thoughts and ruminations while in exile (1 Pet. 2:11)

In light of Jesus' prayer in John 17, Christians continue to pray for unity within the church. I join my brothers and sisters in that prayer. Perhaps I'm a bit pessimistic, though, but I doubt I will ever see complete unity in my lifetime. I honestly believe the doctrinal differences within the Body of Christ will never be resolved. I hope I'm not being too much of a downer here. I say this, however, because each Christian tradition has its own emphases. Thus, in the minds of many Christians, any doctrinal acquiescence is tantamount to capitulation.

This is what makes unity difficult: We all believe we're right! The sooner we admit that, the better. I have heard some people say that if the church wants to achieve unity, all she has to do is return to the Scriptures. I am all about serious Bible study. But this call to "simply return to the teaching of the New Testament," fails to understand a very important truth: All appeals to Scripture are appeals to interpretations of Scripture. So how can the church achieve unity? Well, once again, sorry to be a downer, but I think Rev. Stellman may be on to something:

" . . . visible unity within Protestantism is impossible anyway since there is no principled way to settle our doctrinal disputes beyond a he-said-she-said prooftext battle . . . Listen up, people: This is what we do, we divide from one another. The whole reason there is such a thing as Protestantism is because we decided a long time ago that unity isn't important, at least not as long as the ones calling for it disagree with our interpretation of Scripture. If it's 'unity' that we want, then we should just become liberals or Catholics; the former erase all doctrinal distinctives to achieve it, while the latter demand total conformity. So unless we are willing to either jettison our theology altogether, or anathematize all who deny even its jots and tittles, then any talk of unity rings hollow."

We may not like his words, but I think he's on to something. Perhaps it's best we come to terms with it. Am I missing something?