I believe it was Augustine who said (or at the very least was credited with saying), “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.” The idea is quite simple: There are a few beliefs, convictions, and doctrines that are central to the Christian faith that are hills we must be willing to die on. There are certain notions and understandings that if we cease to hold them we’re no longer Christian. No matter what it might cost us in terms of attendance … or community perception … or public sentiment, we must stand our ground and refuse to budge on those things.
But there are a number of things that, while important and significant, don’t measure up to that standard. There are a number of issues where there’s legitimate room for interpretation or difference of opinion, and on those issues we must be grace-filled. We must not be so stubborn and/or staunch in our opinion that we break fellowship with fellow believers over them.
As I review my three-plus decades of service in pastoral ministry, I realize that a number of people who exited from churches I pastored over the years did so because they opted not to live by this guideline. Some of those reasons include …
· My belief in a creation process superintended by God that played out over the course of hundreds of thousands of years while they were advocates of a young earth theology and held to a literal six-day creation.
· My refusal to preach a standard of abstinence from alcohol even though I personally lived by that standard. My understanding of the Bible’s teaching on the topic is that we’re to be guided by common sense, moderation, and not causing our brother to stumble. Because I couldn’t find biblical support for abstinence, I refused to preach it as an “essential.”
· Our church’s hiring of a female Associate Pastor who’d preach on an occasional basis and how it didn’t align with their understanding of gender roles in relation to leadership in the local church.
· My belief in a future is not so predetermined and fixed to where our choices actually matter versus their understanding of a sovereign God who essentially micromanages the universe and knows every decision, choice and movement in advance.
· My refusal to preach against abortion (even though I am solidly pro-life) because I believed doing so might (a) alienate and create unnecessary pain in the heart of individuals who had an abortion in the past while (b) instilling a sense of superiority in the heart of self-righteous people who needed to demonstrate some humility.
· My refusal to endorse a particular candidate or voice my support for a particular political party.
I have friends in ministry who lost people from their churches because they didn’t espouse a certain end times theory … or read from a certain version of the Bible … or sing a certain song, or style of song, often enough … or censure someone because they occasionally spoke in tongues in the privacy of their own home.
Augustine’s counsel was that on the critical few, we should be united. But on those things where there’s room for a difference of opinion, we should make allowances and give grace. But in all things, we should relate to the other party respectfully and lovingly. We shouldn’t sever relationships over secondary matters where well-meaning people can legitimately disagree. The ability to disagree agreeably creates a sweet spirit that permeates a body and enables it to have a winsome witness to the surrounding world.
But in a number of churches there are some who want to make essentials unessential or non-essentials essential. In other words, they violate all three of Augustine’s guidelines. When the former happens, the church loses its distinctiveness. It sacrifices its credibility and integrity in an effort to be relevant. It minimizes the countercultural essence that is to always characterize the nature of the church. And when the latter happens, the church loses its appeal and charm. It comes off as an organization that conducts itself in a fashion that is no different than the way the school board or homeowners’ association functions. Or it is perceived as an out of touch entity made up of grouchy, argumentative people that invests way too much energy on extraneous issues most folks could care less about.
And when this happens, the motivation at the heart of the issue is always the same—pride. Pride causes some people to try to eliminate some of the essentials in order to make the church look more relevant. Pride causes others to try to turn the church into a monolithic group full of people that look just like them by making essentials out of things where there’s room for difference of opinion. The belief that I know more … or have special insight … or have been endowed with an extraordinary sense of understanding causes us to go against what Augustine said in prideful, contemptuous, and often domineering ways.
In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul talks about how “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” (v. 1). In other words, the notion that I have things fully and completely figured out creates a dynamic that goes against the character of the respect, acceptance, and dignity God longs for His church to offer. The belief I’ve been granted unique insight or acumen sabotages the very essence of how God wants His church is to relate to the surrounding world. It means we need to manifest a level of humility in our interactions with each other … that we need the meekness and modesty to acknowledge that there’s a whole lot of things that we might not know or have fully figured out yet. It means we need to remain unassuming and teachable no matter how educated or professionally successful we might be.
Does that mean we don’t make a stand on certain issues? No! But it means that the “essentials bucket” is perhaps a whole lot smaller than we’d like to admit, and the “non-essentials bucket” is considerably larger. It means that what goes in the “essentials bucket” needs to be guided by the strictures of something like the Nicene Creed and not our personal preferences … or lifestyle … or what makes sense to us. It means we make a stand only on the soil of those few things found in the “essentials bucket.” And it means that no matter what we believe on the various things that are located in the “non-essentials bucket” that there is never any excuse for a lack of love towards each other.