Freedom of Unity in Diversity

There are a diversity of doctrinal views and thoughts about the nature of God that Christians have throughout the Church. The Catholic Church was pretty much the existing Church presence in the world prior to the Protestant Reformation. During this time there was consistency of Biblical interpretation because the interpretation was that which was set forth by the papal authority. Only those in leadership read the Bible, the rest of the people were told by them what it said and how it was to be interpreted. That’s just the way things were done in those days until a new idea came along that seemed good to put into practice.


With the onset of the Reformation throughout the Western world a new perspective emerged that people can and should read the Bible for themselves. The Gospel was written to all people and should be accessible by all. This unveiling of the Bible opened the door for it to be published in the common vernacular and studied by anyone and everyone irrespective of religious training by papal authority. However, this idea created the question of who has the authority then to claim to have an accurate interpretation. If the Church leadership doesn’t decide that for everyone else and everyone has individual responsibility to understand the Bible themselves what then shall be considered a correct reading of Scripture?


Due to this new freedom divisions began to take place between groups who interpreted Scripture differently. Even though there was a shared core value of what C.S. Lewis called “mere Christianity” between the groups (Catholic and Protestant) they still aligned based on their differences instead of their similarities. This gives the erroneous appearance that the differences are so contrary that no one really can nail down anything true and consistent. When in reality there is more agreement than disagreement. When people align based on what they are against or based on one difference that difference becomes larger than life and seems insurmountable. People looking from the outside in often only see the diversity devoid of unity and think these people claim to have truth and yet all they have is disagreements between themselves. How can people see that there is truth here when we do not even seem to be able to articulate it in unity?


The Church is rapidly changing in form to move away from the disconnectedness of doctrinal disagreement to the continuity of value agreement. Vast numbers of Christians are now seeing that it is okay not to have neat codified interpretations on all matters of doctrine about God. We know in part and we cannot know that our view of a particularity is concretely true, it is mostly likely partly true, but there is most likely much more to it than our view of it. It is quiet likely that the Christians down the street have a different take on that particularity and bring a much needed addition to the perspective of the other group. The Church in the world is now seeing value in the variety of perspectives and not using these differences to create schisms, but uniting based on shared experiences and values in the Lord. This is creating a fluid Church with great freedom to not need to know it all and just take each day at a time in learning about the Lord and not turning current knowledge into rigid absolutes that cannot be altered by new revelation.


When I am asked by what authority I choose one way of looking at a particular topic versus the other ideas that are out there, I can only say that I know in part and I welcome the other parts and I will add to my perspective what I learn along the way and I could be adding wrong things sometimes. When an error becomes obvious to me, I let it go and replace it and move on. Then something else may change in my thinking and I’ll meet that when that comes. I only know in a small part and I try not to hold on to that so tightly that it can’t change with new understanding.


The Church as a whole is rapidly moving into a more experienced based identity than a doctrinal identity. While theology has its merits – one can know the Bible inside and out and have not experienced the truth of it. What good is such knowledge if it isn’t able to be experienced as true? If you can’t know God like you can know your good friend, what good is intellectual knowledge about Him? If He isn’t invading life with His reality and making real His identity then the Church has nothing to say to the world and only offers an empty shell of a religion.


Sociologist Harvey Cox published the well known book The Secular City in 1965 arguing that religion was fading away to be replaced with secularism that is here to stay. Then twenty years later, he wrote Religion in the Secular City arguing that “religion is and would continue to be a significant force in society.” Then in 1995 he published Fire from Heaven proclaiming that the Pentecostal form of Christianity has swept the world and would far surpass the cultural rise of secularism to pervade modern culture. Pentecostalism is any form of Christianity that is experiential believing that God is showing up in the lives of people today with miracles of healing, signs and wonders, tongues, prophesy, etc. Billions of Christians attest to these experiences and are counted amongst Pentecostals. This term is no longer being associated with a particular denomination, but a larger inter-denominational and post-denominational movement that has been sweeping through the Church since 1906. In recent times it has been gaining momentum to the extent that some hail it a New Reformation, even though church historians see it as an extension of the existing Reformation rather than a separate movement.


The point is that the Church is changing from absolutist doctrinal mentality of modernism to a fluid freedom that allows for ambiguity and flexibility on doctrines and embraces each person experiencing God for themselves directly rather than solely indirectly through learning information about Him. The church down the street might have different doctrinal ideas, but we are all experiencing the same Jesus and on this we agree and have life and community regardless of different ideas.

Unity Amidst Diversity

It is quite possible to ascribe to different ideas and yet not be adversely related to those with different ideas. For instance, within the sphere of Christianity there exists a plethora of denominations, streams, movements, and cultures.


Historically, Christians have often aligned with others who share the same theological doctrines while being separated intentionally or unintentionally from others with different doctrines. This began to transpire early in the Protestant Reformation. As several grassroots movements began to sweep through Europe with the idea that Christians could read and interpret the Bible for themselves without having papal authority set forth the accepted interpretation a huge shift began in the Church that birthed what we now call Protestantism.


