Christian Unity
The Reverend Dr Joan Crossley
When we speak of Christian Unity, as we have been a great deal in this Week
of Prayer for Christian Unity, I suspect that we are often talking about
very different but related concepts. There is the model that the Church of
England and the Methodist churches have adopted of trying to work together
and to look at their structures and working practises and to see how they
fit together and how they might be adapted.
I always feel a bit odd talking about Christian unity in the Partnership
churches because we are a model for many, many people. People look at our
website to see how we operate and many are impressed. Over decades,
decisions have been made, compromises thrashed out which have made a very
well integrated Partnership. I am sure along the way, some people have had
to make sacrifices and treasured traditions have been modified or even lost.
But the prevailing, overwhelming desire to work together has driven the
process along and the bumpy bits have been overcome due to generosity of
spirit and an earnest desire to follow Gospel values. I can understand
Partnership Christian Unity perfectly.
A different model for how churches might come together is provided by the
Goldington Triangle. St Mary’s, Holy Cross and Priory have had a
long-standing a very happy arrangement of occasional meeting together in a
fraternal way but without the expectation that any of them will be
dramatically changed by the process. But what is more confusing, more
difficult is when you contemplate extreme differences between individual
churches. A Partnership type scheme for Unity, or even a fraternal
relationship, would not be sensible to contemplate. If you look at this town
you can see that there is scarcely any similarity between the extremes of
Anglican churches let alone with neighbouring churches from different
denominations. They look different (robes or not), they sound different
(bells, chanting), they even smell different from one another with clouds of
incense. Some churches use the Common Lectionary, some do not.
Difference, what we do about difference is one of the greatest challenges
for Christians today. It is no secret that the Church of England and the
Methodist churches are both very fraught over the issue of whether gay
people should have the same rights as straight people within their churches.
As you know I am a member of the Church of England’s Parliament, the General
Synod, and the place will be a powder keg when the debate about Gay Rights
comes up - because we simply can’t agree, at least at this time. With God’s
grace, and a lot of divinely inspired self-control, the C of E hasn’t split
over women Bishops. But the issue seems set to be even more divisive and
challenging for our denominations.
There is inevitably going to be difficult, painful issues of contention
between good people of different views within the world wide church,
Catholics, evangelicals, reformed churches, Quakers, Salvation Army, high
church low church, we are not all going to agree all the time. It is not
enough to scream “read your Bible!” or “look to tradition” or “follow
authority” as sound bite Christians are apt to do.
I would argue that too much attention is given to what Christians think, and
too little on what they do. If you look back to the early twentieth century
the poorest parts of East London were invaded by teams of Roman Catholics,
high Church Anglicans, Evangelical missions who went there to set up food
centres, libraries, hostels, because that is what they thought Jesus would
want them to do. They were obeying Gospel values. They were doing what they
thought was right.
The Book of Nehemiah is the source of our Old Testament reading today. And a
very curious book it is too. It must be one Book of the Bible, Charlie will
correct me if I am wrong, to be written by a Civil Servant, a pen-pushing
administrator. And what an administrator!. Nehemiah, a Jew, worked in the
immediate court circle of the king of Persia and begged his master for
permission to follow his conscience, and the calling of God, to return to
his own country Israel. When he got there he found that the people were
still broken by some of their number being taken into exile in Babylon. The
remnants and stragglers crept home to Jerusalem to find its once proud walls
broken and derelict. Realising that the walls of the city were symbolic of
the moral and religious state of the people, Nehemiah set about rallying the
people. It meant pulling together the mutually distrustful tribes, the
scattered and battered groups and calling them to the great task of working
together to rebuild the city walls. And Nehemiah says that they did so with
swords in their hands, and weapons at the ready. And it was that sense of
uniting against a common enemy and working together for a great work which
reunited the people. And that it my model for Christian Unity. That we find
common cause in doing. We know as Christians what we should do. The Gospel
tells us. Our missionary and pioneering forebears, Wesley, Bell and all,
tell us what we should do. We should go out into the world and do God’s
will. We should work outwards. Some Christians, and it is an old
preoccupation, believe that you have to cleanse a church from within, get
rid of people who don’t agree with the leaders, purge people who hold
dissonant views and then , only then start doing things. And you can see
that it is a great temptation to try and make a perfect church. It is very
nice when everyone in a group thinks exactly the same on important matters,
cosy and easy, except it can’t happen for long. Eventually disagreement will
occur and then what do you do? The Puritans of New England wanted to create
a perfect society and ended up constantly getting rid of dissident people.
And then those who disagreed had to move a few miles away and set up their
ideal city. The effect was both narrowing and weakening.
In the end it is the work of the Gospel, inspired by the teachings of Jesus,
powered by the Holy Spirit which matters, rather than enforcing total
uniformity of belief on any given subject. So what do we do when we
disagree? We recognise that God speaks to his people as individual souls,
that it is part of His divine purpose that we are different and that we see
things differently. Paul’s remarks on the different parts of the body
reminds us that we are all mutually dependent and equally valuable. “If
parts of the body believe different things , can we cut them off?” Part of
our heritage as dissenting Christians, is our one-to-one relationship with
God, our belief that God speaks to us as individuals and we should be wary
of those who try and tell others what their conscience should dictate. We
keep ever before our eyes the Saviour who loved everyone, regardless of
their views, religious practises, cleanness or uncleanness, race or gender.
We must think long and hard about the centrality of working in God’s name
and we must find unity in purpose and practical action if not in fact.