Augustine, the fourth century philosopher and theologian, once wrote something that poignantly summarizes the balanced view we ought to have regarding matters of disagreement within the Church. His words were: “In essentials, unity; in non essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.”
What Augustine meant by that statement is that Christians must agree on critical matters of faith but that there is room for diversity among us on non-critical matters of faith. And, even when there is disagreement on the critical matters, there still must be grace exhibited among us.
Augustine’s simple statement has been the modus operandi for theologically informed and reasonable Christians through the centuries and continues to prove to be still useful and applicable for us today in navigating the choppy waters of biblical and theological debate. What this statement does for us is it helps us to distinguish between the major and minor points of Christian orthodoxy which so often seem to be confused in the Church today.
For some reason, many supposedly discerning Christians seem unable to tell the difference between critical and non-critical matters and are given to elevate secondary or even tertiary issues to the level of primary. When this happens, all matters of disagreement are reasons for debate and division within the church and every opposing viewpoint no matter how trivial or minor is viewed as theological or biblical compromise or deception. The end result is a constantly warring body that disagrees and divides over just about any matter of differing perspective.
Why people choose to fight and separate over trivial matters ought to be both perplexing and disturbing for us as the Church because Jesus specifically prayed that we would not be this way. His prayer in John 17 is for the Church to be “one” and not many, but we have still surprisingly found an unlimited number of ways to disagree, divide and denominationalize the Body of Christ through the centuries.
Traditionally, the essential matters have always been those which have been delineated in the Apostles Creed and other matters are relegated as non-essential. It’s not that the non-essential issues don’t matter; it’s that the non-essential issues ought not be issues for division or even matters for disassociation. And yet, it seems that many other non-critical points of faith have been held as essential matters worth fighting and separating over, which has proven to be both an embarrassment and a blight on the Body of Christ in the world.
I, for one, am profoundly disappointed that so many Christians apparently lack the real discernment to understand the difference between the majors and the minors of faith and especially that they are not willing to permit any diversity within the body on the lesser issues. In my observation, many misinformed Christians choose to indulge their fears, insecurities and assumptions about unfamiliar or differing views rather than choose to investigate and understand what they do not know or may not be familiar or comfortable with.
What I have seen in my study of God’s Word is that there are some points that are clearly articulated and easily supported in Scripture but there are also a number of matters that are not clearly expressed or substantiated. Therefore, there are many issues of faith that are more gray than they are black and white. And, where there is gray, there must be a measure of liberty and diversity that must be permitted.
Frankly, there are many non-essential matters of faith that are not abundantly clear in the Scriptures that have been perhaps purposely communicated that way so that we would not treat them otherwise. The bottom line in all this is that we must choose to be clear on matters where the Bible is clear and provide room for debate and disagreement on matters where the Bible is unclear.
The fact of the matter is that the Bible is unclear about many things that are not fundamental to our understanding of the gospel or its application in our lives today. One clear example of this is the sequence and timing of end times events. The simple truth is that whether the rapture occurs prior to the tribulation or after or sometime in the middle is not a critical matter of faith. And yet, so many people unfortunately consider this lesser issue to be a dividing point within the Church. The eschatological fact of Jesus’ return is the essential issue…the timing or sequence of his return is not. The same goes for ever brooding controversies over supralapsarianism and limited atonement or hermeneutical arguments over the quality of the distinction between Israel and the Church and even the heated debates regarding the cessation or continuation of certain spiritual gifts.
The pursuit of unity within the Church depends on our understanding and respecting that there are different liturgical traditions, theological persuasions and hermeneutical structures that fit comfortably under the roof of the evangelical house of faith which offer varying perspectives on a host of non-essential matters that should not preclude interaction and fellowship with one another. And yet, conflicts are started every day over these minor issues and the world watches our bickering and biting with an ever growing incredulous skepticism.
