Since I’m on a roll with this anti-unity argument (by the way, what do you have when you don’t have unity? You have diversity. That’s a good thing, right?), I’ll extend it with some remarks on the subject of Christian unity. The opinions expressed below are my own, and do not represent the views of Brandywine Books, its employees or parent corporation, or of real persons, living or dead.

It may be different for those of you not connected to “mainline” denominations (so called because their leaders either use intravenous drugs or act as if they do), but for those of us who are so connected, it’s hard to go a week without hearing or reading some lament about “the shameful lack of unity within the Christian church,” or even “the sin of disunity in the church.”

The Fred Scuttle principle applies here, just as in politics. Fred’s idea of “popular prices” is prices he likes. The ecumenists’ (that’s the name for people who promote institutional Christian unity) idea of reconciliation is a world-wide church that runs precisely along the lines they approve of.

This is the part they never talk about. Their proposals are all very touch-feely, very kum-ba-ya. They include very few concrete proposals at first.

Because somebody’s got to give up something. I believe in congregational church government (that’s odd for a Lutheran, but I belong to an odd Lutheran group). My Catholic friend (I have at least one) believes strongly in episcopal government (that means bishops call the shots).

When this warm, cuddly world-wide church gets established, one of us is going to have to yield to the other. Either I’m going to have to live with a church government I mistrust, or my Catholic friend will. There’s no way to please us both.

So who’s going to get his way? And how do we decide who gets his way?

This is where, in my experience, it stops being cuddly, and starts getting cutthroat. Because like in all politics, it’s the ruthless who get their way, and the people with power who finally decide.

I was working for a Lutheran church in Florida when the merger occurred that resulted in the creation of The Very Large Lutheran Church Body That Shall Remain Nameless. This particular congregation was quite conservative, and many of its members were concerned about what they’d be getting into. A particular concern was whether they’d be forced to alter their congregation’s constitution, which contained a strong statement on biblical inerrancy.

At the congregational meeting where they took the final vote for or against the merger, the pastor brought out a recent column from the denominational magazine, in which the presiding bishop declared that no congregation would be forced to change its constitution in the new church.

This eased concerns enough for the “yes” votes to prevail.

The merger happened. Time passed.

One day we got a letter from the bishop’s office.

It said that all congregational constitutions had to be submitted to the office of the (new) bishop, so that they could be revised, if necessary, to bring them into line with church guidelines.

It hadn’t occurred to anybody that a bishop might lie. Or (giving him the benefit of the doubt) that he would make definitive statements on matters of which he had no certain knowledge.

But that’s what politicians do.

And once you get down to nuts and bolts, it always turns into politics.

When Jesus prayed that all His disciples might be one, (John 17:23), I don’t think that’s what He had in mind.