In the area in which I am evangelizing and starting a church, there are several congregations from the Calvary Chapel movement, which started around here in 1977 in the Rogue Valley. The first and biggest of these has its own radio station, which I listen to very often when I get in the car to go somewhere or do something. Listening the past few weeks, based on what I’m hearing, there’s at least a concern for unity in the church, because it is a constant theme from the two main teachers, a father and his son.

The son was talking about unity in the church and the trouble seemed to focus on a political divide in the church between Democrats and Republicans. I imagine it. There are two factions in the church, the young and Woke and then the older and conservative, which right now would be clashing more than ever. There is a wide chasm between these two and probably some anger. This ravine is so wide that the two can’t come together. A question should arise: how are they in the same church in the first place with such diversity of belief and practice? But they are. Now there’s the attempt to procure this unity with teaching. What would that teaching be?

Unity in scripture is the same belief and practice. Unity isn’t putting up with differences in doctrine. Some evangelical churches today have redefined biblical diversity. Diversity is when you have different genders, ethnicities, gifts, abilities, and socio-economic levels. They work together, but the togetherness is the doctrine and practice based on the truth of scripture. The new and counterfeit diversity is a diversity in doctrine and practice, so the unity is something also different.  Evangelicals often celebrate the diversity of doctrine in a church and conflate it to a welcome diversity taught in scripture. In fact it’s just disunity being tolerated.

The unity of the Bible is what Jesus prayed for in John 17, which is the same unity as Jesus had with God the Father. This is perfect unity based on the truth. They don’t agree to disagree. That’s also reflected in every single passage on unity in the Bible, which are many. None of those passages differ and none of them teach what evangelicals say unity is. They are disunified with the unity passages.

If I were to offer one verse that provides the biblical teaching, I would provide 1 Corinthians 1:10:

Now I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be made complete in the same mind and in the same judgment.

I’m not going to break it down. It’s self-explanatory. It’s almost redundant in its emphasis on what unity really is and in contradiction to how it is being perverted.

Why is unity defined so much in scripture? One, God wants it. Two, it’s going to be attacked and perverted. And it is.

So what is the perverted view that I heard on the radio, an attempt to conform two such divergent groups into one? He said that the one faction needed to see the other faction as its enemy. The Bible commands, love thy enemies. He said that when you treat an enemy with love, then the next thing you know, he won’t be an enemy any more. Then that person will be your neighbor. Then you just love your neighbor. He didn’t prove any of this assertion, but is it right? Or what’s wrong with it?

How does someone love his enemy? He doesn’t murder him, steal from him, and bear false witness against him. As much as possible he lives peaceably with him. He preaches the gospel to him.

Loving your enemies is not overlooking their false beliefs and practices. It is confronting them and rebuking them and finally separating from them. You can’t fellowship with false beliefs and practices. You can only reprove them (Ephesians 5:11). You don’t become friends or neighbors of an enemy by accepting his false belief and practice. You can’t keep enemies in a church. They have to become friends and that comes by alignment with the truth. If they are enemies because of doctrine and practice, which is what this evangelical leader is talking about, the false doctrine and belief must change.

What is being taught is that the false doctrine and practice must be tolerated. This is loving the enemy. “It’s okay fellow church member that you hold to false doctrine and practice.” This is disobedience to scripture, it isn’t unity, and it isn’t love. Toleration of sin isn’t unity. For much of evangelicalism, keeping together a coalition is more important than pleasing God.