Church Unity

I believe the Christian Church is more unified today than it has ever been.

The Ancient Church was not unified. (Anyone who says different is trying to sell you something.) Ancient Church History was just as messy as current events on CNN, if not messier. The Early Church Fathers weren't Anabaptist, they weren't Federal-Vision-Presbyterian, and they weren't Council-of-Trent-Roman-Catholic. They were all of the above! They got together and held councils and screamed at each other. Not even Ecumenical Councils could reconcile them. After the 1st Council of Nicea, for example, there were still plenty of Arian Bishops and Emperors. Simply put, if you search for a pure "strand" of unity throughout the ages, you'll never find it.

I have to give the Ancient Church some credit, though. They did have a certain kind of unity. Most compelling is their ecclesiastical structure: they had the episcopacy, or the pseudo-episcopacy, or whatever you want to call it. No competing denominations. When modern Christians read about it, we ooh and ahh. "So unified!" we say, "if only we could attain that kind of agreement today!" And that's not all. Their liturgies were relatively uniform. They argued over issues like the dating of Easter, or standing while praying, and came to a general consensus. The Ancient Church possessed a primal, simple sort of unity.

But under that apparent unity lurked a demon. Christians sued each other. Bishops contended for the same position...with casualties! Christians murdered each other. Donatists in the 4th century conquered and stole church buildings. (But don't worry, the Catholics usually stole them back.) And this isn't limited to the Ancient Church; we all know about the hostilities between Protestants and Catholics, or between Protestants and Anabaptists. Historically, our deadliest enemies have been other Christians. Philip Schaff says, "More Christian blood has been shed by Christians than by heathens and Mohommedans."

Today I believe this is no longer the case. Perhaps I'm misinformed (or uninformed), but it seems Christians don't commonly murder each other anymore. When I meet a Catholic in the street, I don't feel compelled to duel him to the death like the Irish used to. The Modern Christian Church is more... well... Christian. Yes, we have more denominations than ever, and more variant theological opinions. We have scandals and kerfuffles, like the Federal Vision Fiasco among conservative Presbyterians here in America. But no PCA pastors are plotting to assassinate Doug Wilson for it. When push comes to shove, we love each other.

That is why the Christian Church today is more unified than it's ever been. We live at peace with one another, or at least, more peacefully than we used to. That's a broad generalization, I know, and I can't really defend it perfectly. Certainly, during times of persecution the church has been unified. Christians generally forget about their hatred and superficial differences when they're hunted by a common enemy. But overall, I think we give the modern global church far too little credit. There's more to unity than creeds and liturgies.