The Plurality of the Visible Churches

§ 150. Whensoever separations actually occur in the Christian Church, there can never be lacking an endeavour to unite the separates.

1. If every worldly element present in individuals is as such disturbing to fellowship, the visible Church always and everywhere has dispersed within it germs of division. But each of those germs in itself is infinitely small; and in the measure in which these elements fall apart or unite to form masses, there will in the latter case appear in the Church more or less division, while in the former nothing more will result than temporary disturbance in restricted circles. It is obvious that from the outset those elements united most powerfully and became most strongly antagonistic to each other, which sprang from the former religious life of the first Christians as Jews and Gentiles. Hence even in the age of primitive Christianity, which we can scarcely help regarding as an exception to the general divisive tendencies characteristic of the visible Church, the basis of a separation between Jewish and Gentile Christians existed in so developed a form that only the counter-force of the community-forming principle operating in its primitive strength could delay its actual outbreak. From this it is clear that the more the uniting Spirit pervades the mass and drives the worldly elements in it apart, the more these elements will lose their divisive force. Hence this force was never again present, in particular differences that arose in the course of the development of doctrine, with the strength it possessed in the age of heresies and the General Councils. But, on the other hand, the tendency to division invariably becomes active in proportion as aberrations, which otherwise would fade away of themselves, almost unnoticed, are strengthened by some selfish motive.

2. Yet even in the state of division each part of the visible Church remains a part of the invisible, for in it are found the confession of Christ and therefore also the activity of the Spirit. Hence the impulse from which the division sprang will gradually weaken, and where these different parts of the Church are in contact with each other, the community-forming principle which is the same in all will bring its influence to bear against division, and an impulse towards reunion will arise which of course in the Church as we see it is subject to the same changes and vacillations as its opposite. Indeed, even when this impulse fails entirely to make itself perceptible in history, it is none the less moving sporadically in individuals; we cannot but assume this if we are right in believing that the Holy Spirit cannot wholly disappear or be banished from any part of the Church, nor can it ever neglect any of its essential functions.

Still, the undeniable experience that apart from this there are frequently also efforts at union which do not originate in the Spirit of the Church, and the success of which cannot therefore be regarded as a gain, reminds us that there may also be divisions which are not due to the worldly elements in the Church, but must ultimately be reckoned among the effects of the Holy Spirit. So that the truth we have established can only be of subordinate importance, and seems to call for further definition. But just as those unions may be only apparent, and the united elements may certainly tend to separate from the whole body in some other fashion, so too that which is in fact only seeking closer union within the great fellowship in a way that will do it no injury, or again that which is really a return to a formerly abandoned fellowship with earlier forms of the Church, may seem to be a division, and yet not be such. Hence it is universally true that the Spirit unites, and that it is the fleshly mind that disunites. But the application of this may be difficult; and when several communions separated from each other exist side by side in Christendom, it must be left to criticism to decide on which side the disuniting principle is entrenched, and which therefore is responsible for division. This is a question which it will often be as difficult to solve as the question which of two sides in a war has been the aggressor. § 151. First Theorem.—The complete suspension of fellowship between different parts of the Visible Church is unchristian.

1. What was said in the Introduction¹ about religious fellowship as such, can also be said of Christendom in view of its wide expansion over so great a number of peoples and tongues, namely, that no uniform sort of connexion between its various members is possible, not merely owing to unlike internal affinities and external contacts, but also owing to the unequal distribution of the common Spirit. It is natural that the first of these unlikenesses should be connected with the influence of language and of the whole system of social relationships, and that Christians who speak the same language and belong to the same nation should form a separate communion. But such national and territorial Churches are simply the form in which alone, by the appointed divine order, a larger fellowship is possible; and they by no means involve a suspension of fellowship with other Christians, for fellowship can exist after as well as before, once the natural conditions for it are present. The same is true of those societies (always strongly marked in external form) of Christian people who, drawn by various affinities, gather specially round those who give a strongly original expression to their individual thought; for this too can happen without any existing fellowship with other parts of the Church being suspended. It only begins to be suspended when more restricted societies which have originated in the manner just described get into antagonism to each other, and find themselves unable to enjoy their own peculiar life without drawing apart from others and shutting the door upon them. Such a polemical relationship is certainly a suspension of fellowship, and yet only in part. Even though controversy should actually break out over their incompatible peculiarities, it really depends solely on the interest which each side has in the other, and thus is merely the mode in which under the given conditions fellowship can exist between them. Nay, since it is implied in the case that the lowest common denominator on which in controversy they fall back is a Christian principle, they cannot fail (if each side is to understand itself and the other) to distinguish the non-controversial region from the controversial, by saying that they maintain a different kind of fellowship in the former region and in the latter. Hence a complete suspension of fellowship only arises when each of the two communions refuses to recognize in the other any element that is identical simply because it is Christian; that is to say, when all religious communications between the two have ceased, and no sort of Church hospitality obtains between them which would not be shown by either to non-Christians. In that case, all they still have in common is the empty name of Christianity.

2. A complete suspension of fellowship in this sense is unchristian as long as the communion that has been cut off retains its historical connexion with the preaching of the gospel by which it was founded, and does not, itself breaking the connexion, trace the origin of its present form to a different revelation. For as long as in any given communion the acknowledgment of Christ is still found, the action of Christ must be telling there, in however hampered a form; while, if we cast loose from this, then, since all who have been received into the living fellowship of Christ ought to have fellowship with each other, we are excluding and separating ourselves from the unity of the invisible Church.² On this principle, even heretics in the narrower sense (much more, later degenerate forms in which other communions say they find heresy) are still part of the Church, and fellowship with them ought not to be completely suspended. Indeed if, to fix a limiting point, we consider that in the most heretical of all, e.g. Manichaeism, elements non-Christian in origin are mingled with Christian, and if, on the other hand, the Indians (say) were ready to acknowledge Jesus as one of their many divine incarnations (which would be merely the introduction of one Christian ingredient in an unchristian whole), we should not own the latter as Christians in any sense,³ but neither should we describe them as heretics. Thus for external fellowship we can fix no other limit than this, that we ought not to break completely with any communion which persists in attaching itself to the Christian tradition and on its side cherishes the desire to belong to the Christian Church.

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