It is essential that we express and foster unity between believers. Promoting unity is a fulfilment of Jesus’ prayer for the church in John 17 ‘that they may be one’ with the outcome that ‘the world will know that you sent me’. Our unity is not optional. It is a divine command and a vital part of our witness. It is also the essence of who we are as God’s chosen people, united under one head, the Lord Jesus Christ (Eph. 1:8-10; 4:15). We don’t create or choose unity. We express what is already, essentially, true in Christ.
Ephesians 4 brings these two ideas together brilliantly. Verse 3 calls us to ‘make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit.’ Verse 4 reminds us that what we are doing is an outworking of the oneness that already exists, ‘one hope… one Lord…’
The primary place our oneness is experienced (and most tested) is the local church. It is the only essential Christian organisation in the New Testament and the primary agent for evangelism and discipleship. All other bodies, whether denominations, networks or other agencies, are optional and should only be maintained to serve the local church in its mission. Yet, they can be useful in allowing us to do things together. It is clear as you look through Acts that unity between churches and Christians in different places is expected and expressed in a regular sharing of resources, prayer and practical care. They took an interest in what was going on in other churches and maintained regular contact.
Led by the apostles, churches were united in their gospel theology. There were sometimes differences of practice and personal disagreements (with the worked example of Paul and Barnabas), but essentially one body of truth on which they all agreed. The apostles taught about cultural and practical differences through the concepts of the ‘weak’ and the ‘strong’. Nonetheless, false teaching was never to be embraced as part of ‘diversity’ within the church.
In our day Christian organisations formalise those connections that existed in the early church. We don’t have the apostles but we do have the Scriptures which are sufficient to teach us the true gospel which unites us, to identify false teaching and to navigate differences. It is not always easy. We need to be diligent in study but we also need the Spirit’s help in discerning how to live together.
How do we unite?
Some might say that we need to unite around primary issues and accept one another on secondary issues. I have some sympathy with the idea but who gets to decide what is primary? I don’t want to relegate things that God has revealed as unimportant.
Another way is to say we are united as evangelicals but that is not as simple as it sounds. A great deal of time has been devoted to trying to define the essentials of what an evangelical is. We try to capture these fundamentals in statements of faith, but still the term ‘evangelical’ can mean different things to different people.
There are separatist groups that believe the rest of UK evangelicalism has compromised the gospel to such an extent as to become false teachers. For them, there are no secondary issues or a fairly narrow set of them.
There are conservative evangelicals who take a high view of the authority of Scripture, the doctrine of atonement, are complementarian, mostly functionally cessationist and share a philosophy of ministry with expository preaching. EMW and Affinity would sit within this group. Because of history and cultural factors, conservative Anglicans and free churches have limited connections although they often share very similar convictions. They can be the most difficult to unite because they are rightly eager for rigorous theology and ministry practices.
The largest group that would call themselves evangelicals would be broader in theology and practice and include many of the newer movements in the church. This group prioritises relationships over formal theological statements. Institutionally they are probably the majority group within the Evangelical Alliance.
Finally, there would be a group who would call themselves evangelical but deny fundamental biblical truth about God, sin, salvation and morality.
Although the statements of faith of broader evangelicals are similar to conservative evangelicals, unity is challenging because of deeply held sensitivities over other issues, including women’s ministry.
Intention and realism
How do we best navigate this complex church landscape? Since visible unity is essential, we need to make every effort to work at it, not just within churches, but also between churches. We need to step out of our comfort zones. We can do this at a personal level with other Christians we know in our locality or in our circle of friends. We need to take care not to write off anyone but to listen to their stories and their understanding of the gospel. This can also happen between local churches with agreement about the gospel.
Looking more widely, regional gospel partnerships can be useful expressions of unity and allow the sharing of resources for training. Then there are national organisations like EMW and Affinity which forge relational unity based around a shared statement of beliefs and practice.
It would be great to unite in all senses with every true believer but the reality is that differences in practice, culture, theological emphases and approach to ministry mean that this is not going to work. There are people that we recognise as Christians at a personal level and there will be other churches and organisations where we want to pray for them but in good conscience, we don’t think it is wise to join in.
We also need to be discerning about Christian denominations and organisations. There is a danger that some are large, unaccountable and more powerful than the local church, becoming an end in themselves.
Generous without compromise
We want to be generous and open to share fellowship with other believers outside our own blind spots but at the same time, we need to be humbly seeking to discern what is primary, or what is true evangelical faith. Theology does matter to us because it matters to God. We need to think carefully about how we express unity without compromising the gospel.
My constituency probably unites around a smaller set of distinctives which we’d like to think are purely theological, but which may be more cultural, even tribal, than we account for. We need to reflect carefully on what exactly unites or divides. Is it central gospel issues, or cultural tradition? Gospel unity is based on the gospel. Tribal unity is based on the gospel plus tribal traditions. Gospel unity works for the honour of Christ. Tribal unity works for the honour of the tribe. Gospel unity fights for truth. Tribal unity fights for territory. Gospel unity gives the benefit of the doubt. Tribal unity is suspicious. Gospel unity cares about God’s revelation. Tribal unity cares about being right. Gospel unity promotes Christ. Tribal unity promotes tribal leaders. Gospel unity tries to get people in. Tribal unity tries to keep people out.
The great challenge is how we express and promote gospel unity. How do we stop being a constituency and start being the body of Jesus Christ, united but diverse? Not compromised, but not compartmentalised either. My assumption is that it’s something we all want. My fear is that we are more prone to tribal unity.
