Division is Wrong
by Noel K. Anderson, Executive Pastor of 1st Pres Bakersfield in California
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
AnderspeaK


It is wrong to divide the Body of Christ. Division is not a viable option for any denomination. Luther and Calvin (et.al.) were both forced out of the Roman church. But the movement of the New Wineskins Association of Churches is NOT--cannot be construed as--division, abandonment, or defection.

Here’s why. Division is sinful not because of broken human fellowship, but because of a compromised witness to the Gospel. Serving God’s glory is a vastly superior value, compared to which the virtues of community harmony are negligible. When conscientious reflection yields the increasing conviction that the PCUSA is itself dividing away from the whole Body of Christ, and refuses either correction or reform, then people of conscience have no recourse other than rejoining the whole Body of Christ.

Of course, this appears to PCUSA Presbyterians as “defection” or “breaking away” when it is in fact reintegration. The PCUSA--not a few rowdy evangelicals--has veered off course. This is the statement of conscience by the Confessing Churches and the New Wineskin churches. The PCUSA is dividing itself away from the whole Body of Christ. The PCUSA is abandoning its former faithfulness. The PCUSA is in the process of defection from The Church. Everything the denominational shills have been saying about divisiveness, exclusion, and schism is never truer than when they stand before the mirror. Whether or not institutional division is good or bad can only be sufficiently discerned in the context of the Whole Body of Christ.

The question is not “is the denomination unified?” but “are we faithful to our calling and mission?” The first is easy to answer (which is why it gets most of the attention), and the latter has resulted in a broad spectrum of varying interpretations, some of such asinine extremes that they are no longer tolerable by the greater Body of Christ. The ECUSA is steering the same disastrous course, and conscientious Episcopalians are realigning themselves according to their legitimate core values.

The PCUSA is driven by the left toward the left. Moderates are pulled both by their denominational loyalty (a denomination, incidentally, that has ceased to exist) and their principled conscience. They are divided into actives and inactives. The latter group is commonly referred to as the “stay - fight - win” evangelicals.

The problem with the “stay - fight - win” evangelicals is that they only stay, and neither fight nor win. Anyone willing to stand up and speak for strong convictions is quickly tarred with the epithets of “angry,” or “divisive”(well done, far left). Those who do nothing can claim they are being “patient,” “peaceable,” or “gentle,” but it isn’t so; those who refuse to act in a time of crisis are not helping the Gospel; they are specializing in tepidity.

But great minds have already said it better than I ever could: "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality" --Dante Aligheri "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke (1729-­1797), Irish philosopher, statesman."The worst evils in the world are not done by evil people, but by good people who do not know they are not doing good." -- Reinhold Niebuhr "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves." - T.S. Eliot, 1950.

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