I love my Roman Catholic friends, and my faith is richer for listening to them share their experience of the Eucharistic mystery and the traditions of their church. I have deep respect for my Orthodox neighbors and feel a sense of mystery and awe when I worship amid the aroma of incense in their church. I love my Southern Baptist colleagues, whose love of the Scriptures and preaching of conversion have left their mark on me. And my Pentecostal friends have reminded me that the Holy Spirit continues to work in unexpected ways. While I’m drawn to the United Methodist Church’s attempt to hold together the evangelical and social gospels, and to stand in the center of the theological spectrum as a bridge between the left and the right, I don’t believe all Christians should be United Methodists. In fact, I think Christianity would be the poorer if they were.
The truth is that all of these branches in this tree called Christianity are a bit defective. But each adds to the beauty of the whole. What a tragedy if we were to cut off all but one of the limbs. But what riches are to be found if we can humbly listen and learn from one another, appreciating our differences, while together seeking to follow Christ.
How often the Christian church’s ability to accomplish good is diminished by our infighting. What if all 224 million Christians in America were actually working together to shape a nation that looks like Jesus’ vision of the kingdom of God, where poverty does not exist, where people practice justice, where love of neighbor is universally practiced? But this will never happen. We are too busy ‘straining gnats.’
Our quest for truth, certainty, purity of doctrine, and our tendency to label others who don’t agree with us, to separate from them and to demonize them, lead us to black-and-white thinking. I am right and you are wrong. I am faithful and you are unfaithful. I am whole and you are wounded or defective. We have ‘all the gospel’ and you do not.
I am not suggesting that we could ever return to a time when all Christians are ‘of one accord’ as was seen on the day of Pentecost in the early church. Even then unity didn’t last for long. But the hope for the future of Christianity will be found, in part, in our willingness to accept that no one has all of the truth. We must be able to see the value in another’s position, practice, and doctrine. And while we may hold fast to our convictions, we must be willing to accept that someone else could be correct, and we could be in error, or we both might be partially correct. Alternatively, we might simply be willing to say, ‘This issue is not worth dividing over.’”
