Truth Unites - How Does the Church Pursue Unity?

Episode Date: May 25, 2022

Luke Moon, Gavin Ortlund, Jacqueline Rivers, and Paolo Carozza discuss  how we can avoid polarization in our society as well as seek unity in  the church. Thanks to Philos Project for hosting this discussion.  See the full dialogue here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux5N9ppgKuM Truth Unites is a mixture of apologetics and theology, with an irenic focus. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Ojai. SUPPORT: Become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites One time donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/truthunites FOLLOW: Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://gavinortlund.com/

The unity that we're talking about here, you know, representing different denominations within Christianity is beautiful because we're not also demanding conformity. Right. And I think it's so the expectation in Christian unity or in unity in general is often that it be like you conform, like we're all 100% on the same page, right? And it's just not going to happen. It's not reality, right? And I love to hear you guys how we engage in that space of that kind of tension between the unity on one hand and the expectation of conformity on the other.

Well, it's that, I mean, your observation, Luke, that we're not in that space, you know, of course, all you have to do is start reading the acts of the apostles to realize that the church has never been in that space from day one. The church is not even in that space. There were there were those disagreements right from the beginning. And that's a pretty good place to start in terms of seeing how to address those disagreements. You know, the way that Paul and Peter did in, you know, arguing about how to, what was the appropriate way to bring Christ to the Gentiles, right? And what laws continue to apply. So, so those, that's hard baked into everything. But one of the suggestions that I would have that I think is worth us thinking about is how much the creation of what I'll call generally a virtual reality that we live in makes this problem much harder. The more that we're detached and live their relationship to the truth and to other people, you know, mediated by social media. or by, you know, other ways that don't involve a genuine human relationship and encounter,

I think that makes it, I think that makes it a lot harder. I mean, I don't think it's an accident, right? And before you started out by saying, let's go back to the real elemental, you know, aspects of Christianity that we all share. Well, one of them is God took human form, right? That's what's so radical about what we all believe, is the incarnation, is that the ultimate meaning of all the universe took human flesh. and didn't just like set up an oracle for us to consult, right?

But came in human form so that we could have a relationship with a person in time and in space and in the flesh. And so if we're following that example and living that example and making Christ present again here today, that's the example that we need too, right? Relationships in the flesh, not, you know, arguments mediated over Instagram or Twitter or whatever. I love what Paolo just said. And just another point that could possibly be drawn out from his great observation about this common foundation we have that God took flesh. I mean, if you believe the creator of the whole cosmos became a baby. And if we have that belief in common, we're going to talk differently to one another. We're going to speak with humility and grace.

And so I would want to draw out also the importance of humility in the midst of dialogue. You know, it's easy. I like to make the distinction between real listening versus sort of fake or inauthentic listening, where you're just sort of pretending to listen. So real listening is when you're listening, somebody once said, you're not really listening until you're willing to be changed by what you hear. You're open to the possibility that I genuinely don't see the full picture. I have something to learn from this conversation.

Now, if you really believe that, as opposed to just technically, you know, checking on the box, if I see it through a glass, last darkly, 1 Corinthians 13, technically, but really I see. You know, that's our mentality. That will come across to people. But if we enter into a conversation saying, I am pursuing the ladder of truth. I'm climbing up the ladder one step at a time to the best of my ability. I actually need other people to help me see what I can't see on my own. Again, I don't believe that's compromise, but I do think it will flavor the whole course of our dialogues with others. I wholeheartedly agree with Gavin.

I think that it was exactly what I was going to talk about, humility, that starting, so we need to be like Paul, a fierce defender of the truth, willing to give our lives for the truth on the poor experience of Christ in our lives, on the core tenets of Christianity. but we need to be extremely humble about everything else, recognizing not only that we have something to learn, but that it's guaranteed that something we believe is wrong because we are imperfect humans. It is a certain fact that something we believe to be true is in fact false. And so when we approach people in these conversations, it's with the spirit of humility recognizing,

I know I must be wrong about something. I don't know what it is I'm wrong about, but I must be wrong about something because I'm human. And so we can have this conversation. One of the other aspects of racial justice that I think came up in work that the Seymour Institute was doing, we were really talking to pastors in Kansas City about getting involved with religious freedom, which has often been seen as an issue that the black churches, not involved in. And these pastors pushed back saying, they want us to jump on board their issue. Where were they when we were dealing with crime in our community, our teenage parent,

a motherhood? Where were they when we're dealing with poverty and terrible schools? So I think part of what we have to have in these conversations, Luke, you were talking about action, putting the love into action. But it really has to be also then that we recognize the very real issues that other people are grappling with. And we don't simply expect that they are going to jump on board with our issues.