My Facebook feed has been bombarded lately with blogs about how the church is too relevant, how it's failing our youth, and 5 ways we can make the church a better place by following the Bible more closely (or rather one person's narrow interpretation of the Bible).
All of which are published, written and shared by Christians about different types of Christians that offend them in some way. While there is nothing wrong with disagreement or having a difference of opinion, what bothered me most was 'how' everyone was disagreeing.
The "other" in the article isn't simply a different part of the same body, but a sinful apostate, while the author is the one who has the pure gospel. This is sad and also nothing new.
The Church in Corinth
I've started co-leading a Bible Study with fellow young writer, Becki Bowie. Recently we've been zeroing in on 1st Corinthians. Paul spends the majority of the letter on issues that were dividing them; how a worship service should be conducted, is it wrong to eat meat that is sacrificed to idols ...
The portion that struck me most was this one toward the start: "...there is quarrelling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, 'I follow Paul,' or 'I follow Apollos,' or 'I follow Cephas,' or 'I follow Christ.' Is Christ divided?"
I laughed when I read this particular passage, thinking of how many brands we have these days as Christians. "I follow Bill Johnson," or "I follow John Piper," or "I follow Mike Bickle," or "I follow James Dobson." Like the Corinthians, we're still arguing about things that don't matter and royally missing the point of Christ and his message to humanity.
When we disagree, rather than having a healthy dialogue and coming to a consensus, we tend to fracture into factions, throwing stones at each other from a distance.
I was guilty of doing this very thing recently.
Fractured into Factions
I had listened to a teaching from a particular sect of Christianity that is becoming quite popular, especially among young people. As I listened to the teacher take a book of the Bible completely out of context, and from my perspective completely misunderstand the point of the book that he was teaching on, I became deeply troubled at how readily everyone in my group ate it up without questioning him in the slightest.
After the teaching I went into investigative journalist mode, reading everything I could about the speaker and the organisation that he had founded. I came to the objective conclusion that the organisation was a cult and openly discouraged anyone that would listen to me from buying into said organisation.
To my shame, I met someone not long after who had been a part of the organisation. I resolved to ask him about the organisation and his time with them, telling him about all the things I had learned from my super thorough and unbiased research. I was kindly informed that none of the things that I had read were true or were at least not a part of his experience with the organisation.
While I still don't believe what the man was teaching was correct, I can concede that the organisation isn't sinister. We're just different parts of the same body.
Maybe It's Me
It's easy to point the finger at someone else and say, "this people group/trend is what's wrong with the church." It's harder to turn the finger around and think, "maybe I'M what's wrong with the church." None of us are perfect and could ever follow Christ's teachings perfectly. There is so much to disagree about. Instead of focusing on what's different, let's focus on that which unites us and seek to build one another up.
As Paul observed, "For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another."
Brenden Bell is working as a full-time missionary with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) a non-profit organisation in Brisbane. He works as a screenwriter, editor and teacher with their film production team.
Brenden Bell's previous articles may be viewed at http://www.pressserviceinternational.org/brenden-bell.html