Learn How to Pursue Christian Unity from Two Men Who Didn’t
Find Points of Connectiton
It would be really good if we lived in a world where Christians didn’t disagree with each other. But we do live in a world where Christians disagree. I think if we’ve had any experience at all of being in the church or knowing church history, we realize this. It’s a reality. Christians don’t always think the same way, and it’s really hard to know what to do with that.
One way of dealing with it is to try and extract ourselves from a heated situation we’re in and think about another story that we don’t have a stake in, that we can look at and examine and draw some lessons from in an objective way that doesn’t involve us. And then we can come back into our current context and think, What did I learn from that? What did I learn from that story that I could use as I negotiate or observe conflict around me?
This story of John Owen and Richard Baxter is a really interesting one. It’s a really sobering one. It’s a story that doesn’t go well. They don’t agree, and they don’t do a really good job of not agreeing. They don’t ever come to agreement. The relationship just sort of gets worse and worse, and the distance gets more and more.
When Christians Disagree
Tim Cooper
When Christians Disagree explores the lives of two opposing figures in church history, John Owen and Richard Baxter, to highlight the challenges Christians face in overcoming polarization and fostering unity and love for one another.
So as I’ve thought about that story (and I’ve thought about it a lot), I’ve wondered what we could learn from that story that would help us in our current day, when we can be so polarized and it’s so hard to see and understand the other person. And I think one of the key lessons that I’ve learned from that story is that we are very quick to overlook the common ground.
When I think about John Owen and Richard Baxter, they had so much in common. It was incredible! If any two men should have been able to get along well and share common names, it was these two. But somehow they struggled to focus on what held them together. Instead, they focused on what drew them apart.
And those differences were really, in the scheme of things, important but relatively narrow compared to everything else that they held in common—not least a common love of God, a dedication to his church, and a commitment to the gospel. There was lots that they could have formed an affinity over, but they just couldn’t do it.
What do we have in common? What do we agree on? Where can we find points of affinity?
For me, that’s the most important lesson from their story is that if we find ourselves in a context where we are not agreeing with someone else, instead of minutely examining that and excavating it and making much of it, if we could just shift our frame of focus and think, What do we have in common? What do we agree on? Where can we find points of affinity?
And we may not resolve those narrow points of disagreement, but at least when we disagree, we do so in a way that’s amicable and that does justice to the burden on us to demonstrate love, kindness, humility, and generosity. And it’s hard to do that in the context of disagreement, but that’s when it counts. That’s probably the main lesson I’d take from their story.
Tim Cooper is the author of When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the Fractured Relationship of John Owen and Richard Baxter.
Related Articles
10 Ways to Fracture Your Church
You only have to be a Christian for a short time before you realize that churches suffer from disunity and splits after seasons of peace as surely as valleys follow rolling hills.
Why John Owen and Richard Baxter Didn’t Like Each Other
When we see other people, we do so through a filter that operates on the basis of the only evidence we have: what we see them do and hear them say. It’s easy to get that wrong.
Unity Is Not the Same as Total Agreement
There is an extreme view of Christian unity that is found among those who will work together only with those with whom they agree on everything—doctrinal and practical.
3 Activities That Help Us Maintain Evangelical Unity
We must be deliberate about several activities if we are to maintain unity among ourselves as God’s people. Here are a few of them.
