would call conservative, evangelical Christians, react to one candidate in particular: Ron Paul.

It is no secret that I am supporting Dr. Paul but that is not why I am writing this. If you are interested in the reasons for my support for Ron Paul, check out The Arsenal of Liberty where I blog about politics and do so intentionally apart from my main blog. My concern here and why I am writing is my concern over how the candidacy of Dr. Paul is dividing the church, a division that is not caused by him but by the hyper-political nature of American evangelicalism coupled with the strong current of dispensationalism that exists in much of the church in America.

There is a segment of the church that sees support for Ron Paul, who is fairly unique among Republicans in his lukewarm support for the nation of Israel at least compared to any other nation, as somehow being anti-Semitic and therefore anti-God's covenant people. These brothers and sisters see a vote for Paul as an act of rebellion against God. There are also a lot of Christians who are, putting it mildly, rabid supporters of Ron Paul who get angry at any suggestion that someone else might be a better nominee. Over the last week or so I have seen an incredible amount of angry rhetoric on both sides, and I am afraid I have engaged in some of it, between people who are supposed to be on the same side (see for example this post from the Gospel Coalition Evangelicals, Race, and Politics that generated over 100 fairly strident comments on both sides of the RP Divide). Brothers this must not be so.

We cannot draw dividing lines in the church over secular American politics. 

Who wins the U.S. Presidential election in 2012 is not going to make or break the Kingdom of God. If you are my brother or sister in Christ, that trumps your political allegiance and mine. A political liberal who votes for Barack Obama and is a Christian is my brother. A staunch conservative who supports Ron Paul or Sarah Palin or heaven forbid Newt Gingrich but is not a Christian is not my brother and is instead someone I need to tell about Jesus.When Paul warned us about not being unequally yoked he wasn't talking about staying clear of lib'rals! We must be more concerned with our witness to the unbelieving world than we are about electoral victory and right now we are not comporting ourselves very well.

That does not of course mean that we must avoid civic involvement entirely. Just that we need to keep in mind that who we support politically has absolutely zero impact on who we will spend eternity with.

The assumption of disunity

Trevin Wax has posted a series of reviews derived from a book, Four Views on the Spectrum of Evangelicalism that are worth reading. The book features four representative figures from the world of evangelicalsm:

1. Kevin Bauder (Fundamentalist)
2. Al Mohler (Confessional Evangelical)
3. John Stackhouse (Generic Evangelical)
4. Roger Olson (Postconservative Evangelical)

All three speak to their understanding of what it means to be an evangelical and they also respond to what has been posted by the other authors. It is an important conversation. The term “evangelicalism” is so misused and confused that while it gets thrown about a lot, almost no one knows what it means. Within the church it means one thing within Christianity, it means something entirely different to those outside of the faith (and it means something generally negative, associated mainly with politics, militancy, money grubbing televangelists, etc.). Even within the church, there are camps that use "evangelical" as a pejorative, from being too conservative (mainline denominations) to being too liberal (White Horse Inn types).

Here are his four posts...

What Is an Evangelical? 1: The Fundamentalist View

What Is an Evangelical? 2: The Confessional Evangelical View

What Is an Evangelical? 3: The Generic Evangelical View

What Is an Evangelical? 4: The Postconservative View

The reviews are interesting and I think all four men have important points they have made (at least based on Trevin’s review). All that being said, something troubling runs through the four views: a common theme of assumed disunity. All of these conversations invariably work within a framework where the church has just decided to shrug our collective shoulders, throw up our collective hands and just accept disunity and assume it is normal and unavoidable. While the conversations revolve around defining evangelicalism, one of the key ways evangelicalism is defined is by determining who is and who is not part of this sub-group in the church.

I am not naïve. Certainly there is plenty of evidence for this being “the way it is”. The church has created all sorts of structures and traditions to exclude some Christians from full fellowship in a local body: formal church membership, denominations, closed communion. I also realize that for the vast majority of the church, this is not only just the way it is, it is perfectly acceptable or even celebrated. As the years turn into centuries and roll on by the church becomes more and more disunfied and the most common reaction is a shrug and “What are you going to do?” dismissal.

