Are some divisions among the church essential?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 2000.

All agree, of course—how could they do otherwise?—that our Lord looks for unity amongst his people.

On the other hand, as you point out, 'not all divisions are necessarily wrong, some are essential'. It is here, as far as I can observe, that the difficulties come in. Many people regret disunity, but at the same time find it difficult to know when divisions are necessary, though regrettable, and when they are not. Merely to say we should all adhere to the fundamentals of the faith, and only give way to division when the fundamentals of the faith are denied, raises the question: how do you define what is a fundamental of the faith?

Let's say an assembly excommunicates a brother for having a television in his house. Most Christians would say, 'Well, having a television is not denying the fundamentals of the faith'; but others would genuinely think it was. After all, many television programmes these days involve the deliberate showing of immorality. If a believer, therefore, has a television, is he not countenancing this grave sin? And is it not calling into question whether he is being true to the gospel or not? Now, this is not my argumentation, but it is the way some people genuinely feel.

Or take the matter of attending the funeral of a Catholic colleague. At such a funeral, the Mass will be celebrated. Is not the Mass the denial of the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ? And if so, is not attendance at that Mass a compromise of the gospel? Again, this is not my argument, but it is the way some people feel.

How are people to discern, then, what is a fundamental of the faith, and therefore what is a compromise? And, on the other hand, what is a matter of indifference, or even an important matter, which however is not a fundamental of the faith? Without help in this regard, I feel many people will find it insufficient guidance merely to be told that we should make fellowship depend on agreement on the fundamentals of the faith.

When faced with this same problem, the World Council of Churches gave it out as their basic principle, that to confess 'Jesus is Lord' is to adhere to the fundamentals of the faith. But of course that left it open for people to say that Jesus is Lord, even though they denied his deity, his virgin birth and his bodily resurrection.

Or to raise another practical matter: would you be happy to receive into your fellowship a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church? They would agree with the deity of Christ, totally affirm that salvation is by faith, and totally adhere to the fact that the sacrifice of Christ was once and for all; but then add that the blood of our Lord's sacrifice for sin has defiled heaven. And that in 1844, for the first time after his ascension, he entered into the holiest of all and began the work of cleansing the Most Holy Place in heaven. And that when he has finished that work he will come again and place the sins of those who are truly believers on the head of Satan, who will endure the punishment for them and then be annihilated. I have myself met some Seventh Day Adventists who gave every indication of being true believers. Would you receive them into your fellowship?

Now, I am not asking this in order to ascertain what the practice of the believers in your church is, but simply providing test cases to invite you to consider how people are to discern what the fundamentals of the faith are, and what beliefs and behaviour patterns are themselves compromises of the fundamentals.

The other area, which I think needs dealing with in these matters, is the question of the freedom of the people of God. If a church holds that it is only lawful for an ordained minister to officiate at the Lord's Supper, am I being sectarian if I insist upon my liberty to practise the priesthood of all believers? This has been an age-long question. Wesley had to face it when he was forbidden to preach the gospel outside the consecrated buildings. Bunyan had to face it when he insisted on his God-given liberty to preach the gospel without gaining permission from the bishop and the magistrate. The Pilgrim Fathers had to face it when they denied the right of the reigning monarch to be the head of the Church, and so did the godly Samuel Rutherford.

In this connection, I have found the work entitled The Reformers and Their Stepchildren by Leonard Verduin very informative. It is a helpful account and reminder of the sufferings of these 'stepchildren', as they were persecuted, not by the Roman Catholic Church but by the Reformed Churches, Lutheran, Calvinist and suchlike, because they took their stand against the state control of the Church, against compulsory infant baptism, for the freedom to practise believer's baptism, and so forth and so on. As you know, I do not regard myself as a member of the 'Brethren', but I freely admit the glorious inheritance into which I have come, through the stand which these stepchildren made.

I likewise abhor exclusivism. I personally hold that, to refuse to accept a known believer to participate in the bread and wine at the Lord's Supper on the grounds that he does not belong to one of 'our assemblies', comes very near the error that Paul emphasized in the Epistle to the Galatians. But that said, I would certainly feel sad to find young Christian men and women giving up the great freedoms that have been maintained and regained all down the centuries by men and women of faith who have insisted on their right to enjoy the freedoms given to them by the New Testament, and going back instead to compromise with those Churches who, up until recent centuries, still persecuted the so-called stepchildren. I feel our present generation, in its revulsion against exclusivism, is in grave danger of throwing away the glorious inheritance into which they profess to have come.

Ever yours,