While we should be finding ways to agree and work with one another for the common cause of spreading the gospel of Jesus in the world, too many of us are busy finding reasons not to be unified and even not to have fellowship. As the late Paul Harvey once said, “Too many people are no longer fishers of men, but keepers of the aquarium.” In the aquarium of evangelical faith many are consumed with the unanimity of the fish that are in the aquarium rather than caring about the other fish that are lost outside of it.
All this is to say that unity should be more important to us than uniformity. The Church in the world is a diverse body as it should be. And, even the Scriptures tell us that it would be so. Though we all must agree on the content of the gospel and it’s demands on our life, we can disagree on the lesser things and still work for and not against the oneness of the Church in the world to the glory of God.
During the tenure of his public ministry, it’s important to note that Jesus did not leave us with a systematic theology and neither did He require that his disciples sign off on a statement of faith before He commissioned them. And, yet since that time, every generation has been formulating markedly distinctive theologies around lesser matters and fragmenting the Body of Christ exponentially in the name of “doctrinal purity”.
To our disgrace, we have and continue to sacrifice relational unity on the altar of dogmatic uniformity. For many generations, we have majored on our differences and minored on our similarities and have chosen to be known collectively more for what we are against than for what we are for, which not only compromises our credibility with the world but also continually distracts us from our vital mission in the world.
Therefore, for the sake of the Body and for the sake of the mission, we all must learn to forbear with one another where we disagree and be willing to believe the best in each other rather than always fearing the worst. We must put aside our unfounded fears and insecurities over trivial matters and look for common ground to share with each other rather than theological battlefields to fight each other on. We must not speak ill of others we do not know or of matters which we do not understand, and we must learn to ask more questions and listen more rather than make more statements expecting to be heard. We must also stop looking under every rock and around every corner with suspicion and distrust, and we must be just as concerned about the practice of grace as we are about protection of truth. And, perhaps most importantly, we must all learn that being loving is always more important than being right. For the sake of the Body and the mission, we must.
One of the last things Jesus said to the disciples in John 14:2 “I go to prepare a place for you”….. this would have been completely foreign to the Jew because all God promised the Jews was the land and a king on the throne. And now he’s promising those who accept Christ (Jew or Gentile) a dwelling place with Him. This is clearly a promise to the church and not the nation of Israel. It is what we in the church call the “blessed hope”.
This is ultimately what we as Christians are waiting and hoping for. So why is it so hard for you to understand why talking about end times (and the signs thereof) is important to us. This should be important to every Christian and something shepherds of the church should be teaching their flocks. How sad that you call this a non-essential, when it is the very essence of our hope and future. I am profoundly outraged that you think those of us who teach this truth are lacking discernment, fragmenting the body, etc., when you are clearly fragmenting the body with your lack of teaching this truth properly along with your accusations and contempt toward those who do. You obviously have no understanding of the significance of God dealing with the nation of Israel and His separate dealing with the church and how this is applicable to end times. There have always been and there will always be significant differences in what we believe even as christians, that IS why we have denominations. The Truth divides, even in the church. As for unity in the church, it is having the mind of Christ, not getting along with each other just to get along. Doctrinal purity is foremost. I’m sorry, but teaching the truth of God’s Word and doing so accurately is more important than ‘practicing grace and love’. In fact, teaching God’s Word ACCURATELY will result in practicing TRUE grace and love.
Hello there, RT. Thanks for reading my blog and for posting your comment. I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with me on my posts but it won’t prevent me from expressing what I believe is true. In this case, your comment and the tone of it seems to prove my point about what is wrong in the Church today. As a pastor, I am concerned about the “profound outrage”, as you put it, of those who feel that every issue is worth fighting and dividing over, including the lesser issues I mentioned in my post. In case you missed it, I said that the lesser issue is the timing and sequence of end times events, not the events themselves. We should absolutely teach and express what the Scripture has the say about non critical issues like these but do so with both an awareness and respect for differing views where the Scriptures aren’t abundantly clear.