I reject this. I don’t reject it because I think it is not the reality on the ground and has been for centuries. I reject assumed disunity because it is something that the Gospel simply demands that we reject and overcome. There is simply no way to read the New Testament and come away with practices that lead to a disunified church made of up thousands of competing local churches. The New Testament spends a ton of time breaking down the walls between believers and we have promptly spent the last two thousand years building them right back up in new, innovative ways.

“Evangelical” is just another label, another divisive subgroup that distinguishes whether a fellow believer is the right sort or the wrong sort of Christian. I am not an Evangelical. Nor am I an Anabaptist. Or Reformed. Certainly I am not Emergent. I am just a Christian and I am just seeking others who have been sought out by Christ and are following Him.

What's In A Name?

The Southern Baptist Convention is considering a change to its venerable name yet again…

The president of the Southern Baptist Convention formed a task force to study the possibility of changing the name of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

“The convention’s name is so regional,” SBC President Bryant Wright told Fox News Radio. “We are going to think through potential names that would better describe us without such a regional geographic limitation.”

Here is my suggestion. Drop Southern. Drop Baptist. Maybe even drop Convention.

Denominational identifiers, like local church identifiers on a grander scale, serve to divide and distinguish. We are this and therefore not that. We believe in this secondary doctrine but do not practice that secondary doctrine. We are us and you are not us. You are probably a Christian but not our kind of Christian. You can’t teach in our local church, you perhaps cannot even break bread with us, if you identify as that and not this.

The name Southern Baptist Convention carries a ton of baggage. It is “Southern”, i.e. the Southern United States, and it is “Baptist”, i.e. a specific set of secondary doctrines and practices as well as certain cultural and political expectations. I have been a member and even a pastor of several Southern Baptist churches and you can find them all over the country and all over the world. Even if you acknowledge the historically Southern heritage of the SBC and the importance of Baptist faith and practice the questions remains: Is the name Southern Baptist Convention helpful or harmful in carrying out the global mission of the church and in fostering unity and cooperation among various Christians? I think it is great for fostering uniformity and erecting boundaries, not so much for aiding in unifying the church.

Here is another example. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church or OPC for short. Founded in the 1930’s as a reaction to liberalism in “mainstream” Protestantism, the name draws a clear line in the sand. We are not just Presbyterians, we are Orthodox Presbyterians. So what does that mean for other Presbyterian denominations? They are not Orthodox? I think you can make that argument when speaking of the PC-USA but what about the PCA? They seem like pretty decent folk apart from that “baptizing” babies thing. I think they are pretty Orthodox. What about the rest of the various and sundry Presbyterian and Reformed denominations? Are they not orthodox or perhaps less orthodox than the OPC? Why not name the denomination the “We’re right and you’re wrong Presbyterian Church” or “WRYRPC”? Check out the accompanying chart and see if you can figure out the maze of Presbyterian denominationalism. If we spend more time fighting over which subset of a subset of a faith tradition is right than we do in preaching Christ to the lost and performing acts of mercy and grace, I would question just how orthodox we really are no matter what the name of a given denomination might say or which Reformed confessions we subscribe too.

I am firmly convicted that naming local churches and denominations in ways that draw lines in the sand that act to corral and divide are harmful to the church. So my recommendation to the SBC is to drop the “S” and the “B” and the “C”. “Christian” is the only title or identifier any of us should ever need or want.

Homeschooling discussion

Tim Challies has a couple of posts up on the topic of homeschooling and more specifically on how we treat others who differ from us in the church. Tim is one of the most widely read bloggers and the first post that went up yesterday already has 120 comments. Here are the first two posts:

The Weaker, The Stronger, The Homeschooler


The Weaker, The Stronger, The Homeschooler (II)

It is no secret that we homeschool our kids. It is also no surprise if you read this blog that I think that public schools are inappropriate in almost every situation for the children of Christians. I don't apologize for that (nor am I interested in debating it here). What I am trying hard to do is to not be an evangelist for homeschooling nor a judge over those who choose not to homeschool their kids. That doesn't mean that I am not going to write about educating our kids and why I think homeschooling is best and the most faithful to Scripture but in doing so I am trying hard not to condemn others. Our last local church was almost entirely a homeschooling church and the one notable exception seemed "out of place" and that should not be so. I am glad to see this series from Tim focusing on how we relate with those who disagree with us on a very emotional and current issue.

