Why Catholic Protestant Bridge? Unity
Why should Protestants and Catholics work to restore unity?
1) Because, Jesus said that the way the world will know that God loves and sent Christ to die for them is by our unity.
That makes unity is vitally important to the gospel! How indeed, can we proclaim the Gospel of reconciliation without at the same time being committed to work for reconciliation among Christians?
2) Because we are called to One Faith and One Mind for the faith of the gospel.
We are called to One Faith and to “stand firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel,” and to have “the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (Phil. 1:27, 2:2).
We’ve skirted around the issue of thousands of divisions in Christianity by saying that as long as we hold to a list of “essentials” that we can charitably agree to disagree on the rest. “In essentials, unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all charity” is a nice sounding platitude. But we have kidded ourselves for far too long. If you ask 10 churches what the essentials are you will get 10 different answers. Our collective list of “essentials’ don’t come anywhere close to matching. And our lists of “non-essentials” range from areas of true freedom to foundational tenets of the Faith like salvation, baptism, communion. Jesus never said, “it doesn’t matter what you believe all I care about is that you have a relationship with me”. He breathed on his disciples and gave them is authority to speak for him and said, “whoever hears you, hears me”. and he commanded that disputes be taken to “the church”. Which church would that be when they all have different answers?
3) Because division is no trifling matter. St. Paul likens it to dividing Christ.
St. Paul has strong words that condemns “dissension” as “works of the flesh,” warning that “those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God” (Gal. 5:19-21). He said when we are divided, we are dividing Christ! He appeals to us, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to have no divisions.
The bible warns us against divisions, schism, and sectarianism, either by command, or by counter-example in many places. Matthew 12:25, 16:18, John 10:16, 17:20-23, Acts 4:32, Romans 13:13, 16:17, 1 Corinthians 1:10-13, 3:3-4, 10:17, 11:18-19, 12:12-27, 14:33, 2 Corinthians 12:20, Galatians 5:19-21, Ephesians 4:3-6, Philippians 1:27, 2:2-3, 1 Timothy 6:3-5, Titus 3:9-10, James 3:16, 2 Peter 2:1 -Dave Armstrong
Division is also called schism. Schism comes from the same root word was schizophrenia, which means splitting of the mind.
We Christians have confused “division”, which is a work of the flesh has divided the faith into thousands of contradictory opinions with “diversity” which embraces different gifts, cultures, styles of worship .
We can have diversity in liturgical styles and expressions of worship and different spiritual gifts. But we are called to unity what we believe and what we practice in worship. We are called to the One Faith handed down to us from Jesus to the apostles.
The number of denominations that have evolved due to disagreements about the faith has been estimated to be as high as well over 40,000. That estimate has been challenged by those who try to divert the conversation away from the issue. The issue is that anything more than ONE Faith is too many. Whether its 2 or 50,000 different churches , its too many. B
Whatever the number currently is, its staggeringly higher than 1.
The goal is 1. One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism.
Of course, unanimous understanding of the gospel isn’t our only goal as Christians. But our lack of unity about the gospel isn’t something that we can sweep aside as something that doesn’t really matter or doesn’t matter as much as (fill in your favorite blank). We have become so comfortable with division that we don’t blink an eye when Christians disagree with how we are saved, who can be saved, communion, sacraments (some have never even heard that term before! ), eternal security, what is sin, what is the church etc. . Below is picture that illustrates the problem.
There are over 70 different churches in the downtown area alone of the city where I live (and hundreds more across city!). The remarkable thing is that all 8 churches in this photo are all within less than a mile of each other so you can literally wave at your fellow Christians who are walking out of a church service across the street who believe something different than you believe about the Christian faith.
Seven of these eight no longer believe what Christians unanimously believed for centuries. Should we conclude that all Christians everywhere, the entire early church got it wrong for several centuries? Or should we ask more questions to explore why such discrepancies exist?
If an unbeliever were to walk into these 8 churches and ask to explain the gospel, there would be 8 different answers about what the bible teaches about the faith. Do you see the problem, here?
The Church is One, not many. Jesus Christ is the King. Having a King means you’re not the king and I’m not the king. We don’t get to to religion on our terms. We do religion on His terms.
That’s what this blog is all about-Christianity on Christ’s terms. Will you join in the conversation?
For Further Reading! And Watching!
Denominations and Sectarianims: An Anti-biblical scandal
A Helpful Question for our Protestant Friends
Why You Can’t Have Jesus Without His Church
Watch: Why You Can’t Have Christ Without His Kingdom: