The Church and Its Elusive Unity

                                               Our Stand

                 The Church and Its Elusive Unity

At present, as the Church becomes more vibrant and continues to dominate every sector of the world economy, there is a huge dent neutralizing its unprecedented vibrancy. There is a missing ingredient in its role as a unifying spiritual institution-as a place where unity and love should be tenaciously preached and held on to.

Christianity is a religion that often advocates peace, love and unity. The Bible is replete with many sermons preached by Jesus Christ, Apostle Paul and several others in this direction. These prophets left a strong instruction for the Church: to always stay together and united. One of such is a Scripture that asks ’’how pleasant is it when brothers live in peace?’’ There are several parts, according to the book of Corinthians, but Christians are urged to all be one, despite their various gifts, callings and denominations. The Church is urged to see its diversity as a strength and an asset to forge a united and common front and not as a liability or as a cause of disunity.

But Christians seem to have long ignored these biblical and divine instructions, as what pervades the Church today is a far cry from what the Holy Book stipulates, and the early prophets advocated. Rather than seeing one another as brothers, as one in Christ, the Church is, at present  riddled with constant strife, conflicts, discrimination, segregation, seclusion and is divided along doctrinal and denominational lines. The Church, to a large extent, is currently and widely polarized. It is divided along itself. There is unnecessary competition among Christians/churches to outdo one another. There is this rat race of wanting to be the best, and in a bid to achieve this selfish and unholy end, denominations decide to preach against one another and greatly criticize the doctrines and practices of other denominations, whose presence appears to be posing a great threat to their survival.Mostly disappointing is that those who are supposed to be in the forefront of ensuring unity and love among Christians, the custodians of Christian faith, are the ones advancing the cause of hatred the more, thereby,  further fanning the ember of prolonged disunity in the Body of Christ.

One should expect a servant of God to, at anytime, he mounts the podium to  preach ,to be more concerned about messages that will edify and be beneficial to his congregation, rather than embarking on severe criticisms of other church denominations-of their doctrines and beliefs. Through this, hatred is further inculcated in the congregations, who, based on what they have heard about other denominations, therefore consider them devilish, thereby, doing everything to circumvent, jettison, avoid and discriminate against them.

Similarly, the unnecessary pursuit of selfish, narrow and parochial interests of the church denominations, rather than the overall interests and growth of the Church as a whole, is another factor fueling outright disunity in the Church and among Christians, who are implored to live in unity. The reigning practice among Christians is ’’My Church,’’ ‘’My pastor’’ .This is what they have been indoctrinated with. One would have expected that Christians should be more concerned about God, rather than their pastors who are mere instruments in God’s vineyard. One should have thought Christians to be more concerned about the Church; the Body of Christ, knowing full well that their church membership will never count when they get to heaven and will be required to give the accounts of their stewardship to He that sends them.

For the Church to grow in leaps and bounds, Christians must forge a common and united front, as they are expected. The constant and unhealthy emphasis plays on denominations and doctrines in the Christendom should be deemphasized. These duo, have for years, been the destructive factors encouraging further disunity and divisions in the Body of Christ.

Christians, by the virtues of their chosen religious beliefs, are expected to be at peace, live in love and get more united, complementing and assisting one another to grow in Christ, irrespective of their denominational differences. ‘’Though, there are different kinds of services, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working but the same God works all of them in all men’’, submits the Bible. If the foregoing are the words from the Bible, then why the unhealthy competition among Christians? Are they not in the same race? Are they not given the same assignment with the same end in mind-preaching the Gospel and making it to heaven?

The Church is more divided along the lines of various ministers of the Gospel, whom their following see as more spiritually experienced than others, as they are ready to criticize other servants of God to praise theirs, in a bid to express their love for their own. But the Bible has an answer to this in the book of 1 Corinthians 1:12:’’What I mean is this: One of you says “I follow Paul”, another, “I follow Apollo”; another ‘’I follow Cephas’’, still another, ’’I follow Christ’’. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul?

Apostle Paul, in his lifetime, always tried to banish divisions from the Church, as he constantly warned the Church against it: ’’I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought’’ ,Apostle Paul advised.

Today, the Christendom lacks preachers like Apostle Paul, who will discourage divisions among Christians. They rather encourage divisions because it is in it that their denominations thrive, therefore, trying to further disunite the Body of Christ. Apostle Paul was not selfish; he was not particular about his denomination; he was more concerned in populating, irrespective of denominations, the Kingdom of God, by simply depopulating the kingdom of Satan. Such men like Paul are today rear among the existing God’s generals. The Christendom needs men, who are ready to place emphasis on the general welfare, growth and well-being of the Church as a whole than a mere denomination.

The Christendom that is devoid of love and unity will not augur well for the growth and spiritual effectiveness of the Church and what the Church stands for. Little wonder, the Church has not been able to wrought miracles as it was in the time of old. Selfishness, narrow and parochial interests will further dent the image of the Church in the comity of religions. The situation where preachers ,who should be in the vanguard of unity are rather plunging the Church deeper into further destruction make mockery of the roles they are given to play. The interests of the overall Christians should be of utmost importance in the hearts of all Christian stakeholders.

The situation where fellow Christians see one another as sworn enemies and therefore, try to avoid any contact with one another, make mockery of the Gospel of holiness, righteousness  and unity often preached by the Bible. If unity, love and peace are conspicuously missing in the Church/Christians, then one cannot but wonder where else it could be found?

The situation where beneficial businesses, social associations and proposed sizzling marriages are disrupted on the grounds of different church denominations make nonsense of the biblical submission in 1 Corinthians 13;13 ‘’And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest is LOVE’’.

The situation where those who call themselves Christians cannot pray together, because of the issue of doctrines, denominations is not helping the advised togetherness the Holy Book admonishes the Christians about. It is discouraging when Christians join non-Christians to openly criticize a particular church denomination or a servant of God, with the excuse of ‘’we don’t that in our church’’.

Christians must learn not to wash their dirty linen in public, in the midst of sworn enemies of Christianity. Whenever a church denomination or man of God is ridiculed by faithful of opposite religions, the whole Body of Christ is ridiculed. Christians, of whatever denominations, must learn to fight for Christ and the Church, by protecting whatever denomination that is being criticized by anybody. The fact that the name of our Saviour Jesus, the Church and Christian faith is about to be soiled by these ''pagans'', is enough reasons why some peaceful resistance should be put in place, for the Body of Christ, not for a particular denomination. We should all, as a matter of urgency, be in the vanguard of peace, unity and love in the Christendom.

Let us all roll up our sleeves to work towards a Christendom, that is totally devoid of internal strife, conflicts, hatred, segregation, isolation, demarcation and discrimination against fellow Christians, regardless of our denominations. In as much as we all believe in the Word-Bible, the Birth, Death and eventual Resurrection and Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must all stand united in the Body of Christ. There must not be divisions among us-the people of God. Let us all work together to jointly build a Christendom where denominations will be downplayed; where doctrinal issues will not engender divisions among Christians. Where we will come together under the umbrella of unity and good brotherliness,  as it is stipulated in the Scriptures. Where we will collectively become united, jettisoning our irrelevant denominational interests but the overall unity of the Body of Christ.

It is by so doing, Christianity and the Church will find their strong footings and Christianity as a religion, will be greatly envied in the comity of religions. We must all stand for peace, unity and love-the greatest is LOVE!