'Is it only me who thinks there's too much fighting in the Church?'
So asked Baptist pastor Malcolm Duncan last night, giving a stirring opening address at Spring Harvest 2017 in Minehead, Somerset. He was introducing the conference's theme of unity, expressed in the hashtag '#OneforAll'.
Duncan asked: 'How can you be one Church together when you fundamentally disagree on big issues?'
He noted that amongst those attending the conference, there would much disagreement on key issues such as how to read the Bible, the role of women in leadership, and teaching on sexuality.
Nonetheless, he insisted that 'There are more things that unity us than divide us', and made his point using a viral video that explores the relationship between family and identity. The video, made by Momondo, can be watched below.
The video features various individuals who had their own fervent sense of identity deeply challenged when a DNA test revealed their own heritage to be far more complex and diverse than they had imagined.
Duncan used the clip to make the point that the church, though it hosts many who look and think differently from one another, is a family.
'I say this literally: You have 3,500 brothers and sisters in this room.
'We belong to Jesus. And those who disagree with us belong to Jesus too...if only we could learn to be family,' Malcolm said.
He urged a spirit of good disagreement, with the unity found 'in Christ' being the defining commonality of the Church. He said that a united church could be an inspiring symbol for a broken, divided world. Duncan quoted Jesus prayer for unity in John 17, and Paul's statement in Galatians 3.28: 'There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.'
The evening meeting also presented a video of a spoken word poem written by Glen Scrivener, titled: Unity.
Duncan challenged the packed audience: 'If God calls someone a son or daughter, how could we ever dare call them anything else?'