I think you have the anger problem, I am not angry because I am outraged, Jesus was outraged and even angry at times. It seems to me that anyone who differs on “essentials” with you is labeled angry. Maybe you have the anger problem. I am passionate about what I believe. It troubles me when “intellectualism, pycho babble, and liberalism” are brought into the church in the name of unity, and those who don’t agree with it are called names. Reading most of your posts show someone who has definite anger issues with people in church who don’t see things your way. God bless those of you out there who stand up for what you believe, and aren’t neutered by people like Kent.
I saw your FB entry today and it reminded me that I wanted to go back and read this. This has been an issue for me forever. It seems when I realize that I’ve been too passive in this area, I overreact and get downright divisive, and then realize that error, and go back to being passive. Right now i believe about half the people I know are being too passive and about half are being too divisive, so I guess I must be in the perfect place.
In your post you said “What I have seen in my study of God’s Word is that there are some points that are clearly articulated and easily supported in Scripture but there are also a number of matters that are not clearly expressed or substantiated.”
I understand what you’re saying, but I think Christians disagree on what is “clearly articulated.” For example, I have no trouble seeing the “how” of creation and the events of the last times as issues that we are not to divide over. And I have no trouble seeing the Trinity and Christ’s atoning death and resurrection as the only way to salvation as convictions to die for, let alone divide over.
But there are matters that are considered disputable by other Christians that I do not consider disputable, such as the gay church, which has developed an entire theology justifying the gay lifestyle, and proponents of the prosperity gospel, who use the Bible to show that God wants us to be materialistically wealthy. In my opinion, they’re just manipulating the Scripture to justify their desires. Many of them, however, claim to believe in the deity of Christ and consider themselves Christian.
Hypothetically, if the leadership at our church adopted a gay theology or a prosperity theology, would I be wrong in leaving the church and urging others to leave as well? Or should I leave without incident? Or should I stay and try to change things?
Hi Bob. Good points, all. Thanks for the comment!
Love the quote from Paul Harvey – “Too many people are no longer fishers of men, but keepers of the aquarium.”
You are so correct in what you have communicated. We have way too many Christians with head knowledge and seemed to have forgoten the heart. I seem to remember “For God so loved (their is that heart thing again). Keep it going.
Hi Kent
An ancillary thought comes to mind for me that goes to the heart of the division you well address.
It seems to me that more and more of us Americans are erroneously becoming emotionally attached to our ideas, such that when an idea we currently subscribe to suffers attack, we tend to erroneously take that attack personally, and therefore worthy of vigorous (and too often vicious?) defense and counter-attack.
Instead, I’d propose, if we can learn to consider an idea merely an impersonal current perspective that we happen to hold on reality, in no way connected to our self-worth, we can consider an “attack” instead as a gift: an attempt by another to make us more the man or woman of God He intends for us to be . . . merely an introduction an alternative perspective, and even an attempt by another to be (or make) a contribution to our lives.
I think of the saying, “Human beings rarely communicate. We just opinionate each other to death.”
What we perhaps need is the teaching of some critical thinking skills, including the skills to divorce ourselves from aggressive emotional attachment to our current views of reality (and, in this case, to our interpretation of the Word and the Heart of Him who authors it.)
Blessings !!
Mike,
I agree for the most part, but if I understand you correctly, I think this may be going a little too far. Jesus was emotionally attached to his ideas, got angry, wept over his people, but “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return…”. I think we should be striving for self-control rather than emotional detachment.
I do agree that we often are wrongly emotionally attached to non-essentials, and we wrongly take things personally rather than understanding that often our attackers are using us as a means to attack Jesus.
Mike, thanks for the comment. Very insightful and helpful to further this discussion. I think you are right on with the emotional attachment.
Good distinction, Bob … Thank you
Jesus appeared, indeed, to be emotionally attached for example, to the idea (or at least the acting UPON the idea) of the abuse of the Temple for merchandising purposes. (Though I doubt He’d have gone off the handle emotionally had He been in a conversation with someone about the proper use of the Temple.) Thank you! And blessings !!