A question of unity

Yesterday I was trawling the web and found some interesting articles reporting back on the National Initiative for Reformation of South Africa (NIRSA) consultation that I attended in April. For my whole take on the consultation, visit my post on the Christians @ Rhodes blog: http://christiansatrhodes.wordpress.com/2008/04/29/are-you-ready-to-start-reforming-south-africa/.

Dion Forster, a Methodist theologian from Somerset West, had some great insights on NIRSA in his blog, which you can dig out of the April archive at http://www.spirituality.org.za/www.spirituality.org.za/2008_04_01_archive.html.

Then Ebenezer Ntlali, an Anglican archdeacon from King William's Town, had some good things to say about the consultation, but was also worried that organisations like the SA Council of Churches weren't represented properly and there wasn't enough time for discussion. His report-back is here: http://www.diocesegrahamstown.co.za/articles/nirsarep.html.

But by far the most "interesting" of the accounts to me was this one by Dr Peter Hammond of Africa Christian Action: http://www.christianaction.org.za/articles/nirsa%20Reportback.htm.
Peter Hammond gives what basically looks like a typed-out version of his notes on the consultation, with a bit of his own personal opinion thrown in. He describes thoughts that the conference was completely sidetracked for an afternoon and a morning, including two of the talks I found most insightful. But what puzzled me the most about his critique of the consultation is that he was coming from such a different ideological position to mine that from time to time I had trouble believing that he was speaking about the same talks I heard. As a linguist, I was fascinated at how two people could have interpreted the same talks so incredibly differently.

What this all goes to show is that Christian unity is a hard thing. The Bible tells us plenty of times that revival and reformation won't happen unless his people are unified. And what God has said to us as a nation through many different movements since 1994 confirms this. But can we get there? We don't only have theological differences to worry about; when we speak about reforming the nation, very often political differences become involved and it gets terribly tangled... if we're all relying on our own strength.

It takes brave people of vision, conciliatory people, wise people to negotiate all these differences and decide what we must agree on, and what we can "agree to disagree" on. Or that's what I thought when I read some of these accounts yesterday. But wait, I have a feeling that there's someone better suited to the job. Someone who's in all of us and knows exactly how we all tick. His name is the Holy Spirit. Only in him can we really be unified.

So, I'll leave the last word to another online NIRSA commentator, Johan Boot from Housechurch SA. You can read his report-back on NIRSA at http://housechurch.co.za/2008/05/nirsa-consultat.html.

He says, "My strong conviction during and after the Consultation, was that the only way that this Declaration, would become lived out reality is, if we, as the followers of Jesus, were to put aside our power brokering that so often threatens to divide us from our fellow followers and which prevents us from being a powerful influence in the society of which we are a part. The way forward involves us putting aside our personal agendas to be the biggest and the best and submitting first to God and then to one another, so that the Kingdom of God becomes a reality."

Amen, brother! May we seek God's Kingdom first, and the Holy Spirit will deal with the rest (Matthew 6:33).