a threefold cord is not easily broken.

If you know me at all, you know I'm passionate about church unity. I am constantly surrounded by Protestants of varying pursasions, Baptists and Pentecostals, Non-Denominationalists and Presbyterians. Then there's me, an easily excited, sinful but enthusiastic Catholic. What they really think of me I'm not sure. Most of the time I hope they think I'm saved; I have no desire to feel like more of an outsider than I already am. At the same I wish they understood my faith enough to realize the scandal that it is, because then they might have a chance of understanding the splendor.

My closest friends, I feel, accept me for who I am--accept me and reject my faith. Or perhaps they try to understand my faith, but I think they are stumped or a little shocked. We try to see each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, but for me, at least, this is painful. It's painful to have these people on my mind when I'm in church, because I love them and I wish they could join me in prayer, and experience the fullness of faith that I am blessed with. It's painful whenever they pray aloud, because if I try to pray the way they do, the way they will accept, then it's a bit of a lie, a misrepresentation of my faith. I pray in a completely different way than they do, and I'm not comfortable either listening to them pray, nor praying in front of them. It reminds me that our faiths are very different in so many ways.

Against this backdrop, my more argumentative friends sometimes try to maintain that having lots of different denominations actually strengthens the church, rather than weakening and crippling it. I think this is, of course, completely unbiblical, but I think it's also incorrect in its premise. It's true that diversity is a strengthening force in the church, but it should be a complimentary diversity, two different viewpoints, but the same sight. What we have now is contradictory diversity--one person saying that a color is white and the other saying it is black. One or the other has to be wrong. How is that strength?

One of the reasons I think people pay little attention to the disunity of the Church is that someone, somewhere is obviously at fault for dividing it, and everyone is most anxious that someone else be convicted of this fact.