Unity: The Reality

Part two of a series. Read part one HERE.

Despite all the high ideals our movement has for the church, and for unity within it, the reality is that the Church of God has not always met its own standard. In fact, it can be argued that our track record in this regard is sorely lacking.

This criticism can be hard to accept, since this teaching is core to our identity. Nevertheless, we must acknowledge that it is not enough for us to claim that we hold to the truth of Christian unity if we have struggled to put it into practice. Of course, there are examples among us of people and initiatives where unity has been lived out. Sadly, however, these notable exceptions do not tell the whole story.

Several years ago, I came across the flowchart included above which attempts to catalog the myriad of divisions that have taken place in the history of our movement (NOTE: open the image separately in a browser in order to read the small print). I do not know the author, Dale Rude, nor can I vouch for the chart’s completeness or accuracy. Some of the breakups appear to be isolated and localized. And, being over 20 years old, this also does not represent any subsequent divisions that have taken place, or that are emerging. Regardless, even if we were to quibble on the fine details, this graphic makes a powerful statement that we should not ignore.

As our history reveals, we have experienced fractures for several reasons. Often it has been over doctrinal disagreements. In other cases, differences about holiness practices. And, we have also found ourselves splintering because of racial and ethnic tensions. The natural instinct is for us to rationalize these schisms. In cases where others have split away from us in the “Anderson” mainstream, it has been far too easy to write them off as extremists, often ultra-conservative. Or, when we ourselves have forced others out, we feel justified in having done so because of our perceived need to protect ourselves from those whom we believe are distorting or diluting truth as understood by the majority at the time.

What I find most disturbing about all these divisions is the substantial number of them. They are not just isolated, rare occurrences, but seemingly part of an ongoing pattern that seems to be frequent in our story. One might argue that this is what happens when you have people together – sometimes they do not get along. But, we are supposed to different, right?

So, why do we struggle to practice what we preach? Utilizing the language common in describing technology problems, we might say that our propensity toward schism is not a bug, but actually a feature inherent to the system. In simplest terms, the dynamic tension between our core doctrines of holiness and unity may have contributed to the challenges we have faced. It was clear to our founders that unity was not possible without holiness; however, the high, sometimes excessive and legalistic, standards we put in place have enabled those who want to create and enforce clear boundaries, not only for behavior, but also for theological positions and relationships. We have expended much energy to have a holy church, often without the charity needed for it to be whole.

Difficulties in resolving this tension can be traced back to the start of our Reformation. Charles W. Naylor, in one of the earliest attempts to detail the historical development of the Church of God, suggested that D. S. Warner himself struggled to live out unity, modelling behavior that may have established an unfortunate precedent for the future:

By classifying all religious movement except his own, including the holiness movements as 'Babylon' and all their adherents as 'Babylonians,' he alienated his former associates and finally all denominational adherents. He vigorously condemned and bitterly attacked all those who did not agree with him in matters of little importance. When aroused, his emotions stirred, he became aggressive in attack and denunciation almost to abusiveness, and his language was quite often intemperate. (The Teachings of D. S. Warner and His Adherents)

Warner was human, and not the larger-than-life figure some have made him to be. Yes, we affirm that God used him to bring leadership and much needed theological insight into the shifting and dysfunctional social and religious landscape of his time. Through his initiative, the Church of God movement brought hope and spiritual transformation for many open to hear and respond to the messages of holiness and unity. Nevertheless, as a man Warner was far from perfect.

Interestingly, shortcomings aside, in one of his last writings, Warner seemed to come to the realization that there were real dangers in drawing overly rigorous boundaries. He stated that “to ignore fellowship simply because of some doctrinal error is bigotry.” (The Church of God, or What It Is Not). In other words, holding too firmly to one’s convictions has the potential to be actually divisive.

Warner realized that “to ignore fellowship simply because of some doctrinal error is bigotry.”

Here is the point in all this discussion: Within our movement, we have failed to live up to our vision for Christian unity, and if we are ever to advance this cause it is imperative for us to speak truthfully about how at times we have behaved contrary to the teachings we proclaim. The consequence of this is that it will be impossible for us to take our message to the larger, universal church when we ourselves have been steeped in internal division, and have made few determined efforts to correct that for today or to bring healing for our past failures.

Certainly, we got the doctrine right. The prayer of Jesus in John 17 calls for his followers to be one so that the world may see God. The larger Christian community, let alone our increasingly skeptical world, desperately needs to see unity modelled. Sadly, despite capturing the doctrine, we have not known how to turn theory into practice.

Furthermore, let us not think that our disunity is a problem limited to the past. We must also come to terms with the fact that the Church of God movement faces many challenges today that threaten to drive us further asunder. For example, our inability to address deep-set racial divisions and hurt remains. Some of this is aided by the heated political divisions that exist in the United States, creating an environment where congregations and the movement as a whole are increasingly polarized because of perspectives driven by politicians, parties, and partisan media; not by Scripture or the quest for discipleship. We see this spilling over into how we try to work through social issues, with the current handling of ChogAffirm demonstrating our inability to do so in a wholesome manner.

I grieve over our failings, hence the reason for reminding us of them. Nevertheless, I have hope and believe that confronting ourselves with the honest reality is a necessary starting point. In my next post on this topic, I will propose a next step for us to chart a new course for furthering the cause of Christian unity.