Is organisational unity amongst Christians desirable?

[MoreCoffee]

Is organisational unity amongst Christians desirable?
Yes
No
Don't know
Don't care
Other

 

[seekingsolace]

Will you elaborate some?

 

[MoreCoffee]

Will you elaborate some?

I am not sure what you want; are none of the options applicable? Is the question unclear?

 

[psalms 91]

Yes, to strengthen to worship to congregate, to make our voices heard as Christians, so yes it is important

 

[Josiah]

IMO, one "super" world-wide denomination would simply insure inefficiency and probably a "least-common denominator" theology.

The church is already one - always has been, always will be. There just isn't one parish or denomination (and never has been): and while this has it's "problem" I think it's actually better than one super denomination.



Thank you.


Pax


- Josiah

 

[Tigger]

I believe those who have faith in the historical Jesus are united in Spirit. Its our fallen human natures that causes division and that's evident on the individual and corporate level of the church. This is but part of the DNA of the church from it's birth and continues until our present time. Persecution tends to bring humility, repentance and unity.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I wonder if the church on the day of Pentecost and for the next 50 years following that day was a lowest common denominator theological institution ...does not seem likely does it and yet it was one church, one organisation with one body of apostles and bishops leading it.

 

[psalms 91]

I wonder if the church on the day of Pentecost and for the next 50 years following that day was a lowest common denominator theological institution ...does not seem likely does it and yet it was one church, one organisation with one body of apostles and bishops leading it.

In the Jewish way with a governing body of 70 and so on, not Catholic, no mention of that church in Acts or anywhere else and Revelation was written about 90 AD

 

[Tigger]

I wonder if the church on the day of Pentecost and for the next 50 years following that day was a lowest common denominator theological institution ...does not seem likely does it and yet it was one church, one organisation with one body of apostles and bishops leading it.

The Spirit of God unites but it never ceases to amaze me how quickly our fallen nature start's to draw us to go our own ways.

 

[visionary]

Most things that needed to get done by organizations. It is good, if the purpose is good, and they are able to achieve their goals. It gets bad when leaders have another agenda, the purpose is for the underlings to believe the deception, and greed, power and indoctrination reign.

 

[popsthebuilder]

Is organisational unity amongst Christians desirable?
Yes
No
Don't know
Don't care
Other

May not be desirable to some. But is is prophesied and expected of us as peaceful followers of Christ under God. Not to mention it is the only way to negate the oppressive forces of the powers that be. The war is coming. We must unite in order to stand for the glory of God. Only through wholly peaceful unity will we save any on earth as mass peace will end violence. Yet mass division will bring about massive destruction.

Faith in selfless Unity for Good.

 

[popsthebuilder]

Doesn't have to be a new denomination. Simply peaceful unity under God by all truly faithful subjects.

Faith in selfless Unity for Good.

 

[tango]

I think we need to be careful with unity in that it's easy to have to little of it and also easy to have too much of it.

If we have to little we fragment along ever-more trivial causes of division. You want two songs before prayers and I'd rather have three so we end up going our separate ways, which is silly.

If we have too much we potentially dilute our theology in the quest for unity with those who should never be a part of the body. As Paul asked, "what accord has Christ with Belial?" so fundamentally if people disagree on core doctrine there is unlikely to be unity unless someone compromises, and if core doctrine is subject to compromise it clearly isn't core doctrine at all.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a Christian guy who was concerned about some of the doctrinal issues I reject, raising the question that basically boiled down to "can't we just all get along?". I'd love to have said yes to that, but when the issues in question are things that I believe will build the kingdom of the beast while pretending to build the kingdom of Christ I don't see how I can tolerate it.

 

[MoreCoffee]

I wonder what a demographic study of our votes would reveal if we had several thousand active members voting in the poll. What would a breakdown by Church affiliation reveal, and one by gender, or maybe one by age ...

 

[Biblicist]

I wonder if the church on the day of Pentecost and for the next 50 years following that day was a lowest common denominator theological institution ...does not seem likely does it and yet it was one church, one organisation with one body of apostles and bishops leading it.

The problem with referring to the Church in Jerusalem is that it already replaced the authority of the Twelve including that of Peter (presuming that they had any authority in the few place) with their own elders and a leader of their own choice which was James and not Peter. Once the individual churches were established they were all self governing where maybe Paul had at least a degree of authority over the various churches that the Twelve certainly did not. Even with Paul, he was always very careful with his authority where even he knew that it had it's limitations.

 

[MoreCoffee]

The problem with referring to the Church in Jerusalem is that it already replaced the authority of the Twelve including that of Peter (presuming that they had any authority in the few place) with their own elders and a leader of their own choice which was James and not Peter. Once the individual churches were established they were all self governing where maybe Paul had at least a degree of authority over the various churches that the Twelve certainly did not. Even with Paul, he was always very careful with his authority where even he knew that it had it's limitations.

I suspect you've read rather more into the "council of Jerusalem" than is actually present in Acts 15 and Galatians.

 

[seekingsolace]

I am not sure what you want; are none of the options applicable? Is the question unclear?

Sorry. I meant an elaboration (of your view) on the poll question.