Some Thoughts About Schism

Protestants are prone to schism.  It has always been one of our fundamental characteristics.  Every generation has had disagreements about Christian belief and practice, and enormous time and expense has been devoted to Christian denominations splitting, forming, and reforming.

Paul's Letter to the Galatians provides a good lens through which we should perceive the question of "to schism or not to schism." Paul wrote the letter to address a major problem that had arisen in the infant Christian communities in Galatia.  Paul discovered that a false gospel was being preached there, and wrote to the Galatians to get them back on the right track.

The false gospel was not being proclaimed by someone who was evil and out to destroy the churches.  It was proclaimed by Peter.  Yes, that Peter.  The one who was the leader of the disciples, the one on whom Jesus said that the Church would be built.  The one who preached at Pentecost.  Peter and the original Jerusalem disciples took the position that you needed to practice the regulations and rules of Judaism in order to be a follower of Jesus.  This was contrary to Paul's position.

Peter was operating out of a fundamentally flawed understanding of Christian belief and practice, and was seeking to spread this understanding to Paul's communities.  And yet Peter was also a faithful disciple who remained one until his martyrdom in Rome.  Peter was, and remained an instrument through which the gospel was proclaimed.

God works through those who have a fundamentally flawed understanding of Christian belief and practice.  It doesn't make their position any less flawed.  It just means that the fact that they are in error does not obviate the truth of their calling.  And while we are at it, whenever it comes to an issue where there is disagreement, those who are right are going to be wrong about something else.  Paul was just as flawed as Peter.  Paul himself acknowledges his own flaws again and again in his epistles.