Church Division: Not a New Phenomenon, but an Unnecessary One.

Since Jesus rose from the dead and the Apostles began the Church, over 25,000 schisms and splits have occurred. That is an average of just over 12 every year.

That means that since Easter, somewhere in the world a group of Christians has irreconcilably fallen out and a Church has spilt into two.

As we examine the Anglican communion today, we can easily see the fault lines along which Anglicanism could split. The Windsor report and last years Primates' meeting in Tanzania sometimes look like vain attempts to paper over the cracks, as Anglican Christians threaten to fall out over issues such as whether or not gay couples can have their relationships blessed and sanctioned by the church; whether or not gay clergy can be consecrated as bishops; and whether women can be legitimately made bishops, just priests or neither.

There are Anglicans who will not talk to other Anglicans, and we have the ludicrous situation where some American Anglicans are looking to central African bishops for Episcopal oversight because they have impaired communion with their own leadership. There are also a number of smaller and even more ridiculous points of contention which cause conflict sometimes on a worldwide level, and sometimes on a local level.

It is a sorry state of affairs, and I thought it would valuable to examine how the first Christians dealt with similar fault lines. How did those who had first hand experience of the example of Christ deal with conflict and differing positions within the growing church?

The first thing to note is that the early church held together extremely well. It is not that they did not experience conflict, as a reading of Acts 11 makes clear, but they held it together.

The young church was over a hundred years old before discernable separate denominations came into being, denominations with recognizable doctrinal differences, and it was nearly 400 years before a really significant schism occurred, one which led the Assyrian Church of the East and the Nestorian Church to splitting from the mainstream church.

In Acts 11, Peter has to defend himself from those within the Church who were demanding racial and cultural purity within the Church. These people believed that the Church should remain a Jewish sect and that that Gentiles should be excluded. This was a real and fairly nasty dispute. In due course, it threatened to bring into disrepute the ministries of Peter, Paul and his companions, and others such as Philip whose baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch would be regarded badly in certain circles.

But Peter has had first had experience of Christ and his example. Peter perhaps remembered Jesus at the last supper, recorded in John 13; saying that the way the world would recognise his disciples was the love they shared. Peter has also had the experience of Pentecost and knows that the Holy Spirit's guidance is to be trusted.

Mind you, Peter himself needed some convincing by the Holy Spirit, and Peter's vision was repeated three times to make sure that he got the message.

Three times, Peter heard the voice declaring "Do not call impure what God has declared to be pure."

How much we in the church today need to hear that message repeated:

In other words, if God declares that somebody is acceptable to him, it is not up to any Christian to say that the person is unacceptable. It would be ludicrous for us to hold that gentiles cannot be Christians, or that the uncircumcised have no place in the Kingdom. We cannot, we may not say that Ethiopian eunuchs cannot be Christians, and likewise we may not say American gays cannot be Christians, or priests or bishops. It up to God who he calls to fulfil various ministries, and if he declares them to be fit for that ministry, it is not up to African Archbishops, or Bishops in England or Christians in Derbyshire to say that God has got it wrong.

We in a local Anglican community are limited in some ways in how we can respond to the crisis in the Anglican communion. But in some ways, we can play the most important part of all.

Firstly we must model the example of Christ and Peter and the early Church, and respond in love to those with whom we disagree. If we at the grassroots set this example, the rest of the church will be transformed.

Secondly, we must pray for the unity of the church. We must not pray for the uniformity of the church, but for unity, that is harmony between Christians. If all Christians were the same, uniform, there would be no place in the church for those who did not conform; no place for those who were a little bit different; no place for me and probably no place for you.

So we must pray for unity, harmony and a measure of agreement between Christians even if the agreement is simply to agree to differ.

Finally, we must look out for and welcome those whom God has declared to be pure.

If we are to show love for one another, and avoid falling out over what the secular world will regard as trivial reasons, if we are to show love for one another, we must recognise and welcome those declared pure by God.

It's up to God to decide who is acceptable to him.

Not us.