Unity Amidst Cultural Disconnect

One of the most vivid word pictures in the New Testament describes the church as the body of Christ. This is where physiology meets theology. The connection and coordination of the head to the body are essential for the proper functioning of the physical body. In spiritual terms, the connection and coordination between Christ and all the different types of people who comprise His body is necessary to carry out God’s mission for the church.

The Apostle Paul communicated this word picture to the Ephesian believers in Ephesians 4:15-16 (NLT used throughout):

We will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.

Shortly after the Day of Pentecost of Acts 2, the church in Jerusalem experienced a cultural disconnect between Greek and Hebrew believers. Disconnections continued to arise as the apostles took the gospel to Gentiles. Incorporating Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Africans into “the Way” was a complicated task. However, the Holy Spirit worked among those people to bring unity to the early church. Cultural disconnect in the first century was largely based on racial, ethnic, and gender issues. That is still true today, but an additional issue confronting the contemporary church involves multiple generations interacting with each other amid rapid social change. The issue here is not just chronological age. The underlying issue is that the speed of social change has made multi-generational interactions challenging for people raised in different cultural eras. The “experience banks” of people from various generations are significantly different.

People learn how to live in this world by being taught their cultural procedures and values. Life was easier to understand when we lived in neighborhoods where people looked like us, believed like us, and acted like us (for the most part). Advances in transportation and communication have brought tremendous changes to our patterns of interacting with others. We see, hear from, and interact with people who may not look like us, believe like us, or act like us.

Building unity in the contemporary church is a difficult task that requires God’s guidance. It also requires a willingness of members of the body of Christ to love Jesus more than they love the cultural traditions that have influenced their lives. This viewpoint about the supremacy of loving Jesus has existed in the Restoration Movement for many years. However, the dynamics of current cultural diversity may have shifted our attention away from this biblical perspective.

We need to recognize that unity can and should exist amid cultural diversity and rapid social change. Change does not have to be a negative experience. Spiritual growth always involves change as we mature spiritually. If there are no changes, it is difficult to define that as growth. Spiritual growth may be uncomfortable (or even painful) at times, but the results are well worth the effort.

Carl Ketcherside in The Twisted Scriptures correctly pointed out, “We are brothers (and sisters) because we have the same Father; not because we have the same opinions.” It is difficult to program unity in a local congregation, but unity should be a byproduct of Bible-centered preaching and teaching. Christians are united because they have been adopted into God’s family, although they are different parts of Christ’s body.

The essential goals, expectations, and roles for the body of Christ are specified in the New Testament, and they should be followed. Church activities that are not specified in the New Testament (and are not contrary to Scripture) may be acceptable, but they are always matters of opinion and preference. Those activities can be changed without harming the mission of the body of Christ when a valid need arises. Those changes may involve new methods and even some changes in organizational structure within a local congregation.

We need to recognize that effective evangelism will usually bring people into our local congregations from a wide range of cultural experiences. Those being added to the body of Christ probably will not have a large collection of traditional church experiences. They won’t be familiar with our religious terminology, and they may not be familiar (or comfortable) with our traditional programming. The joy of adding new members to the body needs to be more important to us than avoiding our own discomfort with new cross-cultural interactions. We need to make certain we are “winning them to Christ” and not to our particular cultural traditions.

We need to have voices of reason in our local congregations that can connect people from different cultural backgrounds into a united fellowship. Unity takes time to develop. We can begin by relating to other people as individuals created in the image of God, and not as members of some cultural category. Unity will only occur when people listen to one another to understand where they have come from culturally and spiritually. The apostle Paul dealt with that very issue as Jews and Gentiles were coming to Christ. We can find a model for building unity in 1 Corinthians 9:22-23, “I try to find common ground with everyone, doing everything I can to save some. I do everything to spread the Good News and share its blessings.”

Our commonality is found in Christ, and that commonality is more important than any differences we might have. Once again, Carl Ketcherside has great words of wisdom for us in The Twisted Scriptures when he wrote: “Unity in Christ is not conformity, but community. We are one because we share a common faith and not because we have the same opinions.”

Throughout the New Testament, the phrase “same mind” is used to describe Christians who were obeying God’s commands and who made the “mind of Christ” their model for interacting with other people. Having the same mind does not mean that all Christians must agree on every issue not covered by a biblical prescription. Alexander Campbell is credited with saying, “In essentials, unity; in opinions liberty; in all things love.” According to sermonindex.net, Campbell was questioned by a man about this statement, and Campbell replied, “We do not ask people to give up their opinions; we ask them not to impose their opinions on others.”

Respect for the preferences of others is a concept that Paul addressed in Romans 12:10, “Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.”

Later in verses 16-18 of that same chapter, Paul provided additional guidelines to help us develop harmonious relationships: “Live in harmony with each other. Don’t be too proud to enjoy the company of ordinary people. And don’t think you know it all. Never pay back evil with more evil. Do things in such a way that everyone can see that you are honorable. Do all that you can to live at peace with everyone.”

As was noted earlier, culture is something people learn. It is not wired into us at birth. Therefore, people can learn to change cultural opinions and preferences that disconnect them from fellow believers. Using the biblical idea of the church being the body of Christ, cultural disconnect can be thought of as fractures in the body. Physically speaking, fractures keep a body from functioning properly. Spiritually speaking, culturally disconnected Christians keep local congregations from functioning properly.

Followers of Christ have the indwelling Holy Spirit to guide us to the eternal truths that God has revealed in His word. Even when we are experiencing cultural disconnect in our churches, we need to remember God is still working His purposes in our crazy world. The writer of the book of Hebrews presented an overriding truth in Hebrews 13:8, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” This does not mean that Jesus is stuck in a particular cultural framework and never changes. It means God and Christ operate above the structures of human cultures, and they accomplish magnificent things in all cultures and in all generations. That is good news for the body of Christ everywhere. We will be effective members of the body when we are united in Him, regardless of how cultural influences try to divide us.

Ralph Swearngin Jr. is a former professor at Point University. He is retired and lives in Union City, GA. These thoughts are excerpts from his book entitled God’s Gorilla Glue for the Church: Achieving Unity Amidst Cultural Disconnect. It is available on Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and other outlets.