Hiding our sin behind religious talk

While I am not involved in the somewhat unique world of the Southern Baptist Convention these days, I do keep an eye on the goings on there. My wife and I came to Christ in a Southern Baptist church and most of our church experience up until recently has been in the SBC. So I read with interest a very good post by Trevin Wax on the relationship between the Southern Baptist Convention and the rest of evangelicalism, Being Southern Baptist Among and For Evangelicals.

The entire post was an interesting insight into Southern Baptist polity and culture. I found this paragraph especially interesting and more than a little sad:

There are evangelicals who do not subscribe to our confessional distinctives and therefore cannot be part of the Convention. But if we as Southern Baptists are right on the gospel, then we should be free to strengthen others who are also right on the gospel. Evangelicalism needs a resurgence of attention on the evangel. Confessional Southern Baptists can and should play a key role in that discussion.

This is where the distinctives become a problem. They are not merely “This is what we believe” but also “If you don’t hold these distinctives, our fellowship and cooperation is limited”. For all of our talk about being united in the Gospel, we all too often end up being divided by our distinctives. We hide behind religious talk to cover up this sin but the ugly truth is that many of our most cherished doctrines, traditions and distinctives are serve as excuses for the sin of disunity.

When you have the largest denomination and arguably the most conservative among the major denominations that is inherently divided from other groups that are in lockstep in the Gospel and mainly in lockstep on the distinctives, it really sheds light on the depth of the problem. It is hard enough to get meaningful cooperation between local churches that are in the same denomination much less among those from similar but different denominations. Men from churches ranging from Presbyterian, Baptist, non-denominational, Lutheran, etc. will get together for conferences like The Gospel Coalition or Together for the Gospel and sit next to one another, sing praises to God with one another, take notes alongside their brothers but when the conference is over and they return to “real” church life, they are just as disunited and splintered as ever.

Sometimes even the most well-meaning and seemingly pious actions can have unintended harmful results. That is on full display in the church with denominations, confessions, creeds, etc. used to distinguish one church from another. While touted as a valuable and even essential means of ensuring orthodoxy, the real result is more often plan old fashioned division. Plenty of churches that jumped the heresy shark a long time ago still claim to adhere to one of the old confessions and that hasn’t helped prevent heterodoxy and apostasy. Meanwhile the vast majority of Christians are divided from one another by boundaries of denominational affiliation, formal church membership, secondary doctrines and a whole litany of other ways that we use religious language to excuse our failure to be united as one Body of Christ.

Claiming unity in the Gospel in word but refusing to live it out in fellowship in deeds is nothing more than a lie.

When calling some a heretic is heresy

I still feel OK enough to read and link to good blog posts and Alan Knox has a good one today. Alan posted a brief post looking at the question of the “H” word, I know you’re a heretic, but what am I?! and makes the salient point that accusations of heresy can actually be…heretical!

We separate over many disagreements even though, in Scripture, disagreement is not disunity. Irony of all ironies, when we allow disagreements to lead to disunity between brothers and sisters in Christ, we are actually the heretics!

What?!?!

It’s true. In Scripture, “heresy” refers to separating from other Christians. If you separate from someone who you consider to be a Christian, then you are a heretic.

As someone who has dropped more than a few “H-Bombs” in my time, this hits too close to home. This isn't to say that there aren't heretic, there ceratinly are. Joseph Smith was a heretic. Jim Jones and David Koresh were heretics. Modern day false prophets and kooks like a certain cultic group in Canada are heretics. The brother in Christ I disagree with regarding secondary issues, even ones I feel strongly about? No.

Can someone be a believer and be a heretic? Can someone who is truly a heretic be a believer? If the answer to both is “no”, then we are in serious trouble when we label someone a heretic who we simultaneously acknowledge as a brother in Christ.

