Unity

In a Peanuts comic strip, Lucy tells Linus “I finally figured out how to prove to everyone that my religion is right.” Linus asks, “How do you do that?” “It’s simple,” says Lucy, “I hit ‘em over the head with my lunch box!” Regardless of appearances, a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still. Lucy reminds me of a fellow I heard about one time. He was stranded all alone on a desert island for years before he was finally rescued. His rescuers asked him what the three structures were that he had built on the island. Three buildings seemed perplexing for just one man. He said one was his house, one was his church, and one was where he used to go to church before he got his feelings hurt! I am convinced that unity is a matter of attitude, not perfect agreement. Are there two human beings that agree 100% on every thing? Surely the most legalist among us would agree that a definition of 100% agreement will never fly. The attitude of which I speak was illustrated so beautifully by two famous preachers of the 18th Century Evangelical Revival, John Wesley and George Whitefield. Sadly having been great friends at Oxford, they fell out over the Armenian/Calvinist debate. There was quite a bit of animosity between their followers. Once one of Whitefield’s followers said to him, "We won’t see John Wesley in the heaven, will we?" To which Whitefield humbly replied, "Yes, you’re right, we won’t see him in heaven. He will be so close to the Throne of God and we will be so far away, that we won’t be able to see him!" What a great attitude Whitefield had. Despite profoundly disagreeing with Wesley, Whitefield recognized John Wesley as being a man of God. Indeed the respect for the other was so great that when Whitefield died in the United States, John Wesley preached at George Whitefield’s memorial service in London. While neither man changed their position, they had the wisdom to respect the study and honest search for truth of the other. That is the “attitude” of unity of which I speak.