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.