Check out Alan’s blog, he gets points for good blogging and extra points for using “you’re” correctly! I had to deduct a few points for the very disturbing picture on the post though…

The fruit of sundering what God has put together

I wrote yesterday about putting asunder what God has united. In this case I was speaking of the Church, not marriage, but the fruits of disunity in the church are every bit as pernicious as the epidemic of divorce in our society. That is a pretty bold statement and one that might cause some concerns but I believe that the disunity of the church is crippling to the cause of carrying out the Great Commission and living out the Great Commandment.

Here are some of the ways our disunity is damaging…

Division damages our witness

I can think of nothing more counterproductive than a disunified church. As God’s people we are called to be His witnesses to the world and yet our lack of unity is antithetical to that calling. What do unbelievers see when they look at the church? Do they see people who love one another? Or do they see a dizzying array of churches marketing themselves and competing with one another? I think we know the answer to that question.

Oftentimes it seems that we are evangelists for our denomination, our movement or especially our local church more than evangelists for Christ. Someone who is on the outside of the church looking in sees all sorts of signs touting this church or that. Our little free community paper runs advertisements for churches with marketing phrases like “Bible believing”, “welcoming”, “family” in an effort to paint this local church as the place to go. Here is the problem. Americans are savvy consumers and recognize a marketing ploy when they see it. We are trying to appeal to the world through the methods of the world by presenting a smorgasbord of church options instead of a unified Body of believers that collectively is more interested in seeing you saved than in seeing you become a member of “my” church.

Division creates a church shopping mentality

Many people, especially new believers, spend a lot of time trying to find the “right church”. Local churches feed into this by emulating the corporate world to market themselves to potential members (and their wallets). Flyers, advertisements, bulletin boards, special events, demographic surveys, targeted mailings. Some churches put Madison Avenue to shame in their effort to attract believers to Sunday morning services. Other times disgruntled church goers, upset over a perceived problem, take their ball and go somewhere else. Far too many churches are more than happy to fill their pews with those who have left other churches. The other side of this equation is that all of that money and effort being spent to market each local church to believers is that it detracts from reaching the lost with the Gospel. We have a finite amount of time and resources and when we spend those precious resources trying to attract people who already follow Christ to follow Him here instead of there, we naturally are not reaching the lost with the urgency and unity we should be.

Division leads to inefficient duplication of efforts

This is kind of pragmatic but it has serious stewardship issues. How many churches offer poorly attended Sunday schools and Vacation Bible schools just like half a dozen others churches in a five mile radius? How many churches offer very similar ministries to the same area but don’t cooperate because of doctrinal differences? How many churches have activities on Wednesday and Sunday but sit empty all week while other church have activities on Sunday and Thursday? Church after church, ministry after ministry recreates the proverbial wheel over and over again. Why do we do this? Because we don’t trust other Christians to “do it right” so we feel compelled to “do it ourselves”. We even treat the Great Commission this way. Southern Baptists have Southern Baptist Missionaries to evangelize and plant Southern Baptist churches. Meanwhile PCA Presbyterians do the same thing, except they are planting PCA Presbyterian churches. The same with Pentecostals and other evangelical bodies. Often they are in the same country, in the same cities. How confusing that must be to people in foreign lands that didn’t grow up with the fractious and competing church world of Western evangelicalism!

Division denies Christians the fellowship of most of the Body

Perhaps the least obvious but most damaging impact of our disunity is the way it serves to deny fellowship among believers. I don’t think it is an overstatement to say that our division means that the vast majority of Christians who live in a given area will have minimal or no fellowship or interaction with other believers. I wonder how many wonderful believers I have lived near over the years that I never got to know because we went to different local churches? I am someone who could use a lot of wisdom and I am quite certain there has been lots of wisdom all around me over the years that I never even knew about. A lot of that is on me, we didn’t do much in the past to meet other Christians but it also just isn’t something that we thought about much.

Disunity is nothing but a list of bad stuff. I can’t think of a single redeeming quality to it. If anything I am probably underestimating the impact of disunity.

