Examining Our Unity

Some recent comments following my "Level the Dome" post have focused on the issue of unity.

Andy asked the question: "Could someone please share with me some concrete examples of Unity in this movement?" The implication is that we are not practicing what we preach when it comes to unity.

I know of many examples within the Church of God where unity is being lived out, but we must honestly acknowledge that there are also serious problems. The buzz word that we have heard coming out of Anderson, especially in the last six years, is "reconciliation". This is a blatant admission that not all is well among us. The most obvious example are the walls that have separated our African-American brothers and sisters from the rest of the movement.

A case can be made that we have a had less than stellar track record at living this, one of our distinguishing doctrines. In fact, it is almost embarassing to admit our struggles in this area. And, of course, before we can "reach our hands in fellowship to every blood-washed one" outside of our movement, we must address our internal unity. There is work to be done to build stronger bridges with not only our large African-American constituency, but also with Hispanics among us, the German churches in North America that were alienated during and following World War II, and churches on the geographic fringes outside of the Midwest.

The fact is, there is much more diversity in the Church of God than we are often willing to admit. Apart from some of the obvious racial and cultural differences, there is also a certain degree of theological latitude in our movement. Unfortunately, however, we have not tolerated internal or external theological differences very well. We have often bought into rigid doctrinal purity at the expense of the unity of fellowship we desire, but find elusive. In reality, we call people to unity in Christ, but only if they come on our doctrinal terms.

For a movement with roots in Wesleyan-holiness it is tragic that we have veered from our orthopraxic orientation, and towards a Calivinist-evangelical fixation on orthodoxy.

I don't want to be too hard on us, but we must face this issue of unity head on. We don't need more doctrinal ink spent describing the unity of the church. It's time we started to live it both inside and outside our circles.