One Spirit

Our church participates in aorganization in the area called Love INC. or Love In the Name of Christ. Love INC represents a pooling of resources from many churches of various denominations to do good works in the community. It is an example of unity, a living out of the exhortation of Paul to be one in the spirit. Our pastor's sermon yesterday had this as its theme. When people see Christians let them see gift givers who are a blessing to the world, not divisive judgmental scolds or the like. Let us be unified in being a blessing to the whole world and set aside our differences over doctrine and how we worship.

When I grew up in the Bible Belt, the call to unity and away from disunity was used to suppress dissent. If you didn't believe and do as you were told and as your spiritual betters did, you were being divisive. And it was only proper that the church should avoid divisive people and make it known that they had no truck with the likes of them.

What a perversion of the ideal of unity to use it to divide.