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The church is one
In his letter to the Ephesians, the Magna Carta of the church, Paul urges, "Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one spirit—just as you were called to one hope when you were called—one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all" (4:3-6; all references taken from the NIV). Thus the unity of the church is based on the fact that we worship one God.

Neither Luther nor Calvin intended to start a new church, but to reform the church. As Calvin put it, "To leave the church is nothing less than a denial of God and Christ." By contrast, Continental Anabaptists, English Separatists, and biblical restorationists sought not so much to purify the church as to restore it to its original New Testament condition. Thus by gathering new congregations of "visible saints," these radical reformers believed they could restore, as one of them put it, "the old glorious face of primitive Christianity."

The result was the proliferation of numerous denominations and sects, "separated brethren," who were often more separated than brotherly in their relations! This little ditty from the early nineteenth century describes the resulting confusion:

Ten thousand reformers like so many moles,
Have plowed all the Bible and cut it in holes;
And each has his church at the end of his trace,
Built up as he thinks of the subjects of grace.

At the same time, we must realize that the restorationist impulse was itself motivated by a concern for Christian unity. In the early nineteenth century, Alexander Campbell wanted his followers to be called simply "Christians" or "disciples of Christ" as a way of overcoming denominational disharmony, even if in the end his movement too added still another competing note to the Protestant chorus.

Evangelicals today are heirs of both reformational and restorational models of ecclesiology. Their approach to church order, ministry, and ecumenism often depends on which of these two paradigms they more identify with.

The fact that most evangelicals are less than enthusiastic about the modern ecumenical movement in its liberal Protestant modality does not mean that they have no concern for the unity of the church. It does mean, however, that the question of the church's unity cannot be divorced from the question of the church's integrity. The call to be one in Christ rings hollow when it comes from church leaders who either themselves deny, or wink at others who do, the most basic Christological affirmations of the faith, including the virgin birth, bodily resurrection, and actual return of Christ himself.

Thomas Oden speaks for many evangelicals when he declares: "Too many pretentious pseudoecumenical efforts have been themselves divisive, intolerant, ultrapolitical, misconceived, utopian, abusive, nationalistic, and culturally imperialistic. … Hence modern ecumenical movements are themselves called to repentance on behalf of the unity of the Church."

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June 15 1998, Vol. 42, No. 7