1 Unity, Liberty & Charity
Unity, Liberty & Charity My concern is to draw attention to one of the great tragedies of contemporary Christendom, a tragedy which is especially apparent among those of us who are called (and indeed call ourselves) evangelical
Christians. In a single word, this tragedy is polari zation, but I shall need to spell out what I mean.
The background to the tragedy is our substantial agreement in historic, biblical Christianity. Our unity in the fundamentals of the Christian faith is a great and glorious thing. We believe in God the Father, infinite, personal, holy, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. We believe in Jesus Christ, the unique Godman, in his virgin birth, incarnate life, authoritative teaching, atoning death, historical resurrection and personal return. We believe in the Holy Spirit, by whose special inspiration the Scriptures were written
Bal anced Christianity and by whose special grace today sinners are justified and born again, transformed into Christ's image, incorporated into the church and sent out into the world to serve. On these and other great biblical doctrines we stand firm by God's grace, and we stand together.
Nevertheless, we are not united. We separate from one another on matters of lesser importance. Some of these divisive issues are theological, others are temperamental. Theologically, for example, we may disagree on the precise relation between divine sovereignty and human responsibility, on the order and pastoral ministry of the church (whether it should be episcopal, presbyterian or independent) and on how far evangelical Christians may involve themselves in a "mixed" denomination without compromising themselves and their faith, on church-state relations, on who qualifies for baptism and on the volume of water to be used, on how to interpret prophecy, and on which spiritual gifts are available today and which are the most important. These are some of the issues on which equally devout and equally biblical Christians disagree. They belong to the category the Reformers called the adiaphora, matters "indifferent." And in these, although we shall wish to continue arguing our own conviction from Scripture according to the light we have so far been given, we should not try to press
Unity, Liberty & Charity
our position dogmatically on other Christian consciences, but give each other liberty in mutual love and respect. One cannot do better than quote the famous epigram attributed to a certain Rupert
Meldenius and quoted by Richard Baxter:
In essentials unity, In nonessentials liberty, In all things charity.
We are also divided from one another temperamentally. We sometimes forget that our God loves diversity and that he has created a rich profusion of human types, temperaments and personalities.
Moreover, our temperament has more influence on our theology than we often realize or concede! Although our apprehension of biblical truth depends on the illumination of the Holy Spirit, it is inevitably colored by the kind of person we are, the age in which we live and the culture to which we belong. Some of us by disposition and upbringing are more intellectual than emotional, others more emotional than intellectual. Again, many people's natural habit of mind is conservative (they detest change and feel threatened by it), while others are by nature rebels against tradition (they detest monotony and find change very congenial). Such issues as these arise
Bal anced Christianity from basic temperamental differences. But we should not allow our temperament to control us. Rather, we should allow Scripture to judge our natural temperamental inclinations. Otherwise we shall lose our
Christian equilibrium.
The title of this book is Balanced Christianity, for one of the greatest weaknesses which we Christians
(especially evangelical Christians) display is our tendency to extremism or imbalance. It seems that there is almost no pastime the devil enjoys more than tipping Christians off balance. Although I claim neither close acquaintance with his person nor inside information into his strategy, I guess that this is one of his favorite hobbies. My conviction is that we should love balance as much as the devil hates it and seek to promote it as vigorously as he seeks to destroy it.
By our "imbalance" I mean that we seem to enjoy inhabiting one or other of the polar regions of truth.
If we could straddle both poles simultaneously, we would exhibit a healthy biblical balance. Instead, we tend to polarize. Like Abraham and Lot we separate from one another. We push other people over to one pole while keeping the opposite pole as our preserve.
Theologically speaking, no one in British church history has warned us more clearly of this danger than
Charles Simeon, Fellow of King's College and vicar of
Unity, Liberty & Charity
Holy Trinity Church in Cambridge at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Consider this imaginary conversation with the apostle Paul which he included in a letter to a friend in 1825:
The truth is not in the middle, and not in one extreme, but in both extremes. . . . Here are two
. . . extremes, Calvinism and Arminianism. . . .
"How do you move in reference to these, Paul?
In a golden mean?"
"No."
"To one extreme?"
"No!"
"How then?"
"To both extremes; today I am a strong Calvinist; tomorrow a strong Arminian."
"Well, well, Paul, I see thou art beside thyself; go to Aristotle and learn the golden mean."
Simeon continues:
But, my brother, I am unfortunate; I formerly read Aristotle, and liked him much; I have since read Paul and caught somewhat of his strange notions, oscillating (not vacillating) from pole to pole. Sometimes I am a high Calvinist, at other times a low Arminian, so that if extremes
Bal anced Christianity will please you, I am your man; only remember, it is not one extreme that we are to go to, but both extremes.1
Simeon's words are wisdom for today. Whether our polarizations are primarily theological or temperamental, we should avoid them. Let me give you four examples of the folly of unnecessary polarization.