salguod.net

I know I said I would be rather quiet for a while, but I just spent my lunch hour reading an excellent article and thought I should share it with you. Douglas Jacoby has displayed on his web site a link to an article entitled Unity on Three Levels for a while now. It is highly appropriate for the current goings on in the ICOC, namely Kip’s calling out the remnant, the LA unity proposal and now the group charged with working out a new unity proposal. DJ covers the Biblical issues and church history lessons far better than I would have, please go read it.
To summarize my thoughts on this current move to a more unified brotherhood of churches, I am firmly against any agreement that attempts to regulate beliefs, practices or opinions. In the 2,000 plus years of Christianity there have been many of these documents and they have contributed more to division among God’s people than anything else. I want no part of such a document and hope that nothing like that results from these current discussions.
I am all for church cooperation, ‘interdependence’ as DJ puts it, and would be in favor of some sort of organizational agreement to allow us to better share the burden of supporting other churches, both ‘missions’ work and churches that simply need help, and serving the poor. It seems that HOPEworldwide is already in place and perfect for the latter, we simply need to figure out the former. Sorting that out, however, is simply organizational. There need be no regulation of belief or practice and adding in anything like it will actually hinder that work rather than help as it will discourage some from signing on to the effort.
Please go read DJ’s article. It’s an excellent piece which I think sums up where true unity starts (between you and God) and the levels that must be built if we intend to be a unified brotherhood.