Third in a series taken from Earnest Loosley's book published in 1935 & edited, revised & published by Christian Books Publishing House, Auburn, Maine, USA in 1988. The following is a verbatim quote, including footnotes, from the 1988 edition chapter 2: (Continued from CETF vol 3.2)

[ PART I ]

When the Church Was Very Young, It Had:

2. No Denominations

Here is another big difference as compared with the church of today. We associate the Christian church with denominations, almost as a matter of course. We commonly use the word "church" in a sense in which it is never used in the New Testament. "Which 'church' do you belong to?" But in the New Testament "the church" means either the whole body of believers in Christ or a local congregation in a specific city. "Church" never denoted any section divided from the rest in belief or practice.

In spite of difficulties that threatened to make a grievous breach in the fellowship, this still represented the ideal of the church at the end of her first century of existence.

In describing the earliest days of the church, Luke frequently uses the expression "with one accord" (Acts 1:14; 2:46; 4:24; 5:12; 15:25). The unanimity of the followers of Christ is a characteristic Luke felt was important to note. And the leaders honestly strove to keep this reality, though in practice it is one of the most difficult of all things to maintain.

Indeed, it was not very long before conflicting schools of thought arose within the circle of the church's life and organisation. The well-known hymn "Happy the Souls That First Believed," describes the situation as Charles Wesley conceived it:

"Meek, simple followers of the Lamb,
They lived and spake and thought the same."

If ever that was true, it did not remain true! If the early church knew nothing of the denominational divisions that marked its later history, it was not because there was one flat level of uniformity in thought and practice, but because something bound them all together in unity, in spite of variations in point of view. And workers fought for unity while today men fight to keep division.

A difference of opinion arose in those early days that was important enough to match any doctrinal dispute we have ever faced in our day. The contrast between their day and ours was in the stature of the men involved.

The Council of Jerusalem described in Acts 15 is of great historic importance, and full of significance. One can see that this was a situation out of which denominational divisions could very easily have arisen. The danger was realised by the leaders of the church, and steps were taken to stop the division. If the decisions arrived at (c/f vs 28-29) seem to us to lack something of logical consistency, at any rate they preserved the unity of the church.

Throughout the history of the church, similar opposing tendencies can be traced - the broad and the narrow, the liberal and the conservative, the tolerant and the strict, and only too often the temper and the spirit of the rival leaders have been such that compromise was ruled out and a modus vivendi was neither sought nor found.

The church in Corinth reveals another influence at work that tended towards division. Certain sections of the membership emphasised their respective loyalties by such party cries as "I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas"; while some (perhaps in the spirit of "A plague on both your parties") declared themselves to be "of Christ" (I Cor. 1:12). Use of personal names as a rallying point for factions is a phenomenon that is often witnessed in religion: Lutheran, Brownites, Wesleyan, Campbellites, etc. How easily a separatist movement in the church may center around the name of some outstanding leader.

It is to the credit of the early church that, in spite of acute disagreements that sometimes arose (eg Gal. 2:11), the personal relations of the leaders were a unifying rather than a divisive influence.

Yet another possibility of division arose in connection with organisation. As the work extended and numbers multiplied, on what lines were the arrangements for the common life of the church to be planned? Would it function more effectively and congenially in this way or in that?

In the earliest days, practically all who came within the fellowship of the community of the body of Christ had previously experienced "going to the synagogue." At a later stage, when converts were added directly from the Gentile world, the Gentiles brought with them no previous acquaintance with the synagogue. But they were not lacking in experience with Christ nor in the experience of fellowship with one another.

With so many precedents and models surrounding them (provided by synagogue, society, family and government) how was the church to organise its common life? Something could be said for each of the influences around them. There was no valid reason why each separate Christian community should adopt exactly the same model.

Dr. Streeter (The Primitive Church) holds that there are traces of several distinct expressions of the church in the New Testament and in early Christian literature. Episcopalian, Presbyterian and Independent can all justify their particular church order by reference to the Scripture.

It is clear that there was abundant room for division whenever discussions as to "order" arose. If anyone were foolish enough to put forward the idea that one type was right and all the others wrong, such a contention would prove to be an anvil on which the church might split. Here, again, was an element that might easily have produced "denominations." But it did not!

