Conflict between brothers and sisters in Christ can be wearying, especially when groups and organizations with significant commonalities are at odds, led by men and women marked by faithful service and gospel influence. It’s discouraging to see friendships fracture and movements splinter.
We’ve seen a fair share of conflict in the past decade, and what I’ve seen up close always leaves me with a sense of sadness and resignation when people I admire for different reasons can no longer find any reason to admire each other. Even the best leaders with the deepest desires for unity will run into areas of disagreement. Sometimes, they’ll part ways. If the apostle Paul’s feud with Barnabas was so strong it led to separation, why are we surprised when similar conflicts arise among us today?
What gives me hope is the sovereignty of God. The Lord can and does work in and through human conflict, repurposing even our flaws and failures for his greater plan. Acknowledging God’s sovereignty doesn’t excuse sin or minimize selfishness, of course. But it does give us confidence our hardheadedness won’t thwart God’s mission. We may botch a lot of things in life, but God’s ultimate plan isn’t one of them.
Conflict and Collaboration in the Lausanne Movement
I recently read “Conflict and Collaboration,” a thesis from Doug Birdsall, who served as the executive chairman of the Lausanne Movement and provided leadership for the 2010 Congress in Cape Town, where more than 4,000 evangelicals gathered from around the world. (An abridged version of Birdsall’s thesis was published in 2019.) It’s easy to look back at the years leading up to and following the first Lausanne Congress in 1974 with admiration and awe—the leadership of Billy Graham and John Stott, the beauty and power of the Lausanne Covenant, the convening of such a large group of global leaders.
Birdsall reminds us that the extraordinary success of Lausanne didn’t happen without conflict, some of it significant. When you try to harness the energy from so many big personalities and overlapping organizations, you’re going to face challenges.
- Some of the leaders from the World Evangelical Fellowship worried that establishing a Lausanne Committee after the Congress would create a sister organization and lead to competition for resources. (Relationships were bruised because Billy Graham had initially assured them there wouldn’t be a new organization.)
- Some of the leaders pressing for a holistic understanding of the church’s mission believed Lausanne didn’t go far enough. Heated conflict with Peter Wagner, an advocate of a singular focus on evangelism and church growth, led to a splinter group called the International Fellowship of Evangelical Mission Theologians.
- In the late 1980s, a mix of cultural misunderstanding, theological differences, and personality conflict led to the birth of the AD 2000 Movement, as a result of a falling out between Thomas Wang Yongxin (a passionate Chinese theologian) and other Lausanne leaders.
Reading Birdsall’s work, I was reminded of what was so good about these people and their organizations, while marveling at how their legacy was forged through fragmentation and conflict. They all affirmed the Lausanne Covenant’s emphasis on cooperation in the evangelistic task because “our oneness strengthens our witness” and “our disunity undermines our gospel of reconciliation.” And yet despite their confession of “sinful individualism and needless duplication” and their pledge “to seek a deeper unity in truth, worship, holiness and mission,” their efforts ran aground due to rocky relationships.
The conflicts were, at times, theological and organizational, but in the end, the intractable problems were primarily personal. The breaking of trust made honest communication a challenge. No matter how much of the division could be traced to theological or ideological differences, the parting of ways was always personal.
Conflict Is Inevitable
The peacemaking idealists among us tend to think conflict can be eliminated, or at least avoided most of the time. Familiarity with church history should disabuse us of this notion. Even Birdsall the optimist concludes, “Within the limitations and finitude of our human condition, miscommunication and misunderstanding are bound to occur, and to occur frequently. With this comes tension and conflict.”
The same is true today. Leaders with big personalities will often fail to see eye to eye. There will be debates over emphasis, prudential concern, the outworking of theological principles, and the investment of resources. Even in the healthiest relationships and strongest organizational partnerships, we can expect a good deal of disagreement and debate.
How to Navigate Conflict as Christians
Birdsall concludes his study with four suggestions that can minimize the negative effects of conflict among men and women devoted to Christ and his church. I sum them up below.
1. Be precise and discerning in how you define the nature of the problem. Birdsall counsels us to identify the true source of the conflict. Is it primarily theological in nature, relational in essence, or a matter of organizational and cultural difference? We won’t be able to work toward solutions until we recognize the true source of the conflict. Precision here is key.
2. Suspend judgment until you agree on a clear baseline of facts. Conflicts spiral out of control when leaders and their teams jump to conclusions and allow a narrative to form that may not be accurate. Too often, people in conflict don’t agree on the precipitating event, the nature of the conflict, or why trust has been broken. Without agreement on the basic facts, relationships will deteriorate because everyone interprets whatever happens next as more evidence for their reading of the situation.
3. Articulate the theological convictions under the surface. Evangelical leaders should be clear not only about their theological convictions but also about the Christian qualities that must be on display in conflicts. We should be characterized by our integrity, humility, hopefulness, faith, and love. What does it profit us to be correct on the truth of a theological point if we misrepresent and distort another’s position to maintain power or gain an advantage?
4. Engage advisors and mediators who can bring perspective and counsel. When conflict takes place, and it will, we should engage wise and fair-minded people—men and women in whose lives the fruit of the Spirit is on display. John Stott was one of the bridge builders during his time (although not averse to or absent from conflict himself). Respected leaders can provide perspective and then help usher in reconciliation after the conflict dissipates.
No era of church history is free from conflict. Every movement of God is marked in some way by division and debate. Perhaps the reason the New Testament letters emphasize unity and reconciliation so often is precisely because the apostles presuppose the inevitability of conflict.
When you experience conflict in your circles or your church, when you see disputes arising and relationships breaking, ask God how you might be of use in mitigating the effects of the division. Ask him to use your grief to galvanize your heart and mind, until you discover old paths of reconciliation and new paths of cooperation, ever trusting in God’s promise to turn even our strife toward his saving purposes in the world.
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