Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

Can Christian Unity be expressed across denominational lines and yetdenominational differences be preserved? Should such differences bepreserved? Can we find a basis for unity without relinquishing belief in thesupreme authority of the Scriptures? The answers suggested will becontroversial to many, but if the book serves to arouse concern about howChrist’s longing for the unity of his people can be visibly expressed, at last,after 2,000 years of division, the purpose of the book will have been achieved.The Christian Church has been active for 2,000 years. From a simple beginningunder Jesus of Nazareth, an unofficial Jewish rabbi, it has become a worldwidecomplex body with so very many facets, traditions and accretions that its ownmembers are sometimes at a loss to define what exactly it is or was meant tobe.In God’s Judgement on Europe, A R Vidler writes:‘We cannot go out of the present Churches and start a new Church; forChurches are not man-made but God-given, and they are God-giventhrough an actual historical tradition of faith and order.The Church of God is not a sect of people who hold the same views. It isthe body of Christ, the body of those who have been born again by theacts of God in his Christ and made citizens of the Kingdom of God,irrespective of their views or their merit or any of their other peculiarities,simply by the pure love and mercy of God.’ 2Vidler suggests that the true Church is there all right, buried under a mass ofsocial, cultural and theological debris which, nevertheless, gives clues as towhat is underneath. To dig out this ‘one true church’ which is there in all thethree traditions of the Church, Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, is thesupreme challenge for the 21 st Century Church.It is not a matter of trying to create a pristine church: a new start, so to speak.This has been tried many times in the history of the Church and all theattempts have failed to unite Christians in any meaningful way. Anabaptistgroups in the 16 th Century; the Oxford Movement, the Irvingites and thePlymouth Brethren in the 19 th ; all tried sincerely to get Christians to model2 Vidler, A R, God’s Judgement on Europe, Longmans, Green and Co, first published 1940,Ch 7, pp 101-102.Page 6