Unity: Oneness or Sameness

"May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accept one another then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God."
Romans 15:5-7

If you've read your way through Romans before, you know that it is not a book of the Bible to be taken lightly. Each word is packed and backed with loads of theology, and even today, centuries after it was written, we still can not fully grasp the meanings of it...

But there is nothing unclear about this small portion of Romans.
Paul makes it very CLEAR how the church is supposed to be:

United...

Now, a quick snapshot of the church today.
There are thousands of Christian denominations worldwide today that are centered around many different topics, ideas, and theologies. There is so much thrashing and bashing going on between these differing denominations, which I myself am guilty of, that it seems like we are all enemies.

It's almost as if Christ, who is leading us, has stopped and is looking back, shaking His head, and asking us if we will ever learn.

And that brings us to the title of our topic:

Unity: Oneness or Sameness?

Does Church Unity mean we all have to be as one, or do we all have to agree on all the same things?

Hmmm...

I can already tell you what you are probably thinking the answer is.
Most of you probably think that to be truly united we must all believe the same things.

To bad the Bible doesn't teach that...

The Bible doesn't call for sameness, in which we agree on everything. The Bible calls for oneness, in which we are to have sameness in the essentials, but grace in the nonessentials.

For example, I believe music is fine in worship. Other believers don't. Does that mean I am wrong, or they are wrong? Yes! We are both wrong, because God nowhere in Scripture says that we are to worship only one way. Scripture is clear that ALL is to be done to the glory of God.

Paul makes the concept of unity clear throughout the Book of Romans.

Romans 14:13
"Therefore let us stop passing judgement on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brothers way."

Centuries of putting stumbling blocks, striving for personal gain, and unacceptance of one another have left us with what Paul feared most: disunity. We all think our theology is right, when in reality, we are probably all wrong, because our theology is exactly what it is: our theology, not God's.

So, why should we be united?
For starters, a united Church can better accomplish the Great Commission, which is the Church's ultimate goal. Unity also contributes to the building up of other believers, more effective teachings, and a lot less stress. Unity single-handedly could fix the majority of the Church's problems on its own.

So, how do we become united?
I'm not going answer that question here, and I'm not going to answer it until next year. That is something my upcoming website, www.operationbrokensilence.org will address. On a brief side note, the website will host several projects, one of the first being Project Unity, which will deal with this topic.

So, to answer the original posed question of Unity: Oneness or Sameness?

The answer is both within their correct bounds. Sameness in essentials, such as belief that Christ is God, and grace in nonessentials, such as whether or not music is okay in worship.

Only then can we accomplish the goals that we are supposed to be accomplishing.

That's all I got, keep an eye out for the new website:

www.operationbrokensilence.org

which will launch this December.
And keep an eye out for Project Unity, which will be our second project. The first one will be Project Make A Difference, which hopefully you will visit the site and find out.

In Christ,
Hackett