Of course saying that disunity is bad is pretty easy. Where it gets hard is when you start getting down to details. How do we change our collective mindset in a way that sees unity as a primary mission of the church rather than something that is nice if it happens but unnecessary? That is my post for tomorrow…

What is a real church?

There is another conversation I am watching where the idea of “real” versus “unreal” churches is being bandied about. It is a common topic among my brothers in the reformed camp. We love to spend time quibbling over confessions and creeds and “marks” of a true church. I have written about this before, in fact this may be a poorly worded rehash of those prior posts, but I feel compelled to work through my thoughts here again.

Most groups of people assembling together (i.e. “local churches”) are a mix of believers (i.e. the church) and unbelievers (i.e. the world). There may be some smaller gatherings where everyone in the room is a born-again believer. There almost certainly are gatherings where no one, from the pulpit to the back pew, is a believer. By and large though there is a mixture.

The presence of a majority of believers in a given assembly doesn’t make that group a “real church”. Nor does the reality of an apostate organization make the believers assembled in that group not part of the church. Likewise, being a part or a “member” of a group of people consisting primarily of believers doesn’t make an unbeliever part of God’s covenant people. If you are a believer, you are the church regardless of where and with whom you meet on Sunday. If you are an unbeliever you are not part of the church, no matter how shiny your dress shoes are or what title or office you hold in a particular church.

The church is the church and that truth has nothing to do with liturgical/non-liturgical, Calvinist/Arminian, Presbyterian/Episcopalian/Congregational, simple church/house church/institutional church. A basic truism of the doctrine of predestination and election is that we didn’t choose to join His church, He chose us to be in His church and likewise He chose others to also be part of His church. We have no more say in passing approval on who is or is not in the church than we did in being made part of His church in the first place. So the whole exercise of the presence of this mark is the mark of a “true church” and the absence of this mark makes it a “false church” needs to get chucked out of the window. Few things weaken the efficacy of the witness of the church like dividing ourselves into little camps of believers that set ourselves against all other camps in our area.

If you want to know what a true church is, look to the Scriptures. There you will find a noticeable absence of denomination, of local churches competing for members and money, of holding up a list of secondary doctrines to grant or withhold the stamp of “true church”. The only mark of a true church is the presence of those bought by the blood of the Lamb. Adding anything else to that is foolish and is a return to the dividing wall between people that Christ destroyed with His flesh.

For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility (Ephesians 2: 14)

What unites us?

When we think about the unity of the Body of Christ and that part of the Body we meet with, what unites us?

Are we united by our common political persuasions?

Are we united by class or race or social standing?

Are we united by adherence to particular creeds or denominational traditions?

Are we united by music styles or man-made labels (Reformed, emergent, seeker sensitive, fundamentalist)

Or are we united by our common identity in Christ, a common identity that transcends any of the other distinctives we cling to?

I think that is going to be a hard thing for me to overcome as we move more fully to a simple meeting of the church. It probably doesn't show in my blog posts but I have some pretty strongly held positions on a few issues. Maybe more than a few. Some of these positions are flat out non-negotiable. Justification by faith alone. The deity of Christ. Big picture stuff that has Gospel and salvation implications. What about some of the other areas I hold to strongly but that don't fall into these areas. Areas like gender roles, like baptism, like eschatology, etc. What if, gulp, they are Democrats!

If we open our home to other believers, I can't see having a doctrinal litmus test to see if they are welcome or not: "If you can't sign your agreement with the London Baptist Confession of Faith 1689, You Shall Not Pass!". If they are believers they are welcome to be in fellowship with us and to break bread with us. If they are not believers they are welcome to get to know us and learn about Jesus Christ. Now if they are heretics and wolves, that is a different issue for certain but I haven't met many people outside of cult members who are rank heretics. That doesn't mean they aren't wrong about some important stuff (or at least I disagree with them which is synonymous with being wrong). It does mean that they are believers, God's elect who were chosen in Him just as I was chosen in Him before time began and if God chose them, who am I to reject them?

Fortuitously they are some people where we are moving who have been doing this for a while that I am going to meet with next week. I am looking forward to learning from others who have been doing church in a more simple manner because I know my tendency is to do things my way and that isn't going to work in this sort of a setting. Should be quite an adventure and a chance to really grow.

