John Stevens: Evangelical unity & 'secondary issues'

The appointment of Sarah Mullally as the new Archbishop of Canterbury has inevitably raised questions as to how evangelicals deal with what are often termed "secondary issues," including differences over women’s ministry and whether it is right to remain in mixed denominations.

These are more complex issues than a simple distinction between primary and secondary issues would suggest, a distinction which is rarely agreed upon anyway, such that the real issue is often whether the point in disagreement is primary or secondary. The New Testament (NT) stresses the importance of maintaining unity, but also recognises that there are times when separation is both justified and necessary.

Scripture

All evangelicals - as people governed by the authority of God’s Word - inherently believe that their beliefs and practice are reflective of Scripture, or at least not contrary to it. No true evangelical says "I believe/do X even though X is clearly contrary to God’s Word."

Ever since the Reformation, Protestants - and subsequently evangelicals - have disagreed on multiple issues as a consequence of their different interpretations of Scripture. The attempt to create comprehensive united churches in lengthy confessions failed, resulting in different denominations. Conformity was enforced by state persecution, but dissenters refused to submit, resulting in eventual diversity and tolerance.

'Mega-blocks' of evangelical belief and practice

Evangelicals are united by a core set of key beliefs, but different on almost everything else, falling into various "mega-blocks" of evangelical belief and practice.

The distinction between primary and secondary issues is far too simplistic to explain the variety of views/interpretations, and the consequences that ought to follow from disagreeing over them.

It seems to me that a far more nuanced, multi-level approach is needed, coupled with awareness that different levels of agreement are required for different purposes.

I think there are at least these levels:

1. Gospel issues - the things of "first importance" of 1 Corinthians 15, including the Trinity, Christology, atonement, resurrection, ascension and return.
2. Salvation issues - beliefs or practices that directly affect whether someone is included in or excluded from the Kingdom of God - that is, matters central to the gospel itself. For example, justification by faith and repentance from sin are essential to salvation, while persistent, unrepentant sin (such as sexual immorality, greed, theft, drunkenness, or similar) places someone outside the Kingdom. Importantly, elevating secondary or non-essential matters to the level of gospel requirements - making them conditions for salvation - is itself a serious gospel error. Such additions distort the gospel of grace and are therefore also salvation issues (see Galatians).
3. Soteriological issues - how salvation is received and experienced by individuals. This includes issues of baptism and Calvinism/Arminianism.
4. Ecclesiological Issues - how the church is to be structured, governed, and ordered; how baptism is administered; the practice of the Lord’s Supper and Sabbath; ordination and membership; Complementarianism/Egalitarianism; how the law relates to the Christian life; Charismatic, continuationist, or cessationist positions.
5. Ethical Issues - moral demands that are not direct applications of specific commands. This might include: political alignment; creation care issues; social justice concerns.
6. Cultural practices - the ways that things are done so as to reflect a particular culture. This might include: keeping the law as a matter of custom and culture (e.g. Messianic believers); food laws; clothing; service lengths; worship/service style; nature of preaching.
7. Personal preferences - the ways people do things just because they like them that way, or have become embedded traditions. Often these are coined as being "Biblical" but with little real basis for that claim.

The level of agreement that is needed is determined by the specific purpose concerned. It is not a simple binary question. Different levels of agreement are required for:

1. Acknowledging another person as a Christian
2. Acknowledging another person as a bona fide evangelical
3. Allowing a person to become a member of a specific local church/denomination
4. Allowing a person to become a leader or teacher in a specific local church/denomination
5. Allowing an outside speaker to preach in a specific local church
6. Gathering together to join in prayer, worship and preaching
7. Joining together in collective evangelism
8. Supporting a particular church or church plant
9. Planting revitalisation or merging churches together
10. Training future leaders together
11. Joining together/standing together to campaign on a specific moral, political or cultural issue.

There may be many others, but this is sufficient to demonstrate the complexity.

Living with our diversity

Fellowship is not a binary concept in the NT. There are levels of mutual recognition, support and active partnering (financial and people) in mission that are determined by the degree of commonality.

It is a serious act to declare that someone is not a Christian, not an evangelical, or to refuse to associate with them. This may sometimes be necessary but is never to be taken lightly.

We should not disassociate and condemn others simply because they do not hold the same view as ourselves, and because we might feel threatened because their existence is challenging the view we hold. We need to have enough confidence in our own convictions and practices to be able to engage with those who take a different view.

We need to be especially careful about binding the consciences of others where good-faith evangelicals take different positions. We might disagree, and contend for our convictions, but it is a step further to deny that they can hold their position in good conscience, which is in effect a call to repent and a claim that they are sinning.

The NT emphasises the importance of doing everything possible to maintain and express unity. There is no point thinking that the entire evangelical constituency is suddenly going to "see the light" and come to the same convictions/practices on e.g.: baptism; women's ministry; supernatural gifts; the age of the earth; the millennium; eldership etc. Several centuries teach us we need to live with our diversity.

There is little evidence that God cares as much about some of these issues as we do. He seems to bless evangelical churches of all different stripes and convictions, such that they see growth and conversions. He does seem to judge those churches that reject the gospel and deny salvation issues. But it doesn’t seems to make much difference in practice whether you are an evangelical Baptist, Presbyterian, Anglican, Methodist, Brethren, Pentecostal, Charismatic etc. It is not evident that God blesses some and withholds his blessing from others. We might think this is because He is gracious to those who hold the "wrong" view, but that is exactly how they might regard us.

I am not proposing a way to solve these issues, and we have to navigate them all the time in our local church, denomination/network affiliation, para-church ministries, and unity organisations. It is at least helpful to recognise the complexity of the issues, the need for nuance and the importance of what is at stake. We need to navigate them with graciousness and kindness, trying to understand others and why they beg to differ from us.