Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:3 (NIV)

Are you more of a unity person, or more of a truth person? Hopefully you realise it’s not a simple choice between unity and truth. Unity itself can be good or bad. It all depends what you are united in. Clearly Adam and Eve’s unity in disobeying God’s command was an unhealthy and destructive unity. At the same time, while truth itself is a good thing, it is possible to stand for the truth in such an unloving way that it denies the truth that God himself is love.

Jesus famously prayed for the unity of the church: “I pray for those who will believe in me through [my disciples’] message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you” (John 17:20-21), but this is hardly a unity at the expense of truth. After all, it comes through believing the message of the apostles, and the unity of Father and Son is a unity in the truth.

Another kind of false unity is to try and unite things that cannot be united, but should be kept apart. Keith Sinclair draws attention to this in the journal The Global Anglican (Keith is National Director of CEEC, the Church of England Evangelical Council, of which our Birmingham Diocesan Evangelical Fellowship is a part).

He recalls what CS Lewis wrote in his Preface to The Great Divorce: “Blake wrote of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. I have written of their divorce.” Lewis then describes how many people hope they will never have to choose between heaven and hell, and that with enough skill, patience and time it will mean they never have to reject either. In typically pithy fashion Lewis goes on to say, “This belief I take to be a disastrous error. You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye may be among the things you have to leave behind.”

Keith Sinclair argues, and I agree with him, that that is the danger that lies before the Anglican Communion and its Lambeth Conference of Bishops which is soon to begin, and which similarly lies before the Church of England as it wrestles with the issues of Living in Love and Faith. It’s the danger of trying not to reach a decision, to hold all views together, ‘to agree to disagree.’

The problem is, there are some things you cannot agree to disagree on – such as heaven and hell. Or, in this context, that human marriage is between a man and a woman and at the same time open to same-sex couples. It goes to the very heart of what it means to be human, male and female, and so to the nature of God himself in whose image we are made.

We need to pray that both the Lambeth Conference and the Church of England will come to agree that such a ‘marriage’ of two definitions of marriage is not possible. Or, in Lewis’ telling image (following Jesus himself), that “you cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys.” Indeed, the luggage you take with you will determine where your journey ends: heaven or hell.

Yours warmly, in Christ,
Chris Hobbs (Senior Minister)

31st July 2022