In a posting on his personal website entitled, "Straining Gnats. Swallowing Camels," Mark Batterson calls on Christians to exercise greater forbearance of each other. He mentions the fact that some churches object to a particular translation of the Bible because it uses inclusive language as being as example of how we strain at gnats while swallowing camels (Matthew 23:24). And he concludes his brief posting by writing,I’ve always subscribed to something Rupertus Meldenius said: “In the essentials, unity. In the non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity.”
Obviously, it’s hard to know where to draw the line between essential and non-essentials. But let’s not major in minors. Let’s not strain gnats and swallow camels. If we converted all of our sideways energy into synergy (which is another word for unity), we’d see another Great Awakening. If we stopped fighting with each other and started fighting our true enemy, we’d see a revival that would rival history’s greatest revivals. [emphasis is in the original]What makes these sentiments doubly important is that Mark Batterson comes squarely out of the evangelical wing of the church and is pastor of the National Community Church, Washington, D.C., which is affiliated with the Assemblies of God and the Willow Creek Association. More and more, we are hearing increasingly inclusive statements such as this one from prominent leaders of the evangelical community, which perhaps portends a time when we can dampen the fires of longstanding theological warfare between left and right. Defining "the essentials," of course, does remain a sticky, contentious issue, but if those from the evangelical and ecumenical wings each reach toward the other with a heart that reflects Batterson's sentiments that time of (at least somewhat) less feuding might just come. Amen.
P.S. Evidently, the statement, "In the essentials, unity. In the non-essentials, liberty. In all things, charity," does come from Meldenius—and not from St. Augustine as many believe.
