Seven Biblical Principles of Unity--Introduction

[Today I begin a series of eight blogs on “unity”. At its core is the closing series of sermons I delivered at First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Introduction and Epilogue have been added for the blogs.

Disciples were founded out of a desire to see Christ’s Church united. “Unity is our polar star”, has long been our still elusive aim; although, disunity remains too much our reality.

I offer these “Seven Biblical Principles of Unity” in the hope that individuals, families, groups and congregations may find in them a path to unity. I offer them in absolute confidence that to the extent that these seven principles are applied faithfully by any congregation or group, the result will be an experience of the unity we humans long to have.]

“Seven Biblical Principles of Unity”: Introduction

If I had to choose one word to describe today’s North American culture, it would be a real challenge: but high on the list of possibilities would be the word, “disunity.”

From the halls of congress, to Wall Street and Madison Avenue, to our systems of economy, education, jurisprudence and health care, to the board rooms of the corporate world—and yes, even in the church—disunity too often is a primary trait.

We humans long for unity; but too often by unity we mean uniformity—conformity to specific ideologies and traditions and moral standards. And when we confuse unity with uniformity we virtually always set ourselves up for failure.

Nor is unity the same as agreement, although those who are in agreement also will experience, within the limits of that agreement a level of unity.

Humanity is broken. The Bible calls it “sin”—a condition in which people generally have placed their own needs, desires, preferences, ideologies, etc. as the ultimate reality, and then essentially have made God in their own image (so to speak) and placed God in position to provide and sustain those personal needs, desires, preferences, etc. That particular expression of brokenness/sin is called idolatry, and it can be manifest at an individual level, but it also has shared manifestations in families, groups and nations. And, yes, it has infected the church, as well.

Given that human brokenness, in which individuals and groups place their own ideologies as ultimate reality, agreement is virtually impossible. But, where agreement is not possible, understanding still remains a valid pathway to unity. 

When we confuse unity with agreement, we broken humans don't want to understand or to be understood. Too often we don't want to resolve differences. We want to win the fight. In our brokenness, about the best we can hope for is overlapping needs and preferences, with emphasis on the “preferences.” Then people divide up into groups with similar preferences and exert massive quantities of energy attempting to convert other individuals and groups to affirm and support their own preferences.

We set ourselves up for failure because when we broken humans don’t find the level of conformity or agreement we desire, we too frequently resort to familiar patterns of manipulation and confrontation (some to the point of violence) in order to enforce our own perspectives—to inflict them on everyone who disagrees.

Those familiar patterns of coercion are rooted in what theologian Walter Wink calls “the myth of redemptive violence.” To sustain that myth we first must locate all evil outside ourselves and assume that our ideology is “right”. By extension, then, anything else is “wrong”. It’s only a short journey from identifying other ideologies as “wrong” to calling them “evil”. By ignoring or even denying our own evil, we can easily scapegoat others: the commies, the gays, the straights, the blacks, the whites, the liberals, the conservatives, the President (whoever happens to be in office at the time), etc.

The next level in “the myth of redemptive violence” is the conviction that, since other ideologies are wrong, and thus evil, they must be eliminated at all costs, and since our perspective is right and good, it must prevail, no matter what. The result is an “ends-justify-the-means” ethic. And when the good guys finally win (no matter by what means—whatever it takes, regardless of ethical or moral considerations) we humans are then able to re-establish a sense of goodness (however the good guys—that’s us—define goodness) without coming to any insight about our own inner evil.

That’s not unity. Nor is it peace. It’s domination and intimidation and forced conformity.

Of course it’s an extreme scenario!

Or is it?

It’s extreme only by degree, and to some degree since the emergence of the conquest empires of the late fourth millennium BCE, it has been a dominant pattern of human interaction—and especially a dominant pattern of resolving conflict and resolving the eternal question of who will control a given relationship, be it one-on-one or global in scope.

Control: possibly the sine qua non of all human disunity. It at least is the opposite of unity. Yet, lacking an effective model for unity, we humans too easily settle for conformity and then spend our energies enforcing that conformity.

While I have not yet found a comprehensive biblical model for unity, I have found seven biblical principles which can be organized in such a way that their cumulative effect is at least a foundation for such a biblical model.

And that's how I see it through the flawed glass that is my world view.

Together in the Walk,

Jim