When Theological Differences Divide the People of God

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when theological differences divide

In John 17, Jesus prayed for unity for his followers in what is considered the greatest prayer recorded in the Bible. His prayer was for the disciples and immediate Christ followers and the Church through the ages. His prayer for believers today is a prayer for unity and a prayer for truth. In John 17:20-26, we read that Jesus prayed for his followers to experience a spiritual unity that exemplifies the oneness of the Father and the Son.

Yet far too often, the followers of Christ throughout the centuries have been characterized by controversy, infighting, arguing, disagreement, and disunity.

The Scripture warns us against arguing:

  • Do everything without complaining and arguing. (Philippians 2:14 NIV)
  • Keep reminding God’s people of these things. Warn them before God against quarrelling about words; it is of no value and only ruins those who listen. (2 Timothy 2:14 NIV)
  • Don’t have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. (2 Timothy 2:23-24 NIV)

So how should we approach theological differences or disagreements without divisiveness in the Body of Christ? Here are some biblical principles and guidelines that come to mind:

1. We must love those who disagree with us. The foundational truth of all Christian ethics is that every person is made in the image of God and is deserving of basic human dignity (Genesis 1:26-28; 9:6). In personal and Church arguments, it is easy to forget that we are not merely addressing ideas but the hearts and minds that are attached to them. We must remind ourselves constantly that even those in theological error are men and women deeply valued by God. Loving includes praying for those with whom we have disagreements with. (2 Thessalonians 3)

2. We must watch the way we conduct ourselves. Disagreements over the things of God do not excuse us to commands about Christian behaviour, attitudes and speech. We should be slow to argue and quick to listen (James 1:19; Proverbs 15:18; Proverbs 6:16, 19 – The Lord hates discord sown among brothers).

Remember, the unbelieving world is watching. Our lack of unity as Christians affects the world’s understanding of the testimony of Jesus Christ.

3. We must be aware of our own limitations. We must be humble interpreters of the word of God because “we see in a mirror dimly.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)

4. We must be aware of our own motives. (1 Timothy 6:4) and we should seek to glorify God in our disagreements (Romans 15:5; cf. 12:6; 1 Cor 1:10; Phil 2:2, 5; 4:2)

5. Despite theological differences, we must maintain good relationships and unity in the Body of Christ.
Ephesians 4:3-6 says that we are to “3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (Ephesians 4:3-6).

We may not be able to resolve all our theological differences on this side of heaven, but we must maintain unity in the Body of Christ. The unity of God’s people is important to the Lord. Our hope is that all disputes will eventually be resolved when the perfect comes (1 Cor 13:10).

Ike Agawin
ServeBeyond Director

The Lost Art of Listening

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the lost art of listening

How many arguments and conflicts arise because we assume we understand each other?

This season of the blog is about moving from argument to discussion. Bill Taylor and Terry Kaufman, in previous blogs, have highlighted the need to argue for a few key things but also recognize that we are diverse. So how can we build the kind of unity Terry talked about, in the middle of our diversity?

Well, one place to start might be by listening.

I’m not a very good listener. I developed an occupational hazard as a pastor – I talk way too much. Just ask my wife. A few years ago, I found a book, entitled “The Listening Life” by Adam McHugh that I thought could help. I had read McHugh’s “Introverts in the Church” and found it helpful. I figured this might be too. Let me just say, it was soooooooo much more than just helpful. In fact, in a previous blog, I listed it as one of the books I would recommend to any Christian.

So, for this blog, let me essentially share a book review.

In the Introduction, McHugh opens by saying, “Listening comes first.” He highlights that from the womb we can hear. Yet it takes months of life before speech begins. We are born listeners. McHugh also highlights that “the beginning of discipleship is listening.” Jesus speaks. We follow. As disciples we ought to be good at listening.

But wait, there is too much input. In chapter 1, McHugh mentions, “people living in large cities are exposed to as many as 5,000 advertisements every day.” With that kind of overload, we can’t possibly take in everything. We become selective listeners. That’s good. We need to discriminate between good voices and bad ones. Between necessary ones and those that would simply waste our time. But McHugh cautions, “If only it were as simple as the proverbial whispering angel and devil on our shoulders. It is also a matter of whether we will choose to listen to different voices, voices that don’t sound the same as our own. Will we listen to the voices of different cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds, and beliefs? Will we listen to the voices that unsettle us and might make us feel anxious or guilty? If we choose to listen only to voices that echo our own, we will be limited in our growth and stunted in our spirituality.

