(Introductory apology: My thoughts on the following topic are not fully formed, and I doubt I'm going to come to some brilliant conclusion that solves everything, but hang in there, dear reader! Hopefully I'll say something worthwhile here that will get you thinking.)
My denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, has a system of classes, regional groups where the leaders of local churches meet to work together. Every once in a while a congregation will request to move to a different classis because they think their theological positions are too different from the positions of the other churches in their current classis. Each time I see a request like this on the agenda for our annual meeting, it makes me very sad. I can't help but think we've really gone wrong somewhere.
We humans naturally seem to seek out people that are like us. We join clubs or teams based on shared interests. We get our news from TV networks and websites and periodicals that echo our political viewpoints. We gravitate toward people who are our age or at least in a similar stage of life. Often we're more comfortable around people of the same gender or ethnicity or social class and so on. (These statements aren't true of every single person, but I think they hold true in general.)
I think a lot of our churches work the same way. Many of us are willing to leave one church for another that has a worship style we like more or that approaches theological debates and contemporary issues roughly the way we do or that has people who are more like we are in some way. Denominations split, and congregations realign with different denominations, and left to our own devices we risk becoming more and more compartmentalized. (Again, please forgive the generalizing. I'm trying to keep this from getting too long.)
But if our churches more and more become gatherings of similar people, then I think we've really missed God's design for the church. In Acts, God's Spirit brings people who seem like outsiders into the church on multiple occasions and shows that they belong just as much as the previous Christians did. Revelation describes God's people as being made up of individuals from every nation, tribe, people, and language. Ephesians argues that bringing different people together into one new people of God is a central part of God's unfolding plan. And 1 Corinthians' discussion of spiritual gifts teaches us that unity in the church does not mean uniformity or sameness but rather diversity and variety.
I don't want to downplay the differences between the beliefs of the various branches of Christianity. We have very distinct theological postions in some areas. I don't think it would be wise for us to ignore all our differences and only talk about general areas of agreement. The church here and now will never completely be what God intends until Jesus returns. But I think that even if our differences keep us distinct, they don't have to keep us separate. Maybe we can't just up and ditch our denominations and all worship together each week. But we can worship together from time to time. We can work and serve together in our communities and in our world. We can strive to have deep discussions that don't devolve into dead-end debates. I think the most powerful witness the church can give is to be a body of people who are different in every way that the world around us looks for sameness, a body of people who don't seem like we should fit together but who come together and fight to remain together simply because Christ Jesus brings us together and makes us one. Christ doesn't eliminate our differences; He transcends them and even delights in them. God is making the church the most diverse gathering of humans ever assembled. We who are many form one body. May we never forget or downplay that.
Grace and peace,
BMH
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