Unity

So after numerous posts documenting what I consider to be weaknesses in the state of Evangelicalism at the beginning of the 21st century, and enumerating a number of divisive incidents which have caused me to rethink my association to the evangelical movement, the question could legitimately be asked of me, does any of this rambling contribute at all to unity in the church, and if so how?

And I would suggest as an answer that I am not suggesting any magic fix to disunity in Christianity, but I am seeing a path toward it.

Unity cannot be achieved by the power of the human will. Nor can it be achieved by constantly reinventing Christianity with each generation. It cannot be achieved by blindly and legalistically insisting on the distinctives of a particular denomination or movement. It is not achieved through a particular organizational structure.

Unity begins by listening to a single voice. What is clear and undisputed among Christians of most all stripes and backgrounds?



One clear point of agreement is that the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are a clear and consistent record of what Christ himself taught and did. The remainder of the New Testament writings are clear, documented and, most Christians agree, "God-breathed" evidence of what the Apostles taught.

As Thomas Oden has pointed out, the other key is that the early church recognized the need for clear statements of how the church had "always, everywhere and by all" understood scripture. The Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed and the Athanasian Creed have generally been accepted by almost all denominations as sound statements of essential belief ever since.

But it occurs to me that the central themes of those creeds are Theology, Christology and Pneumatology, that is who is God? Although the creeds make mention of the nature of man, and the plan of salvation, they do not go to any great lengths to define either. Neither does the statement "One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic church, give us any clear sense of a detailed ecclesiology as practiced "always, everywhere and by all".

So it occurs to me that while the bulk of the focus of the early church was on Christology, the debates since the split between East and West have been about ecclesiology and the debates of the Reformation have primarily been about soteriology.

Heresy and theological debate led eventually to the great creeds. Schism and protest may eventually lead to clear definitions on the remaining questions. In other words, the time may be ripe for the reformation to finally occur.

Some may be content to remain within isolated and comfortable little camps, but as society hurtles ever faster toward the chaos of pluralism, the church cannot any longer be content to mirror that fragmentation. We must speak with a singular voice to regain any moral authority in our culture. We must again become "one, holy, catholic and apostolic" as opposed to "many, secularized, divided and individualistic".