Stop the Disunity
Arthur at “The Voice of One Crying Out in Suburbia” has written an excellent post called “How to change a culture of accepted disunity.”
He is writing about the culture of churches and Christians (especially in the Western world) who readily accept and perhaps even condone dividing from one another.
In the post, Arthur gives us several steps toward changing this culture. I think his suggestions are very good, and I will list them briefly here. (Make sure to read Arthur’s entire post for his explanations.)
- Change our understanding of the church.
- Actively seek opportunities to meet … people where they are.
- Be willing to place unity at the same level as other doctrines.
- Stop the name calling.
- Stop being afraid of other Christians and other churches.
What do you think of Arthur’s “steps”? Would you add, remove, change any of them?
6 Comments
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- Comment Hightlights for Week of March 6, 2011 | The Assembling of the Church - [...] from “Seeds in My Heart” left a good comment on my post “Stop the Disunity.” Here is part of…
Wow great post.
“More often than not, unity takes a back seat. It is something that just happens by default after we have sufficiently divided ourselves from every other Christian who fails to adhere to our list of distinctives”
wow, profound, yes!!! I was literally just speaking and dwelling on this this week.
so basically the way to sum it up is Matthew 6:33 — focus on Christ! Make Him most important and make all else secondary…. that’s what focusing on unity as a doctrine looks like….. these silly differences we have won’t make any difference when we are given full knowledge & insight.
What’s interesting to me is how quickly head knowledge can change… read a book… change a doctrine/theology of something..switch sides of the debate… they happen so quickly…. but heart change doesn’t flip flop like that and isn’t quick…
Change in our hearts takes time and experience – but once our heart has found it’s devotion – there’s no flipping. It’s forever fixated on the one who has changed it and captivated its attention, fulfilled its longings.
but oftentimes we are soo worried about the head knowledge being wrong and making sure we have the “right” side on the debate/theology… or making sure we have A side to be able to take a stand one way or the other… that we forget the heart change.
Focusing on our heart’s devotion is the solution to get away from the disunity caused by our need for others to think like we think, do how we do… when our heart is changed and fixated on our Treasure, His love will be full in us that we’ll be able to give that same freedom that unconditional love brings – to others… no matter how they think or look different than us.
Randi,
I agree… as long as our heart is devoted to Jesus and not to some system of doctrine.
-Alan
yes – that’s a way better more concise way of saying it 🙂
So doctrine is unimportant? We should come together with the Arian and Nestorian or Jehovah’s Witness or Mormon, deficient as their Christologies are, and worship different Christs?
There are false Christs (Mk 13.32) and right doctrine helps us in our understanding of the true one. It’s hard to talk about loving someone you don’t know anything about.
Love without truth is just empty sentimentality. It’s a nice thought that we should throw doctrine out the window and “just focus on Christ” (whatever that could mean), but it’s misguided. I also don’t think the things God has revealed are secondary. He has given us those things for a reason. It’s not as if what God has told us about Christ will cease to be true when we receive the beatific vision, although it will certainly be more fully understood.
That should be Mk 13.22, not 32.
Josh,
Yes, what we believe about God and Jesus matters. This post is about unity among brothers and sisters in Christ. If we believe that God has accepted someone in Christ, then we are to accept them as brothers and sisters as well.
-Alan