Denominations

Today I preached on the 'Wider Body' in our series on church. We looked at Eph 4:1-6 to see that we have a deep unity with other Christian believers all around the world. One of the implications was what to do with denominations? I skipped over this and said pretty much nothing, so as per Craig's request - here are some thoughts. (I was helpfully served by 3 Briefing articles by John Woodhouse on this topic)

So here goes....................
What was missing from the above list in Eph 4:1-6? It says nothing about denominations. So what does that mean for denominations?

Aren’t we united by the fact we are all Anglicans?
The answer is a yes and no!

Firstly, a denomination can promote unity
A denomination is an association of some churches and does not include all churches.

Unity can be promoted by allowing a certain freedom of conscience in relation to matters that do not go against the unity of the Spirit. So things like:

• What we think of the saving work of Jesus and his resurrection


• Who we think God is and how he reveals himself to us

These things are matters of the utmost seriousness to us. We could not in good conscience have fellowship with people who denied these core things and there are churches around here that deny some of the central truths.

But those who did hold fast to the gospel core truths we would have freedom to allow them to express it their own way. And so we would have fellow believers who don’t believe in infant baptism but yet we are still united with them.

Unity can also be promoted through cooperation especially in the pooling of resources for a common task. Places that provide a link for fellowship between churches feed this cooperative spirit. I think of organisations like Anglicare or CMS.

Secondly, denominations can hinder unity
Denominations do not tell us who has been called to part of the body. To belong to the church does not equal belonging to your local Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian or Uniting church.
None of these are 'the' church. Denominations can bring dangerous false assurance. Belonging to the body is about faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Unity is also denied in Anglicanism when people love being Anglican more than they love God’s church. So much so they hang on to Anglicanism when there may be reason to break from it. Thankfully we are not in this situation in Sydney but for other people in the world it is a live issue.

There is heaps more to be said and as I am just about to head off on 3 weeks holidays I have rushed over stuff. I will blog in more depth about some of these things when I get back if there is interest, but if you want to keep reading then go to those articles mentioned above.