The early church did not preserve its unity because of the absence of possible ground of division. The possibilities of separation were there!

Was denominationalism, as it exists today, inevitable? Is the only alternative a flat uniformity? If diversity can only be enjoyed on the basis of separation, then we must accept separation. At any cost, we must have the freedom to think for ourselves, to advocate our own point of view, to make an individual contribution to the faith to which we belong. If this liberty can only be enjoyed in a system of separate communities, then we must accept the situation.

But somehow the church, when it was very young, succeeded in maintaining its unity in spite of the fact that so many divisive tendencies were already at work.

How did she keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace? In spite of divergence of thought, personal differences of leaders, varieties of expressions and authority, and other factors that wrought division before many years had passed, how did she keep unity?

Fortunately we have documents that show us how one or two of the leaders actually faced and dealt with the problem.

Corinth was perhaps the place, of all others, in which the elements of divergence manifested themselves. It was what any modern minister might describe as "a very difficult church."

"The Corinthian Church was full of quarrelling-not merely about belief and practice, but about more concrete things, which the members took to the law courts; and there were worse scandals still. The Greeks, who formed the majority, had all the defects of the Greek mind, but little, it would seem, of its grandeur; and the Church bristled with every kind of wrongheadedness. Its members came from Judaism and heathenism. There were ascetics and vegetarians ... there was a "Spirit" party, subject to trances and visions and ecstatic speech with 'tongues.' Allied with this party, or perhaps at variance with it but certainly akin to it, were the antinomians - set free from the body, living in the spirit, and therefore free to let the body have its pleasures while the soul rose superior to them. Theosophy of one kind and another flourished, and every other kind of crotchet - baptism for the dead being one of them - in an atmosphere of sloppy thinking." *1

Here were all the elements of party spirit and denominationalism run mad.

What was Paul's method of dealing with a threatening danger of this kind, so likely to split the church into numerous quarrelling sects?

The point of vital and lasting importance is reached when Paul passes from particular details and fastens attention upon ideals and principles. He introduces the concept of the church as the body of Christ and proceeds to unfold and develop all that this means (I Cor. 12).

"You are a very mixed company of people, very different from one another in all kinds of ways; as different as the members of the human body are, in size and shape and position and function. But you are not antagonistic the one to the other, any more than the members of the body are mutually antagonistic. You are not independent of one another, any more than the members of the body can pretend to be independent. You dare not be unruly or wrongheaded in your behaviour, any more than a single member or a group of members of the body dare be rebellious or disloyal to the whole. You are all in fellowship with one another. The rich variety of your gifts enhances the usefulness of the organism as a whole. You have a fine range of powers which you can employ in mutually helpful service. All of you, with all the variety of your endowments, may share in and contribute to the one life of the body as a whole; for the body is not this or that member, this or that group, this or that section; but all of you, closely knit together."

Paul's parable is a piece of inspired statesmanship. In his working out of the idea we have one of his masterpieces. The body suffers today-suffers needlessly -because Paul's message is unheeded. His lesson is unlearned today.

But there is more to follow.

"And still I have to show you a more excellent way," says the apostle. "What you really need, all of you, is more love. Don't be quarrelsome and unkind and self-assertive: love one another. Don't be touchy and uncharitable, short-tempered and ready to believe evil: love one another. Love is patient and kind. Love knows no jealousy. Love makes no parade; gives itself no airs. Love is not unmannerly, nor selfish, nor irritable, nor mindful of wrongs. Love does not rejoice in injustice, but joyfully sides with the truth. Love can overlook faults. Love is full of trust, full of hope, full of endurance. Love never fails." *2

Such teaching goes to the very root of the matter! Would not that have prevented nearly all the separations that have taken place throughout the history of the church? Would not that heal nearly all the divisions that exist today? Would it not show that we are indeed His, whose name we bear?

When the church was very young, there were no denominations. When the church grew up, the ideal of unity was lost sight of. That was not an asset! The church must seek after that unity again today. And when the church militant shall have become the church triumphant, its divisions will disappear along with all other imperfections.

"Names and sects and parties fall:
Thou, 0 Christ, art all in all."

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Appeared in Volume 4.1 January/February 1998