However, the freedom for each person to study and interpret the Bible created a door for diversity of interpretation. Christians began to align together based on their common agreements of doctrine. While the Church as a whole, both Catholic and Protestant, still shared many common theological positions there were some things that set them apart from each other. This is because they began to align on their differences instead of their similarities.


Then with the difference illuminated, those differences began to be construed to cause divisions between believers. To illustrate, if one group believed in baptism by sprinkling and the other by immersion their group would become known by that difference rather than the 85% of things they agreed upon.


In modern times, there is another shift happening in Christianity where believers are choosing to unite not based on commonly held interpretations of Scripture, but around Christ Himself. The Church is rapidly coming into unity around the knowledge that we are a family regardless of intellectual differences and that is where we unite. We don’t have to have unity of ideas to have unity between us.


I can disagree with something a pastor teaches and it not cause division or opposition. My husband pastors a church we started a couple years ago. One of the important things we want to get across to people when asked what denomination we belong to is that we are neither denominational nor non-denominational nor independent. We don’t ascribe to one particular denomination, nor do we consider ourselves separated from other denominations nor independent from the rest of the Body. We see the Church as a family and us amongst the family not choosing a side or a flavor separate from the rest of the good flavors out there. We have come under an international ministry for accountability purposes, but we value the entire body of Christ and see wonderful good things in each and every part of the Church regardless of where we may do something differently or disagree.


I say all this to explain that whenever I talk about difference of interpretation or opinion between me and other streams of Christianity, I am not setting myself out to be opposed to them. My disagreement is not adversarial nor does it set those I disagree with out to be somehow less Christian than I. I simply do not see disagreement that way. I think no less of those I disagree with then those with which I agree.


The same mentality extends to those who are not of the Christian faith. My disagreement with atheists or even Buddhist doesn’t in my mind set me apart from them or cause me to be adversarial to them. I think we can engage with ideas without being opposing on the personal level and I think we all have shown that here by living it out when we engage in discussions where we obviously disagree and yet can be friends at the end of the day.


I read recently that C.S. Lewis enjoyed surrounding himself with people who thought very differently from himself so that he could always have his thinking challenged and also so that his friendships weren’t so superficial to be based merely on agreement but could withstand disagreement. I hope to follow his example in this.

Unity In the Midst of Diversity

A common question regarding Christianity surrounds the issue of unity. If Christianity is true, why are there so many doctrinal differences? If we claim that God exist and that He is knowable and has revealed true information about himself in the Bible, then why do many Christians disagree about many specifics of our worldview?

Jesus prayed in John 17:23 for the unity of all believers and He says that our unity will let the world know that He was sent from God and that God loves the world. So unbelievers and believers alike rightly ask where is this unity? However, they mistake unity to mean uniformity of thinking and doctrine.

At the same time, the same people who claim that for Christianity to be true there must be uniformity do not wish for a moment to ascribe to any belief system that tells them how to think about every little thing. They are the same to hold the mindset that the church ought not to control their thinking. So is it really uniformity they want to see? Or is it what Colossians 3:14 proclaims that over all virtues we must put on love which binds us all together in perfect unity. Unity comes from loving one another not from dictating how one thinks.

Usually if everyone has the exact same response people believe it to be coached and not authentic. We know we are all unique and we think differently about things. One can notice that a car is bright red and the other notices there were three children in the back seat. Both are correct, but different things stood out to them. The problem is when they take that perspective and turn it into an absolute instead of a piece of the pie. For instance, all cars are red, or all cars must have three children in the back seat. Sometimes a truth applies across the board and sometimes it does not. I Corinthians 13 explains that now we know in part and then we shall know fully. On earth our knowledge is partial and not complete knowledge. The more our knowledge lines up with reality of what is the more we know, but even then we still don’t see the whole picture as God does.

Thus, unity is not a matter of uniformity of thinking, but a matter of being bond together by love despite our different manners of thought. And yes, this unity by love is something that is also a process that is being worked out in us and is not fully manifested in our lives. For we are all at different levels of relationship with God--growing into deeper levels all the time and the deeper we go in our walk with God the more love will prevail.

This does not mean that our thinking is not to conform to God’s truth for we can know and agree on many things that are central to Christianity, but that even with those foundational agreements there are specifics that are not nailed down and concrete in uniformity.

However, on the other hand as we mature in Christ we will become united in mind and thought as well, not because a church dictates how to think, but because we have relationship with Him who is Truth. Ephesians 4 says that God has given people gifted as leaders to the church to equip the church until she reaches unity of the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then, it says we will no longer be tossed too and fro by every wind and doctrine. Meaning, that as the Church enters maturity, even doctrine will become solid. One day all will culminate to be a glorified Church made ready for Christ. Still that unity that comes into being will be something greater than uniformity.

Again our whole desire for unity shows that there is One who brings unity to diversity. We do not wish to live in a world of rampant diversity without any unity, nor do we wish to live in a world of strict uniformity and no creative diversity. In the Triune God we find both unity and diversity and that is why He is highly qualified to bring about unity without loosing diversity in our lives. The community believers have with each other and with God joins the diverse parts to effectuate a unified whole complete with our own creative gifts and talents.