Jesus famously prayed for his followers in these words: ‘ … that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me’ (Jn 17:21).
Historically this has proved challenging. The fragmentation of the church is a fact of Christian history since early times. A failed path to Christian unity in the 20th century gave the word ‘ecumenical’ a bad name. Attempts to create organic institutional unity among different church bodies failed to bring them together and multiplied splinter movements. More problematically, unity was promoted at the cost of truth.
Does Christian truth need to be sacrificed to achieve unity?
A recent meeting of disparate Australian Christian leaders talked about truth and unity. Someone gave a food analogy. One approach to unity was likened to putting the varying beliefs of different bodies into a blender with the result of a bland statement of Christian beliefs that meant little and satisfied few. Another model is the salad, with each ingredient maintaining its distinctives and the diversity of taste, texture and colour enhancing the whole. That sounds promising.
The essentials of the Christian gospel gives a basis for unity based on truth. That is, we find unity on higher ground of things that matter eternally, rather than divide on details. The heart of the gospel is that the triune God of Father, Son and Spirit together rescued humanity. This happened as God became flesh in the divine-human Jesus who died as our substitute to pay the penalty of sin, who rose to give hope, and then gave the Holy Spirit to break the power of sin.
Within these essentials, the diversity between Christians groups becomes something to celebrate and adds strength to our work. This is a gospel ecumenicity. This is the oneness that Jesus prayed for within the truth that sanctifies (Jn 17:17).
Gospel ecumenicity adds strength to our public witness. As we show diversity in unity based on truth we witness the power of the gospel to the world. The non-Christian world sometimes sacrifices diversity for a unity that becomes stifling uniformity. At other times it sacrifices unity for diversity with the result of a fragmentation. By modelling diversity and unity, we commend Christ.
We Presbyterian Christians have sometimes given ourselves to a particularism in which agreement on precise details of belief and church life is made a necessary condition of unity. That may stop us from finding common cause with others with whom we agree on gospel essentials. That particularism may also grate on the ear of modern unbelieving Australia and hinder our outreach. And it may hinder the Lord’s prayer that Christian oneness in him shows the world that he is the one sent from God.
David Burke,
Moderator-General,
November 2025