For some interesting thoughts about this, check out this post from Jason Elam on reasons to start an organic church and reasons to NOT start one: Five Great Reasons to Plant Organic Churches (and five really bad ones) (HT: Alan Knox)

Most inexplicable tweet ever?

I saw this on a different blog and had to go read it again. It is a tweet from Burk Parsons, on staff at St. Andrews in Florida, from last night ...

The differences among us that divide us denominationally are precisely what make us a strong united front in one Gospel

I don't get how in the world that makes the slightest sense. So the witness we present to the world is of a fractured Christianity divided into competing denominations, each fighting and feuding with one another over secondary doctrines, and that is what makes us a "strong united front in one Gospel"? Denominational differences led to the martyring of Anabaptists in the Reformation. They have led to innumerable schisms in the church. These differences that divide us denominationally are the greatest barrier to Christian fellowship and community, perhaps even the greatest drag up the proclamation of the Gospel, and as such they rise to the level of sinful disunity in the Body of Christ.

We will never be a strong, united witness for the Gospel when we describe the group we gather with as "our church" to the exclusion of all other groups. Agreeing to get together on a neutral site or at the occasional theology conference is not a unity that is going to proclaim a united front. Differences in doctrine are worth having discussions about, even disagreements about, but they cannot supplant the Gospel and lead to division in the Body. Division is something we should repent of and weep over, not celebrate with false praise.

Great post on communion

David Nelson wrote a great piece on why he holds to an open communion view. I appreciate that this is not merely a theoretical argument but a practical one, lived out through an example of the gathered church and reflective of what Scripture teaches, rather than what our tradition teaches.

Here is a sample (speaking of closed communion):

This, it seems to me, is actually antithetical to the gospel. The gospel welcomes the stranger, and it not only crosses but obliterates boundaries. The gospel invites people of faith to unity and harmony. If this be true, then how can the central ecclesial sign of the gospel be construed to show division and even disharmony? And how does placing a fence around the Table do anything but divide the Christian community, which is made one by Christ in the Spirit, formed in unity in Christian baptism (Eph 4:4-6) and existing as one body represented by the one loaf (1 Cor 10:17).


Here is his excellent rationale for an open communion:

I don’t hold to close communion – I prefer open communion. My rationale is as follows.

The Table is for the body of Christ – those who trust Jesus alone for their salvation and who, having called upon the Lord for mercy, are by the Spirit placed into union with the triune God and with His church (1 Cor 12:13). On that basis I would welcome all believers to the Lord’s Table (I have done so as a pastor). The Table is His, not mine; it is His, not some denomination’s; it is His, given to the Church under His Lordship. It is only our Table inasmuch as by the grace of Christ we are invited to come.

Therefore, I want to “sign” the gospel at the Table by inviting all of God’s people to eat there. I realize that this means I will eat with those who are different than I and with whom I may disagree on certain points of doctrine. But since the cross obliterates boundaries and divisions, and since the Table signs that cross, I think it is most consistent with the gospel to invite the church – the whole church – to the Table.

Of course, this makes for a less tidy meal than some may like. And, like at holiday dinners with family, little Johnny may smear his potatoes and peas on the chair, and dear old Uncle Eddie may drool food into his lap. Family meals can be messy that way.

But I’m less concerned with having a tidy meal than having a good meal. One that is most consistent with the nature of the gospel. So I’m happy to invite all believers to the Table, to allow them to exercise their conscience vis-à-vis 1 Corinthians 11, and to allow the grace of Christ to reign at His Supper.

I say amen to that! The Supper is a sign of our community as believers in Jesus Christ, not some sort of ceremony to divide others from us. Those who hold to a closed communion based on "church membership" in a particular local organization are placing barriers that are without Scriptural support and are guilty of placing an additional burden for fellowship ("membership") that doesn't exist in Scripture.

(HT: Les Prouty)

What is our basis for communion

DeYoung, Restless, and Reformed: It's Time for a Formula of Disagreement

Interesting discussion going on at Kevin DeYoung's blog regarding the state of "full communion" between the RCA and denominations that promote error, more specifically the ELCA and it's recent decision to embrace sin.

