What is unity?

One of the recurring accusations made by the pastoral staff as this situation has progressed has been that we are causing disunity. It's an issue that deserves analysis. What is disunity? For that matter, what is unity?

I believe unity can best be defined by what it is not. Unity is not uniformity. Unity is not refusing to question authority. Unity is not sweeping problems under the rug to preserve "appearances." Unity is having a shared purpose. A purpose so important that you are willing to labor together as long as necessary to accomplish that purpose. Disunity, then, is either refusing to labor toward the shared purpose or causing a gratuitous disruption in that labor. Disunity is not sincerely disagreeing with each other about how best to accomplish that purpose.

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" Phil. 2:12.

“We cannot, we must not, place blind confidence in any man, however high his profession of faith or his position in the church. We must not follow his guidance, unless the Word of God sustains him. The Lord would have His people individually distinguish between sin and righteousness, between the precious and the vile” (Signs of the Times, Aug. 17, 1882).

It is not only our right but our duty to explore and determine for ourselves the veracity of the direction our leaders what us to go. If that exploration leads us to believe that that direction is faulty it is also our duty to stand up and say so.

When this situation began the Group brought up its concerns in the official, sanctioned forums for discussion of church issues (board meetings, business meetings, elders' meetings, etc.). Much of the membership was open to hearing what we had to say and openly discussing it, but the pastors were not, so they took to accusing us of impeding the work of the church and causing disunity. As in all congregations, there are many at Takoma Park who are willing to take pastoral statements at face value without investigation, and these people accepted the pastoral accusation. These days any time one of us stands up to speak in an official meeting we are immediately greeted with eye-rolling and sighs of exasperation.

When it became clear that we weren't welcome to have open discussions in official forums we turned to unofficial ones. We spoke to our fellow members by ones and twos as chance meetings permitted and met in each others' homes to consider the matter. This so irritated Pastor DeSilva that he actually got up in church during the first service one Sabbath and announced that no one was allowed to have meetings unless they were approved in advance by either a pastor or the head elder. At the second service that same Sabbath he had the head elder make the same announcement.

In the course of later events which will be described in detail in their proper order in The Epic, we sent a couple of petition-style letters with multiple signatures. Pastor DeSilva actually had the nerve to interpret the increased number of signatures from the first letter to the second as "proof" that we were bothering people and disrupting the church!

Is it really us who have caused the "disunity," or is it our pastors? Everything we have done has been because we feel convicted that our congregation has taken a wrong turn and needs to be warned of the error. If our pastors had been more concerned about open, honest discussion and resolution of the matter than about quelling dissention we wouldn't be in this situation now.

Christian unity isn't never disagreeing with each other or church leadership. Even within the early church (which is often pointed to as the model of Christian unity) there were issues and disagreements. What made them unified was their willingness to address the matters head-on and find resolutions so that those issues didn't distract from the common purpose. We have repeatedly reached out to our pastors achieve precisely that sort of discussion and resolution and have been met with nothing but hostility. If there is disunity at Takoma Park it is not of our causing.

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