The Hard Work of Unity
The coming weeks will present the American church with many reasons for division.
It is possible and even probable that discerning people will disagree on issues, policies, movements, and courses of action—even when sincerely, humbly seeking to root themselves in the truth of God’s Word. Since “where you stand depends on where you sit,” as Miles’s Law posits, disagreements are inevitable among the people of God. And this means that as those who are the keepers of the God-given keys to the coming Kingdom and charged with exercising our prophetic voice, there will be times we will be speaking not to the culture around us, but to our brothers and sisters in Christ.
However, even in the midst of strong disagreements, be on your guard against the impulse to see those with the same perspectives as you as “us,” and the believers you disagree with as “them.” If you are in Christ, you do not get to disown the Beloved of God, his Church. One part of the Body cannot declare another part “cancelled” and move on without it.
We have, every one of us, been grafted in to the family of God through the unifying blood of Christ. In his last days before he was crucified, Jesus prayed we would be one as he and the Father are one (John 17). When we choose to de-prioritize Jesus’s desire for our unity in our words, attitudes, and actions, we are opposing the kingship of Christ.
How, then, do we respond in a way that moves us in the direction of unity when we see the people of God losing their grip on the gospel, pledging their allegiance to idols? Rather than disassociate, we grieve, confess, admonish, correct, respect, question, advocate, confront, teach, pray, esteem, humble ourselves, prophesy, hold accountable, listen first and speak second. These are the unglamorous means of the hard work of unity that the Spirit is working within us, the Church.
Truth be told, all of these seem more unappealing than “speaking your truth” in the comments section, and finding others that are more “your type of people.”
But here’s the inconvenient truth: The “one holy catholic and apostolic church” are your people—the ones who by God’s grace sit around the table that Christ has laid with his own Body and Blood—not the group that looks and sounds most like you.
There are no quick, easy solutions for the slow-growing tensions in the Church that have erupted one after the other in these past months. I’m not advocating for a “Kumbaya” sing-a-long around the campfire to make us all friends again. That is not nearly sufficient. We desperately need healing, not a pep rally.
Even though I have in frustration and grief uttered the phrase, “Where do we even go from here?” more times than I can count in the past year, I cannot shake the hope that this kind of healing for God’s people is possible—that he himself actually intends to bring it about!—because I have seen it happening in my own heart. In spite of everything, I have found that my love for the people of God and my desire to see us living into our full identity in Christ has grown deeper still. I assure you, this is not the reflexive direction of my personality—this is the work that only the Spirit can do.
Rather than gloss over the things that threaten to divide us in an attempt to force a false, hollow unity, or disengage and dismiss our brothers and sisters in Christ who hold different perspectives, let’s cling to Christ together in humility and dependence, echoing his prayer recorded in John 17 and receiving what the Spirit is trying to accomplish in us, among us, and through us:
“Almighty Father, whose blessed Son before his passion prayed for his disciples that they might be one, as you and he are one: Grant that your Church, being bound together in love and obedience to you, may be united in one Body by the one Spirit, that the world may believe in him whom you have sent, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Sprit, on God, now and for ever. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, 2007).