“Unity!” – Huh?

Jonathan Rupprecht

I don’t know about you, but I’m getting more and more tired of hearing all these calls for “Unity!” floating around. Republicans are praised for achieving new unity; Democrats are cautioned about their new need for unity; America definitely needs more unity to patch up our “deeply divided” country. And oh yes, we need more unity in the church, too.

But you say, “What’s your problem with unity? Isn’t it a good thing? Isn’t it even praised in Scripture? Isn’t it a blessed goal that God holds out to us?” Yes. Yes. Yes. Maybe the biggest “unity” passage in Scripture is Psalm 133, that opens with those beautiful words, “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity.” Can’t argue with that; and I certainly don’t.

But the problem with the majority of “Unity” pleas nowadays is that they are a futile, frustrating failure because they don’t deal with the causes of the growing disunity! And there’s this implication that if we’re just nice to each other and pretend to be united, the disunity will magically disappear. “You think it’s OK to murder pre-born babies, whereas I know it is a heinous, disgraceful sin. But that’s OK; the bottom line is that we nevertheless have unity!” “You say that homosexuality is immune from criticism, while I know how God calls it perversion. But that’s OK, we can still be united.” “You say that Jesus Christ was simply one of history’s great religious teachers, but I know that He is God the Son, the only Savior from sin. Yet we can’t let that difference destroy our unity.”

Sure, such actual conversations would be rare, but the implications of the vapid cries for unity today actually are that ludicrous – and thus hopeless. This blatant, gross confusion of cause and effect is so common today: lament the disunity but refuse to address the problems behind it. Why this refusal? Because deep down people understand – but won’t admit, even to themselves – that so often the issues behind the disunity are irresolvable under the circumstances.

And as Christians we need to keep in mind what’s really behind so much of the disunity in our world: the opposite ways that a person and a society often view the Word of God, and thus the Christian faith itself and its applications to life. As Christians we too would like unity in the world where we live, and we know that in and of itself unity is a good thing, and that we often need to compromise in order to get along and to be polite, considerate, civilized citizens. On that surface level we are united about unity even with unbelievers.

But you saw that little word there, “compromise”. We can and sometimes should compromise mere personal desires, preferences, priorities; but we can’t compromise God’s truth. This means that we are separate from and in opposition to those who are willing to and do compromise Scriptural principles in order to achieve “unity”. Many of the big, divisive issues of our day are moral, Scriptural issues: abortion, homosexuality, gender-bending perversions, sex outside of marriage (yes, that’s still a sin!), the role of women in the church, and many “woke” approaches that sacrifice Scriptural faithfulness to a contemporary, flexible, trendy, do-it-yourself, socio-political morality, etc.

Our overall American culture still retains enough residual Biblical morality from our original Christian heritage to make cultural unity in our increasingly pagan society frustratingly elusive in some key issues. This is why the cries for “unity” consciously or subconsciously avoid a direct encounter with the actual causes for the lamented disunity, because that would ultimately, unavoidably necessitate an encounter with God and the Bible. Unbelievers don’t want to do that, because it would grant legitimacy to what they have decreed to be illegitimate and irrelevant by now.

But Christians also are on ever shakier ground in such encounters, with Scriptural truth and God-given basic morality having become increasingly relative and subjective in the church at large rather than having the objective status that was once the fairly universal consensus. Thus with this spiritual climate change, both Christian unity and secular unity are increasingly decreasing amidst an inability, reluctance and even refusal to specifically pin down both the cause of and the solution for that disruptive disunity. So just lament the lack of unity but don’t bother with the details! That’s the frustration I cited initially.

While in general this is hardly a brand new development, it nevertheless is a situation that we as Christians very much need to recognize and be repeatedly reminded of. It’s so easy and too common to be naively caught up in a prevailing and legitimate desire for unity to the point where we forget that we dare not even attempt to achieve unity through compromising God’s Word. Sad examples exist where Christians fail to recognize – or somehow blind themselves to the fact – that a proposed solution actually does involve such compromise. St. Paul was led to a concise, blunt warning about this situation: “What fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?” (2 Cor. 6:14&15)

Yet there is a way to bridge that gap and achieve real, true unity. Not by forbidden compromising and being “nice”; not by overlooking unacceptable differences and agreeing to disagree; but by clearing up the disunity with God’s truth. St. Paul also tells us to “keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” (Eph. 4:3). We thus have a powerful tool from God Himself for achieving unity: His Holy Word, the voice of the Holy Spirit.

“Your Word is truth”, Jesus says to God the Father in His High Priestly Prayer (John 17:17). Now there’s a concept for you: absolute truth! And right there for all people in the Bible! Unfortunately that concept has been increasingly and deliberately rejected by the wisdom of this world, thus making true unity with the children of this world virtually impossible whenever that situation openly prevails.

But of course we can still proclaim that Word and set its power at work. The holy unity that emerges when that Word of Truth takes root is an amazing, beautiful, powerful blessing to have, to behold, guard and treasure.

Yes, there are those details in life that God’s Word does not directly address, and where specific unity is thus elusive even among faithful Christian Bible students. But the fundamental unity that keeps such superficial disunity from being problematic is there for us in our united profession of faith in the clear teachings of Scripture and their appropriate applications. Thus that precious “bond of peace” prevails among us even amid superficial disagreements.

The world in its dismal disunity neither knows nor has that peace, but we can demonstrate it for them and testify to its source and its great blessings. And even in these ever-darkening days they too can thus learn and experience “how good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity”: united by faith in Jesus Christ, our dear Lord and only Savior, and guided together by the light for our path from the precious Word of God.