Honoring the Truth While Maintaining a Spirit of Unity

Are there times when we should put our doctrinal differences to the side for the sake of fellowship? Are there times when we should place a higher regard to truth, forcing a break? How do we balance the two?

There are two extremes that we must be careful to avoid: Hyper-ecumenicalism and separatism. The one sees doctrine as an obstacle to unity and not as important. The other holds that there can be no unity unless there is absolute agreement on everything.

Keeping truth and unity in proper tension requires an understanding of the difference between those things that are essential, those things that are secondary, and those things that are disputable. Augustine said, “In essentials, unity. In nonessentials, liberty. In all things, charity.”

The Essentials

The essentials of the faith primarily deal with whom it is we worship. To deny any of these core truths is to be guilty of heresy, for what is then being worshiped is a false god. These core truths serve as the foundational beliefs of our faith. They are “non-negotiables.” They are limited in number and were worked out for the most part in the first five centuries of the church. We find them articulated in the ancient creeds and are beliefs that have been held by all orthodox Christians at all times.

Examples include: the true and complete humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ; the Trinity; the personhood of the Holy Spirit; and salvation by grace through faith. Agreement on the attributes of God is also critical for genuine unity: His omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, immutability, eternal nature, mercy, love, justice, and so forth.

If someone continues to deny an essential truth after it has been explained, Christian fellowship must be broken. This does not mean that the person cannot remain a friend, or that all love is to stop. It does means that the person cannot be regarded as a brother or sister in the Lord. Sharing in prayer and worship would be a contradiction. In Christianity, our fellowship with each other is based upon our fellowship with God. If there is no agreement on whom He is, there cannot be any genuine fellowship (the best we could do is to pretend). But by pretending, we act as if God is unimportant.

The error of hyper-ecumenicalism is to consider very little, if anything, an essential of the faith. The error of separatism is just the opposite, making virtually everything an essential.

Secondary Doctrines

Church history is filled with spirited battles over secondary doctrines. Greater minds than ours have debated such controversial doctrines for centuries, often leaving us with good arguments for both sides. However, there seldom is a middle ground, and because truth is antithetical, one side will be in error. The error is generally due to a misinterpretation of one or more passages of Scripture and/or a flaw in logic.

There is a difference between heresy and error. Heresy is a denial of an essential doctrine; error, on the other hand, is a denial of a secondary doctrine. Nevertheless, error has serious and widespread ramifications and we should be willing to refute it with great vigor and persistence. At the same time, however, error does not justify any break of Christian fellowship.

Examples of debated secondary doctrines include: Sequence of events surrounding the second coming of Jesus; the use of charismatic gifts in the modern church; Calvinism vs. Arminianism; infant baptism; views of the Lord’s Supper; age of the universe; divorce and remarriage; the role of women in the church; and church government.

These and others all have a certain theological weight that should not be passed over. They are very, very important and can often affect our understanding of other doctrines. Yet, division or separation on secondary beliefs cannot be justified because there is no heresy, no attack on the definition of God Himself.

Disputable Matters

There are many issues that Christians unnecessarily fight over, resulting even in church splits and permanently broken relationships. Disputable matters have no great theological depth but deal primarily with style, preferences, tastes, and even matters of personal conscience.

Some examples include: Music style in worship; dress codes at church; women in the workforce; homeschooling vs. public schooling, and issues dealing with personal pietism (movies, television, playing cards, drinking alcoholic beverages, etc.).

In Romans 14, Paul scolds both those who eat meat offered to idols and those who do not for trying to impose their personal convictions on one another. It appears that both parties were able to argue their positions theologically. However, in the end, it became a matter of conscience, not revelation. On such disputable matters where the Bible does not speak clearly, one is free to practice according to his own conscience but must not make it a test of faith for others.

Next: The Sanctity of Marriage