26th January 2025
Christian Unity: Christ's Unanswered Prayer?
I was entertained to discover, when I looked for an image to reflect this Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, that there is no single defining logo. Each denomination, each region, each diocese seems to have its own design. Are we so divided as a church that we can't even agree on this?
Disagreement in the church - passionate, strong disagreement - is nothing new. Acts 15 recounts the debate in the early church around how far Gentiles should adopt Jewish customs to be fully accepted into the community of disciples. In the fourth century, discussions around the nature of the Trinity led to excommunications, martyrdom and violent discord. And, only around five hundred years ago, possessing a Bible written in the English language might have got you burnt at the stake! The topics over which we disagree may have changed over time, but the passion with which we hold to "our" truth, and the pain of discord and conflict have not.
In John 17, Jesus prays for his disciples just before his death, and his prayer is simple - "that they should be one, as you and I are one... brought to complete unity" (John 17:21, 23). As Pete Greig and others have pointed out, that's a prayer of Jesus' that remains unanswered to this day. We are not one, at least not yet.
What might an answer to Jesus' prayer look like? It surely can't be about all of us looking, thinking, doing exactly the same. God made us in God's image to be a diverse people, each of us with unique insights, unique gifts and, if we are honest, unique flaws. All of us will hold different opinions about the key issues of the day. All of our opinions will contain truth... none of us carry the whole truth. So an imposed unity which demands adherence to a narrow set of beliefs and practices cannot, surely, be an answer to Jesus' prayer. It makes a mockery of the discernment of the leaders of the early church in Acts 15, where they decided that it would be wrong to place barriers in the way of the Gentiles who were discovering God's grace. At the same time, in Romans 9-11, Paul challenges those Gentiles who were revelling in their new found faith to honour the community from which that faith had sprung.
The story of the early church is a story of God calling people to go out and be together with those who are different. Church is not about everybody thinking, being, doing the same. Church is about all of us, with our different personalities, histories, gifts and flaws, learning to live with one another, respect one another and, ultimately, love one another from our hearts. It's the work of a lifetime and a miracle of the Holy Spirit. And if that miracle of grace and healing is ever to happen for our national Church, still more for the global Church, it will need to start with each one of us.
So, maybe, that diversity of logos doesn't matter all that much. What matters goes far deeper, into the depths of our hearts.