This whole conversation got me thinking yet again about the issue of unity in the Body and believe me that is a hot topic among many, many brothers right now. 2 Cor 6: 14-18 tells us to not be yoked with unbelievers, but it seems that many are content to be yoked with unbelievers as long as they are the right flavor of unbeliever but refuse to be yoked for the work of Christ with other believers that we disagree with. My father in law has draft horses and when he has them harnessed to pull a wagon, if one of them is not pulling his weight, the wagon doesn’t run properly and one horse has to do more work. Many Christians have yoked themselves with the spiritual equivalent of a dead horse and then complain that the work is really hard. Duh!

I have a serious problem with this idea of “full communion” between brothers. In saying that you are in communion with these certain communities, it implies that you are not in communion with any others. You may recognize them as brothers and part of the family of God, but you also are estranged from them in part and that simply is not OK. The ELCA has abandoned the Gospel. You cannot say to sinners that their sin is OK because that negates the need for a Savior from their sins. So it is not possible to be “in full communion” with them as a group. As individuals or even as individual congregations, sure. As a whole they are a group of people who need to have the Gospel proclaimed to them as those who are lost.

A man is an unbeliever or he is a brother. I don’t see a middle ground. Ephesians 2:19 says that we are no longer strangers and aliens (speaking of Gentile believers) but instead are “fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God”. Last time I checked, it was God’s house and as the Father He gets to make the rules. Putting a line down the center of the room to differentiate between “my side” and “your side” is not OK for believers. Galatians 5: 19-21 lists “divisions” in the same category as idolatry, sexual immorality, drunkenness and orgies. Those who preach separation among brothers while preaching against drinking or immorality are double-minded. Paul spends a lot of effort to speak out against divisions but I don't see him spilling much ink on defending our doctrinal distinctions.

That doesn’t mean that there are not brothers who misunderstand Scripture. That doesn’t mean that there are not brothers who hold incorrect beliefs about ancillary issues or who have church practices and traditions that are not up to snuff. Given our variety of positions, it is inevitable that someone is wrong. I just know it isn't me. There is Biblical warrant to gently teach others “ a better way” (Acts 18: 24-26). But the only Biblical divisions I can see are from those who are in gross, unrepentant sin and those who preach a false Gospel. Those folks are to be treated as unbelievers. Everyone else is a brother. If the basis for your “full communion” with one another is not your common salvation in Christ and instead is based on denominational affiliation, you have a problem. I understand, believe me I understand, how hard that is to live that out in the “real world” but our own prideful inability to get along is not license for us to practice unbiblical separation from one another.

Christian Unity and the Cross

While researching the cross, I came upon a great sermon from John Piper in 1998, Christian Unity and the Cross. Drawing from the text of 1 Corinthians 1:10-17, Dr. Piper shows the root causes of the disunity among the people of God. Here is a snippet…

The other reason it's relevant to say that Christ is not divided is that when a believer has Christ, he has ALL of Christ. No one needs to feel inferior or superior if Christ is really your great treasure. Christ is not divided. If you have him, you have all of him. And to have all of Christ is to have everything you need to be happy forever and ever.

I would encourage you to give the text of his sermon a read.

The cross is the great unifier of the people of God. When you strip away the denominations and institutions and factions we have built up, all of the redeemed sheep of Christ are unified by the cross. The cross is our common confession and our common hope. This unity does not negate that we hold certain truths or that we are warned to be wary of false teaching. This unity does not mean that we accept as brothers those who are heretics or that we fail to enforce church discipline in love with an eye toward restoration. What the unity of the cross does mean is that if I start to think of myself as a Baptist or as a Calvinist first, if I exclude others from fellowship because they don’t share my self-identification I put the cross to shame. It matters nothing that we share attendance at Together for the Gospel or that we are “members” of this church or that, or that we have a more nuanced form of theology. What matters is our redemption at the cross. As Dr. Piper states so well, at the heart of all Christian disunity is pride and pride is the antithesis of the cross.