People are not inherently good, rather they are all in a state of active rebellion against God, this is what the Bible calls sin (Rom 3:23). While those who truly follow Jesus turn away from their rebellion and back to God sin still remains in the life of the believer (1 John 1:8-10).No Christian will perfectly submit themselves to God until God has finally judged the world and taken his people to live with him. One expression of human pride and rebellion are the divisions and broken relationships we experience today between people, nations, races and even churches.
If you were to ask different sorts of Christians what the core of their faith is you are likely to get some very different answers. For traditional Catholic belief it is following Jesus Christ by listening to the church and Jesus’ representative, the Pope. For Protestants it is generally the Bible that takes the centre of authority, for others it is the experience of God and the leading of his Spirit that is central. Broadly speaking, Christians tend to use four main sources to derive their core beliefs; tradition (Church structures, practices and customs), revelation (the Bible), experience (personal spiritual experiences) and human reason. All Christians will use all of these in varying measure. Different Christians will place greater emphasis on different sources; Catholics and some Anglicans emphasise tradition, Evangelicals emphasise revelation, Charismatic Christians emphasise experience and Liberal Christians emphasise reason. Today within each of the Christian denominations there will be a variety of these different viewpoints, and it is fair to ask the question, ‘why can’t they all just get along?’ The problem is that these differences are not merely side issues but do come down to the very core of Christian belief. Questions like, ‘how do I find out about God?’ will be answered differently depending on which source of beliefs you emphasise. One will answer, ‘listen to the Pope’ or ‘listen to the church’s teaching’, another will say, ‘read the Bible’, another will say ‘experience the Holy Spirit’, and another will say ‘look at the world and use your logic’. Many of the divisions between Christian organisations have a long history and are unlikely to resolve by ecumenical councils due to their fundamental nature of the issues at stake. The problem with religious institutions is that as much as they may try to enforce rules on the beliefs of individuals, which is never completely effective. Although the institutions are a necessity to function in the world they are never the whole picture and have both faithful Christians and false believers (Mat 13:24-30). Things like resolving disagreements and pursuing peace and love are certainly worth doing but it is worth asking what sort of unity should Christians pursue?
Christianity, if it is to be true to itself, ought to find its core in following Jesus Christ through his apostles teaching, which is found in the Bible, particularly in the New Testament. The New Testament does hold out the ideal that Christians will be unified (Eph 4:3) but the reality is that unity is found in Christ himself and not in human institutions.
One challenge to unity is false teaching, which is one of the major themes of the New Testament (Acts 20:29; Mark 13:22; 2Cor 11:13,26; Gal 2:4; Col 2:18; 1 Ti 1:3, 6:3; 2 Pe 2:1; 1Jn 4:1; Rev 2:2). Given that false teaching is such a part of the reality of the early church, Christians have no expectation of eradicating it without a supernatural work of God. Like all sin forgiveness and healing from God are the only solution we have to this problem. To see an end to the divisions Christians need to see that God is bringing all things toward unity in His Son.
Christianity is at its heart a grass-roots movement of believers following Jesus Christ rather than an institutional system of religion. The answer to the divisions in the churches today is not ignoring the differences but discovering the unity than can be found in following Jesus together. Unity is not found in the diversity of church practices but in the core belief of following Jesus Christ (Rom 15:5). Unity in Jesus Christ is also the position of mature Christians (Eph 4:1-15). This is not an institutional unity, but a deep unity of faith and knowledge of God which transcends denominations, backgrounds cultures and ages.