Choosing to tune in to only one or two stations may be comfortable, but it is not transformative.

The rest of the book guides a reader on a journey of growing in listening. McHugh starts that journey with the God who listens. Then helps us grow in our capacity to listen for and to God both in Scripture and creation. Then he starts really messing around by talking about how we listen to others, especially those in pain, and even to ourselves. He ends with a chapter on the church being a listening community. He shares, “It has always been my hope to hear a pastor stand up in front of a worshiping community and say, “we are the body of Christ…that does not mean we are all the same. We are not. We think differently. We experience feelings differently. We have different experiences and perspectives and pasts and hopes for the future. We vote in elections differently. We read the Bible in different ways. We even understand God differently. We as a church are rooted in the great Christian tradition and the creeds the church around the world has affirmed for millennia, but we honor that people are coming from different places and moving at different paces. We honor the questions and the doubts and the struggles that everyone has, and we will never try to silence them or dismiss them…our goal is unity, not uniformity, and we aim for genuine community, not artificial conformity. That means we will disagree, sometimes bitterly, but we will stay at the table and keep listening.”

McHugh’s point is simply this – As much as we are unified in Christ; practically speaking, we must listen to one another to see unity grow.

Could listening – really listening to understand – help move us from argument to discussion?

Neil Bassingthwaighte
ServeCanada Director & Interim Prayer Catalyst

From Argument to Discussion — & from Disagreement to Relationship & Support

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from disagreement to relationship & support

As our Executive Director Bill Taylor noted last week, the polarized nature of our culture ranks among the most divisive ever. It is not simply about how we disagree; it is also about the vast amount of items we divide over. It is no longer simply the “big” issues of life that get our dander up; it seems like everything is fodder for a fight. And while Bill’s point that we must take a strong and unwavering stand on the gospel is an essential one, I want to make a complementary point in this short blog – that disagreements on just about everything will always exist and holding them correctly and productively is also part of our call as Christians.

Once we are anchored and secure in our identity in God as provided for, and articulated in, the gospel, we should have both the confidence and compassion to navigate disagreements in productive ways. In Romans 14 Paul indicates that we will have differences on issues for which we hold strong convictions. Too often we hold those convictions not simply firmly, but also as universal, exclusive, and inalterable. In other words, we are convinced that everyone must hold the same convictions, and unfortunately, we then disparage anyone who dares to disagree with us. But that approach does not align with Paul’s instructions in Romans 14, where we are told that it is fine to hold those convictions, but such convictions are to be “between yourself and God” (Rom 14:22, NLT). As Langer and Muehlhoff put it in “Winsome Conviction,” those convictions are not primarily for “export.”

If our attitude is right — and our anchoring is truly set in Jesus and the gospel alone — then we need not be threatened by others who hold convictions different to ours on secondary issues.

The beauty of the gospel is not that we all look the same, but rather that we can be a mosaic glued together through Christ and His gospel alone. And mosaics requires differences!

But it is also worthy of note from Romans 14 that the greater responsibility Paul lays upon us is not simply to hold on to our personal convictions well (even though we are encouraged to do that). God’s words to us (through Paul) seem to indicate that our greater responsibility as it pertains to “personal convictions” is the welfare of the other person. In other words, how can we hold a conviction in such a manner that protects, builds up, and encourages brothers and sisters who hold a different conclusion on matters which fall outside the core essentials of the gospel? Romans 14:18 tells us that if you “serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God, and others will approve of you too.”  The “attitude” Paul is speaking of is a life of “goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit,” marked by a self-sacrificing love for our brothers and sisters.

