Here are some further thoughts on how we encourage Evangelical Unity. I remember a friend pointing out once that there will be different levels of fellowship and partnership and it is helpful not to have a one size fits all approach to relationships. His analogy was that there will be those you can embrace close, those who you shake hands with warmly, those you are on a passing acquaintance with.
At it’s best Evangelicalism has recognised this leading to a high level of flexibility. It is possible for most evangelicals to unite to work together on specific issues and particularly for the Gospel. Memorably, though increasingly a distant memory, most evangelicals were able to work together during the Billy Graham Mission England campaigns. And therein is the point I frequently come back to. If you want to escape your own mini soap operas, you need to be captivated by the bigger drama of the Gospel. This was brought vividly home to me recently at a football game. At one point, my own team were struggling and two goals down. Two fans started to argue and we though tit would come to blows, a steward and a PCSO had to separate them. Then City came back and scored twice. Once again, the fans were united. It is when we graps that the victory is won and we get to play our part in spreading the good news that there is greater unity.
At a local level, I’ve seen this put into action as churches from a variety of backgrounds have united together in the West Midlands to encourage church planting through the Birmingham Collective. There is a sense of a shared theological vision, essentially it is a reformed movement but crosses over denominations and unites charismatics and non-charismatics. There is also a generosity where the core of the movement are solid in their reformed convictions and able from there to have fellowship and encourage those who might have slightly different takes on aspects of doctrine and practice.
Evangelical unity then means that if we prioritise the Gospel, we recognise that there are first order and second order matters. First order matters are the kinds of things we find in our statements of faith and creeds that get to the heart of Christian belief and the Gospel. These would include: The Trinity, sufficiency, infallibility and authority of Scripture, Christ’s incarnation, physical resurrection and certain return, Christ’s substitutionary death on our behalf, salvation by grace and justification by faith. These should unite evangelicals. Second order might include church government, positions on baptism, views on men and women in leadership (complementarian or egalitarian etc). Second order does not mean unimportant and you would expect a congregation, network/association/denomination to have a united view on such things. The network I’m part of is Reformed, Charismatic, baptistic, complementarian for example and those are positions that I would want to be held by a church/network I am involved in. However, it should be possible to relate to evangelicals who hold different views on each of those matters and work together too.
Sadly I think there have been two challenges. First, that at times evangelicals have refused fellowship with brothers and sisters on not only second order but even third order matters. I would include under third order our specific interpretations of second order issues (there are a range of views within complementarian circles for example).
Secondly, evangelical unity is weakened when some evangelicals pursue a broader unity still, seeking close fellowship and even organisational unity with people and groups that function well outside of orthodox beliefs. It is important then that we are all clear about the kind of unity we are pursuing.
Faithroots 