Unity: The Challenge

For a while now I have been promising the start of new series related to our views and practices related to Christian unity. I have been hesitating, however, to release this content due to constantly re-working my articles over the past several weeks. There is a lot to say on this topic, and I was finding myself getting too deep into the weeds for this blog format. Instead of trying to cover everything in this mini-series, I have reduced it down to three posts that hopefully will be concise and helpful for furthering this discussion. Let’s go…

Holiness and unity. These are widely recognized as the key distinguishing doctrinal emphases of the Church of God movement. For almost 145 years these two teachings have been prominent in our circles. I will tackle holiness in a future series, but for now want to focus on the unity side of the diad, even though it must be acknowledged that the two must be seen as being mutually necessary.

The matter of unity is ultimately about the church. Warner and the other early reformers were driven by a clear vision of the church that transcended the denominational fracturing that was rampant across America in the nineteenth century, especially following the Civil War. Reading Scripture, they “saw the church” as a unified Body of Christ comprised of holy people carrying out the mission of God. This vision was not just a fanciful ideal, but in their eyes, a necessary quest. As the Evening Light saints proclaimed this message, many people were captivated by the prospect of this understanding of the church that challenged the reality they were experiencing around them. With eschatological zeal, the Church of God Reformation promised to be the long-awaited expression where God’s design for the church would be realized.

In practical terms, for there to be one church, unity is essential. Warner and others knew well how deeply divided Christendom was and were not naïve to assume that this could be overcome by human, organizational means. They correctly recognized that unity was not a structural problem, but ultimately a spiritual one. People’s hearts needed to be realigned, and it is here where the priority given to holiness fit perfectly. A unified church would require people who were transformed through sanctification, which is the work of God, through the Holy Spirit.

There is something beautiful and profound about this vision of the church. Movement adherents, myself included, have affirmed the power of this message and the value of pursuing its full realization. These convictions have had deep impact on how we function, including the ways we organize, our approaches to church membership, and the manners in which we define ourselves in relationship to other denominations.

Despite the core nature of this doctrine within the Church of God, it can be argued that in practice Christian unity seems to get little more than lip service today. Certainly, those steeped in our movement’s heritage and teaching will draw upon the many writings on this topic from the past, and one may even hear occasional sermons on the subject today, however, there seems to be little evidence that the unity of the church is more than an abstract principle at this point. We have theologized it, and in turn have struggled immensely to put it into practice (something I will come back to in my subsequent posts on this topic).

Of course, we must acknowledge that there are individuals among us who have been shining examples of fostering Christian unity in their lives and ministries. And, at a national, organizational level, Church of God Ministries has involved itself in several ecumenical efforts, including active participation in such bodies as Christian Churches Together, etc. But, I am not talking about these isolated, albeit worthy, efforts. My concern is that more broadly, we no longer see ourselves at the forefront of being a leavening influence for the unity of God’s church. Perhaps this is a passive reaction to the over-inflated view that we had of ourselves in the early years. In any case, while we will still refer to the church and unity, we have been content for it to remain a taught ideal instead of an active part of our God-given calling as a movement. We seem to love the doctrine of unity more than the practice of it. It could also be that in our efforts to fit into the larger tent of American Evangelicalism we have settled for a more generic version of Christianity.

A regular theme that comes up in ChoGBlog concerns our identity. In the past, unity was a clear marker of our origins and first teachings. The question for us today, however, as we consider our future, is whether we will take up the banner of unity and fly it high again, perhaps following the example that was prominent in the slogan of the Christian Brotherhood Hour: “A united Church for a divided world.”

Part two in this series will examine some of the realities we must face if we are to recapture this calling.