Disagreements around anything non-essential (a future blog will suggest some ways to differentiate between the essentials and the non-essentials) are never to be managed by an argument intended to prove that “I have the right conviction and understanding.” Rather such disagreements should lead to a discussion about the welfare of the other, and how we can honor God in our differences. And I am convinced that as we do just that, the testimony of hearts shaped by Jesus will mark the message of the gospel as unique, in a day where not only is such an attitude rare, it is needed by people who need reconciliation (with God and others). Never before has gracious disagreement and humble self-sacrificing been so rare, and thus so powerful. As God’s ambassadors, we are to be about reconciliation and restoration of relationship — first with God, but then also with one another. That restoration is not based on us agreeing on every issue, but rather on what God has done for us in Jesus, uniting us as a wonderful mosaic of God’s creation glued together by Jesus — not united by our own wisdom or understanding or agreement on every “jot and tittle.”  From argument all the way to relationship and support — that is the path Jesus leads us on.

Terry Kaufman
EFCC Leadership Catalyst

Moving from Argument to Discussion: The When of Each

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moving from argument to discussion

“We understand that some men from here have troubled you and upset you with their teaching, but we did not send them! So we decided, coming to complete agreement, to send you official representatives, along with our beloved Barnabas and Paul… For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay no greater burden on you than these few requirements…”  (Acts 15:24-28)

This week we begin a new series – Moving from Argument to Discussion. There have been many significantly polarizing issues throughout history, but I cannot think of many times and places where so many issues have coalesced at once and divided people into hostile camps who so fervently hate each other like in North America today. Let me be clear – there are issues indeed worth arguing over. Our hope as the people of God, however, is that argument would lead to discussion that resolves issues and preserves the unity of the body – and does not simply divide followers of Jesus into two or more factions mutually committed to each others’ destruction. I have modest goals for this short blog:  I want to outline when it is time to argue and describe how argument might productively turn to dialogue and lead to resolution of a problem and to unity in the church.

To accomplish that, allow me to highlight a few issues from Acts 15 and the controversy facing the early church. We see in verses 1 and 2 that teachers showed up in the multicultural church in Antioch of Syria (the same church that had sent Paul and Barnabas out on the First Missionary Journey in Acts 13) and insisted that all Gentiles must be circumcised as per Jewish law in order to be saved. Paul and Barnabas disagreed with them, “arguing vehemently.”   

My point here is pretty simple: One of the things we must argue about is the gospel – particularly against those who would mix culture with it and make it into religion.

Paul and Barnabas rightly argue about this, and the church rightly decides to move this from argument to discussion by sending them to Jerusalem to dialogue with the apostles and elders. So, notice: they don’t just divide into camps of mutual hatred – they reach out to other leaders for help and resolution!

As you read the story, notice further how they reach resolution. Paul and Barnabas reported “everything God had done through them” (15:4) and what the teachers were adding to the good news. Peter shares his experience with the Holy Spirit, how God makes no distinction between Jew and Gentile. He argues that God saves through faith and concludes that adding Old Testament Jewish laws (even as important a law as circumcision!) is challenging God and adding a yoke the Jews themselves had never been able to bear. James then speaks up and supports Peter’s experience from the prophets, showing that the salvation of Gentiles was foretold in Scripture. He further argues that the church should not make it difficult for Gentiles who are turning to God. Everyone at the counsel listens, discusses the issues, and arrives at a consensus regarding the core of the gospel. They will only present Jesus to the Gentiles – not extra cultural rules. They ask only that Gentiles abstain from practices that are particularly offensive to their Jewish brothers and sisters.

And so, they send messengers out to communicate the decision that “seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us…”  It is a great picture of when an argument is worth having and how that argument needs to be transformed into a dialogue that brings resolution and consensus. Did everyone agree with the final decision? I suspect not! Yet this absolutely critical, core issue – the very definition of the gospel – was settled! Not all arguments lead to discussion and agreement – see Paul’s and Barnabas’ disagreement over John Mark at the end of Acts 15! Yet even that disagreement did not lead to two “camps” hating each other. I suspect they blessed each other, agreed to disagree, and simply took their ministries two different directions (literally). Paul later refers to Mark in very positive ways.

In the end, Acts 15 shows that there are at least two things worth arguing about:  the essential core of the gospel, and how we ought to treat people. The Jerusalem Council reminds us that the point of arguing is not to divide and condemn – the point is to find ways to resolve and unite. As people who hold the motto “in essentials unity, in non-essentials charity, in all things Jesus Christ,” may we be so gospel- and people-focussed that it becomes instinctive for us to know when to argue and how to move through discussion to resolution and to restoration of relationship!

Bill Taylor
EFCC Executive Director