There is an apparent paradox of Christian unity in the Bible. While it is given as a fact, it is also something toward which Christians must work. How can something that already exists still need to be built?

There is just one Christ. If we are linked up to Him, we are unavoidably linked up to one another in some sense. This is an assumed fact in scripture. The closer we are to Jesus the Christ, the closer we will be to one another.

The Apostle Paul has a long list of things that are "one" for Christians, and that list is found in Ephesians 4:4,5 -

There is one body and one Spirit-- just as you were called to one hope when you were called-- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

But this fact of Christian unity is not all there is to unity. It is also something that must be realized in practice.

Not long before His death, Jesus prayed for his closest followers, the Twelve. But His prayer did not end with them. He went on to say (John 17:20ff):

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me."

There are a lot of "ones" here. This is the other side of being "one." Here oneness is something Christians have to work on, something they need help from God to achieve. We can easily imagine that all this is just sentimental and sappy, but Jesus says it is something that, if achieved, would let people know just who He is and just how much God loves us.

So it appears that while Christians are automatically united when they join themselves to Christ, that unity has to be completed in some way by our efforts. But this is something about which it is hard to know just what to do.

When Christianity came to North America, it left behind a situation where one brand name of Christianity was enforced by law, at least in each political jurisdiction. I don’t think Christian unity can be enforced by law. So I think breaking up that monopoly was a good idea, politically speaking. But Christians have not done a very good job with the resulting situation.

While everyone likes to extol the virtues of diversity today, Christ didn’t desire diversity for His followers. He prayed for unity. There are hundreds of brand names of Christianity available to us today, and we, being the consumer-minded people we are, tend to be very comfortable with that situation. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that divided Christians make God happy.

So what could we do to help bring about, to a greater extent, the oneness for which Jesus prayed so long ago?

One answer that has been attempted is this: Let’s just ignore our differences and focus on the things we have in common. At first glance, this seems like it might help. Don’t all Christians have Christ in common? That depends on who you mean by "Christ." The "Christ" of the Jesus Seminar is a very different from the Second Person of the Godhead incarnate of historical Christianity. The view that homosexuality is a God-prohibited lifestyle is irreconcilable with the view that God creates some people to be practicing homosexuals. My point is that there are differences among those who call themselves "Christians" that are just too great to be ignored.

Another answer that has been attempted is to try to negotiate away as many of these differences as possible, overlook the rest, and get all the brand names of Christianity to pull off a corporate merger, so to speak. But this approach has its problems also. It’s not at all clear that a corporate merger of institutions is what Jesus is praying about in John 17. And even if such a merger happened, it would be more of a conglomeration of irreconcilable differences than a real unity in Christ.

Still another attempted answer here is to have the great Christian debate - winner gets to define the faith.. Being to some extent an intellectual child of Thomas Jefferson, I tend to think free and open debate can be a road to truth. Perhaps if Christians had some free and open debate we might be brought closer to that elusive "oneness" we have been talking about. While I think this might be fun, Christians have been debating almost since the faith began, and it hasn’t always helped.

It seems like one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do.

So what can we do?

I suppose that if I really had the answer to this I would be busy writing books about it and on tour lecturing people around the world. But since I’m not all tied up with that, I will just offer a few humble suggestions for our little gathering here today.

First, all Christians need to study theology more often and more intensely. Theology could be called the science that studies God. As I said before, the closer we come to God, the closer we will be to one another. Too often, when twenty-first century Christians approach God, we approach Him through our emotions rather than through our minds. C. S. Lewis (he’s the original Narnia guy, in case you don’t know) once said:

For my own part, I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that "nothing happens" when they sit down or kneel to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand. (God in the Dock, p. 205.)

I would probably ditch the pipe and trade in the pencil for a PC, but you get the idea.

Some new slogans might help us seek oneness. How about: Theology - it’s not just for theologians anymore! (You see why I’m not in advertising.)

Maybe things like feelings, impressions, and "what we’ve always thought" are some obstacles to oneness that we can overcome. It would be difficult, but worth the effort.

As Christians, we often don’t know the content of our own faith. When Christians don’t seem to be able to figure out what Christianity really is, is it any wonder that people outside the Christian faith remain a little confused at best, and sometimes very skeptical?

Part of the problem is that too many of us have drunk deeply from the skeptical spirit of our age. We have been content to agree with the voices of our times that we can’t know anything. In current terminology, that leaves us able only to "believe" things - which now seems to mean deciding to attach ourselves to something emotionally even though that something might be completely unreasonable.

The problem is that this is not in harmony with the historic Christian faith. Jesus said we could know that He can forgive sins (Matt. 9:6), the gospel writer Luke said we can know the certainty of the Christian faith (Luke 1:4), Peter once said that we can believe AND know who Jesus is (John 6:69) - and Jesus did not correct him, Paul said we know about the resurrection, and the list could go on and on.

So, while it is not a new suggestion, I want to reach back into the history of the faith and re-suggest this one: a good starting-point for Christian unity would be for Christians to cultivate a deeper knowledge of their own faith.

There really is only one faith, at least according to the Apostle Paul with whom I began this talk. While we will probably not ever understand it perfectly, it necessarily follows that the more Christians learn this faith, the closer we will be drawn to the Author of that faith, and the closer we will be drawn together.

Every day of the academic year, students from all over the tri-state get into their cars and begin the drive to this campus. In order to drive here, you have to know where this place is. But that is not difficult to learn - the maps are everywhere. Some of these commuters begin much closer to campus than others; many begin far from one another. But as they drive toward these beautiful parking lots and garages, they can’t avoid getting closer and closer to one another. (They get so close, in fact, that it can get a little crowded around here!)

We Christians need to drive toward Christ. The map is readily available. If we begin that trip, and continue that trip, we will find ourselves closer and closer together as we travel toward Him.