Loose Canons IV: By What Standard?

This is the last post in this series.

What I've been arguing is the unity of the Church for the preservation of doctrinal purity, orthopraxy (right practice), and overall accountability. But under what standard can all Christians be brought together? (And just for the record, I am NOT a theonomist, I just borrowed Rushdoony's title because it seemed to fit.)

The easy answer is that all Chrsitians are united by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. No believer could argue that. Despite our denominational and sectional differences, every child of God is united in a single Body that is held together by Christ's blood and the Holy Spirit's power. This is true despite our human efforts to breed dissension among ourselves, to find issues and doctrines to rally around that mark us off from "the others." These are sins for which each of us must repent, but they don't change the fundamental unity of Christ's Body.

And yet. Clearly, there is division in the ranks. Some of it is certainly caused by non-believers within the Church, but plenty of it (too much) is caused by Christians who lose sight of the single greatest motivating force among God's people: His glory. We exist to glorify God, and secondarily to enjoy Him; we do not exist to be saved. Our salvation is sure, but its fundamental purpose is to bring Him glory, and only after that to bring us joy. Even our joy glorifies Him; Yahweh is the center of the universe, and man exists for His purposes and good pleasure.

Why do Christians so easily mistake themselves for the center of the universe? how does our gaze become redirected from the God of Glory to our earthbound selves?

This is where division comes from: when we stop being consumed with God, with the true Gospel of Christ's redemption, with the love of the Holy Spirit, we will surely turn our attention to ourselves, and as individuals we will break into factions. Only God is unified, and only God is capable of effecting unification; humans are only capable of discord and strife. Once we lose sight of God, we fall apart, we become petty and find ourselves more worthy heirs of "truth" than our brothers and sisters.

As fallen human beings, we are not able to give God our complete undivided attention at all times. We still sin, we still act selfishly, we still look askance even at our fellow believers. Which is exactly why unification is so important: we need the whole Body of Christ working together to keep ourselves on the narrow path, because no individual, no single congregation, not even a single denomination is capable of the constant shepherding necessary for perseverance and faithfulness.

Which brings us again to the question: what standard do we look to for unification? The Gospel, of course, but the Gospel from whose perspective? which codification? Again, the answer is fairly simple: the Gospel as revealed by Christ to His Church. This is where doctrinal consistency is so important. If you're teaching something that Christians at every period have not, chances are you'd better reevaluate. A lot of modern Christians balk at words like "creed," "tradition," and "confession" (for reasons of which I'm largely unaware), but without those we're forced to reinvent Christianity with each new generation.

Creeds and confessions simply cement the Church's orthodox doctrines for the benefit of successive manifestations of the Body. If you can't agree with every point in the three Ecumenical Creeds (Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian), chances are you're not a Christian; not that right doctrine alone makes you a Christian, but it is a necessary element in the equation. The doctrines presented in the Creeds are our core beliefs as children of God, and the primary basis for unification among even the most disparate denominations and groups.

Let me clarify that last statement: Everything in the Creeds is supported by Scripture; Scripture is the divine revelation of the Word of God; the Word is Christ, and He is our only grounds for unification of any kind. If the Church is going to be unified, it must be in Christ, and it must be in the truth of the Gospel as revealed in His person and work. Humanity may be distracting, but we'd all find ourselves less distracted and more effective if we simply abandoned ourselves to the contemplation of the One who saves rather than those He is saving.