Social commentators frequently remind us of a paradox of our age.
Alongside the integration and cohesion of globalisation, there has been an accompanying and more troubling trend – the rise of nationalism and tribalism. Fracture lines are seen across nations, communities and eth-nicities. As Christians we joyfully affirm the counter-cultural unity which the gospel brings. But often we do not see this working as it should. A pastor was once asked if he had an active congregation. ‘Oh yes’, he replied. ‘Half of them are working with me, and half of them working against me’.
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From its earliest days Keswick’s banner headline has been ‘All one in Christ Jesus’, often found strung across tents in the Caribbean or placed on pulpits in Japan. When Paul wrote to the Ephesians he was specially concerned to help them understand this. ‘You are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people’ (Ephesians 2.19). As members of God’s family we have intimate access to him, but we are also reconciled to one another. Through Christ, Jew and Gentile are brought together as fellow citizens under God’s rule, united as God’s children in one family. This is as radical today as it was then. Paul declared that ‘there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all’ (Colossians 3.11). All of the previous divisions are part of the old humanity. As Paul tells the Galatian believers, ‘you are all one in Christ Jesus’ (Galatians 3.28).
