TO UNITY IN DIVERSITY, WITH LOVE
Bruce Heffner

Just as ways were sought to end the Vietnam War, at least our participation in it, we too should continually re-evaluate our past and present positions in hope of finding a solution which will bring us together in a spirit of love. This will require a search of both the book and the heart.

Barton W. Stone once said: “I wish it to be known that I shall never be an angry disputant, even in Reformation. It is possible to be too strict, too censorious, too confident; to feel that we have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And when we have that attitude, we become debaters, rather than searchers for the truth.”

It would do us good to think about that comment and it’s relation to the Christian community. We need to learn how to search the scriptures while at the same permitting others to do the same and account to them an integrity equal to ours.

Obviously this means that unity in diversity is not only pragmatic but the only unity possible. Those who maintain otherwise are simply ignoring reality.

Love such as the Master had for us is the key to the end of our squabbling. Nothing can be so conquering as love, and yet the word defies description except as it dwells in the hearts of changed men and women.

The person of Jesus in our life is critical to the expression of love. The life that he lived and the cross which he bore on our behalf may boggle the mind but it also touches the heart, The Christian understands that love because he is made part of it when he comes into vital union with the Father through Jesus.

The Apostle John wrote: “God showed how much he loved us by sending his only Son into this wicked world to bring to us eternal life through his death. In this act we see what real love is: it is not our love for God, but his love for us when he sent his son to satisfy God’s anger against our sins.” (1 John 4:9-10).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian executed by the Nazis on April 9, 1945, in the concentration camp at Flossenburg, said that spiritual love does not originate in the person but is from above.

“Human love can never understand spiritual love, for spiritual love is from above; it is something completely strange, new, and incomprehensible to all earthly love,” he said.

Bonhoeffer captured the concept of love as few of us have. He recognized not only that it was a force outside himself but also that the force became a dynamic through earthen vessels as they submitted their lives to the kingship of Jesus.

As we take a fresh look at our traditional views, it must be coupled with a closer look at ourselves and where we stand in relation to our brethren. If the heart is receptive to the idea, the intellectual hurdles will be few.

The vehicle in which unity rides is constructed on an understanding of how Jesus loved us. Reflecting on the debt which Jesus paid, we must consider its meaning in relation to our brothers and sisters in Jesus.

Again quoting from Bonhoeffer: “As only Christ can speak to me in such a way that I may be saved, so others, too, can be saved only by Christ himself. This means that I must release the other person from every attempt of mine to regulate, coerce, and dominate him with my love.”

He suggests that the other person needs to retain his independence and that he needs “to be loved for what he is, as one for whom Christ became man, died, and rose again, for whom Christ bought forgiveness of sins and eternal life.”

Here rest most of our problems between one another. It is not enough that we should study the Word and teach others, but often that we demand of them a perfection of which even we ourselves are incapable.

In view of our humanness, the question may be asked whether it can be otherwise, and in reply to that I believe a further comment by Bonhoeffer is in order. “Because Christ has long since acted decisively for my brother, before I could begin to act, I must leave him his freedom to be Christ’s; I must meet him only as a person that he already is in Christ’s eyes. This is the meaning of the proposition that we can meet others only through the mediation of Christ.”

These views were discussed with an editor of a “mainline” Church of Christ publication who promptly discounted them with a swift remark that if Bonhoeffer’s concept were carried to its ultimate end it would be impossible to correct an erring brother. I believe the point was missed. Bonhoeffer was suggesting not that we abandon our brother in need of spiritual help and guidance but rather that we need to take care that the doors of our hearts are open so that Christ is able to work through us in the perfecting of the body —that’s what spiritual love is all about.

Bonhoeffer was merely elucidating a principle set forth by Paul in 1 Cor. 13:4-6: “Love is very patient and kind, never jealous or envious, never boastful or proud, never haughty or selfish or rude. Love does not demand its own way. It is not irritable or touchy. It does not hold grudges and will hardly even notice when others do it wrong. It is never glad about injustices but rejoices whenever truth wins out.”

Contrary to what some believe, Bonhoeffer’s concept of letting your brother belong to Jesus, does not fling open the door to all the carnal mind desires. It does not promote permissiveness, not is it void of values.

Bonhoeffer was able to see himself through the eyes of Jesus and consequently when he looked at his brethren, he also saw them through the eyes of Jesus. The cross exemplifies what it means to love with the heart, mind and soul.

Jesus, having suffered the ultimate calamity of the human life, understands our hangups, breathes into our life the strength and vitality necessary to cope with the everyday problems of life.

Success in the Christian life is too often tied to various ecclesiastical edicts arbitrarily defined. We are beginning to understand that living for the Master involves more than dying in a church pew with cold feet, calloused rears and blank minds.

Christianity need not be drudgery! We can love one another fervently and overlook one another’s faults as we walk the pathway to heaven together, but it takes total commitment to Jesus in order to do so.

Perhaps the most popular quotation from Bonhoeffer cited by university and college students is “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die,” from Bonhoeffer’s book, The Cost of Discipleship.

But what does that mean? Bonhoeffer said: “The only right and proper way is quite literally to go with Jesus. The call to follow implies that there is only one way of believing in Jesus Christ, and that is by leaving all and going with the incarnate Son of God.”

Bonhoeffer so adequately draws the pieces of our inheritance together by defining Christian brotherhood as not being “an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” —Box 24, Ft. Collins, Co. 80521