Disagreeing without being disagreeable and building unity: a Catholic view

Among the speakers at this year’s Spring Harvest was Charles Whitehead, former president of the worldwide International Catholic Charismatic Renewal Council. Looking back over many years of working for unity, Charles Whitehead spoke of the principles on which he and his wife, Sue (an Anglican), had built their ministry.

“We need to recognise that other Christians are our brothers and sisters in Christ, if they are committed to Christ” he said. From this vital starting point, everything else could grow. “Then, I must be faithful to who I am, I can’t lay aside points of difference.” He did not underestimate the deep divisions in and between churches on matters of doctrine, but he said that Christians on all sides could not wait for the theologians to resolve the differences before they started to move towards unity. “We know there are important differences, we need to talk to each other, share our differences openly without being afraid. More unites us than divides us.”

Next, he said it was relationships that were the key. “We need to love one another. If I take time and effort to get to know a brother in Christ, then we can build on that relationship and I can love them. That is what the Lord inspires my heart to do – it doesn’t mean we agree on everything. But a relationship of love is essential.”

“We have to listen to one another – it is no good thinking we know what other people believe. So we have to invest time. There is a price to pay, and it can be a real challenge.” But, he went on, it was only after those relationships had been built that anything could be done. Charles told the story of the Big Tent Event, when all the churches around his area got together, a few years ago, to put on a joint mission. It took fifteen months of meeting together, praying together and getting to know each other, before the churches were ready to do so – by then, they still had many points of doctrine on which they disagreed, but they had built strong enough relationships – which continue to this day – to work together in harmony.

“Never forget that Jesus prayed for unity in the Body” he added. “We have to work at this – it doesn’t just happen. We have to build personal, committed, friendly relationships.”

Summing up the current movements towards unity, Charles Whitehead was upbeat: “I think the Holy Spirit is really drawing us together. This is not a human initiative, a good idea we had last Wednesday – the Holy Spirit is drawing us together and when that’s happening, I know it can go wherever God wants to take it. There’s a lot of difficulties and I wouldn’t want to underestimate them for a second …The excitement for me is that the Holy Spirit is doing a lot of this and there is a real desire to build relationships and contacts and when that is present, the sky’s the limit.“

Spring Harvest 2017 took place across three breaks – two at Minehead and one at Skegness – from 4th to 14th April. The theme for 2017 was ‘One For All’, exploring the importance of unity amongst the evangelical church.

Read more about Spring Harvest: www.springharvest.org