Francis Chan’s Plea For Unity, And Why It WON’T Work!

Hey guys, Colin here, and welcome back to the channel where the Bible and critical thinking meet to give you real Christian commentary about the things that matter. Thanks so much for watching, let's get into the video.

So many people, including myself, have been very concerned with the direction of Francis Chan's theology over the years. This has even included some flirting with the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church.

So let me establish, though, that I am not making this video to confidently declare to the entire world that Francis Chan is an evil heretic going to hell. That's not my perspective at all. That's not what I'm trying to get across.

Rather, I am deeply concerned with some of the things he's been dabbling in, and I want to deal directly with and be honest about some of his comments. In the video you're about to watch, Francis talks about unity in the Church as it relates to Church history.

Francis Chan’s Appeal to Christian Unity

Watch this. The people who call themselves the followers of Jesus Christ are currently the most divided faith group on earth. I mean, think about it, can you name another religion that even has more than two or three factions?

Meanwhile, we've split ourselves into denominations that don't get along, and those denominations have churches that don't even get along, and those churches themselves keep on splitting and dividing.

And now we've got individuals creating their own websites and their own followings, claiming that they're the only ones who get it. And what's crazy and terrible about this is that Jesus Christ himself prayed that we would become perfectly one.

So this is the problem, according to Francis Chan. There are more denominations and churches than ever in the Christian Church, and we do not have the perfect unity that is asked of us by Christ. And that's true.

But I think it's very important to put a caveat in here. There are many denominations within Protestant Christianity that are indeed separated because of particular doctrinal distinctions. But many of these people still have ultimate unity with one another above all that.

One great example of this would be the relationship between Reformed Baptists and Presbyterians, for instance. I'm talking about people like John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul. They differ heavily on the issue of baptism, for instance, but they will still often be seen exercising brotherly love and supporting one another.

So yes, there are thousands of denominations, but let's also recognize that not all of these denominations have anathematized all the others. But then Francis says that there are even people who have their own internet ministries, individually claiming that they are the only ones who have it all right.

My follow-up question is, where exactly are you seeing these people? Find me one single popular evangelical Christian teacher who genuinely believes and has expressly said that they are the sole person on the entire earth who knows the correct doctrine.

The fact is that you will not find one person with any kind of real effective platform with an actual audience who has actually uttered any words like that. So already we can see the pattern of exaggeration here, and that is a trend that will unfortunately repeat as we move along.

So you see the general problem here, but now let's see what Francis believes to be the solution, or at least the beginnings of the solution.

Ephesians 4 and the Call to Maintain Unity

You guys, this is not just a good idea. It's not just, oh, let's all get along. This is sacred. And as we fight for truth, and we fight for holiness, we also fight for the unity of the faith. It says in Ephesians 4, he goes, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you've been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

It seems that Francis' general solution here is to remember the importance and sacredness of Christian unity, and we'll get into his more specific solutions in just a bit. This part is pretty normal, and I can't really say I disagree with much of it or any of it, because I completely agree that unity is an essential Christian doctrine, and I think it's a good thing to emphasize.

Colossians 3 .14 says, and above all these things put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. The Lord Jesus does indeed require us to have genuine love and real unity with one another.

We're not supposed to be separated. We're supposed to be together as the body of Christ. But as Francis partially recognizes himself in the video, that unity is based in truth. Therefore, when someone is distorting or denying the truth, they must be refuted and separated from at times.

The same Jesus who calls us to be totally united in the church also says in John 17 .17, sanctify them in truth, your word is truth. He is the same person who says in Matthew 7 .15, beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.

Unity comes with separation. To unify with someone who believes one thing, it is necessary to separate yourself, at least in some small way, from a person who believes the opposite thing. It doesn't mean you have to call them an unsaved heretic, but there is a necessary distinction, even if it's just an intellectual one, made between you and them, or at least between what you believe and what they believe.

This is necessary logically. Once we understand this, it will change the way that we strive for unity. I applaud Francis for his desire for unity in the church, and I think it's a great thing that we could use a lot more of.

But, the problem is that we must also recognize that there are perfectly valid reasons for denying unity in certain circumstances. Once we understand that we must unify around the truth, then God's word and understanding it accurately is of paramount importance.

Whether or not homosexuality is a sin, for instance, is important. You can't just say, let's strive for unity as best we can in the church, and love each other fully. That's true, and we should, but you also have to answer the question.

Is homosexuality a sin? Are those who promote it false teachers? If the answer to those questions is no, then you yourself are promoting false doctrine, because Romans 1 condemns homosexuality as an action, as well as those who promote it.

If, on the other hand, your answer to those questions is yes, then you are necessarily dividing yourself from the evil teachers promoting unbiblical lies. I know that Francis is saying that he's striving for unity here, but I think we need to be both theoretical and also practical.

Here's where this comes into play. Then Francis does a podcast with a few Eastern Orthodox Church members, including Hank Hanegraaff, the Bible Answer Man himself. Watch this.

Francis Chan’s Idealized View of Early Church History

Because the church is more divided than any time in history. What does this book tell us clearly? That he does not want any divisions in his church. And for a thousand years, there was just one church, did you know that?

We're so used to growing up in a time when literally there are over 30 ,000 Christian denominations right now.

And here's another quote of Francis saying basically the same thing. Francis says, quote, there's something attractive going on. There was a time when everyone agreed. I want to go back to that time and say, look, this isn't just an idea that I made up.

1 ,500 years, they all agreed. I'm just going, I want to surrender to that, end quote. So there's this common theme that Francis Chan is promoting now, basically saying that for the first 1 ,500 years of church history, the entire church agreed on virtually everything, and there were no factions and distinctions at all within the church.

This is where this pie-in-the-sky romanticism eventually gets you practically. We need to strive for holy, heavenly unity in the church. Yes, 100 we need to do this, and we need more of it. But we must deal in the real world with the real facts as well.

Francis says that the early church agreed on everything here. He literally said, quote, there was a time when everyone agreed. 1 ,500 years, they all agreed. And if you want a much more thorough refutation of this, given by someone who is more skilled in understanding the scriptures than I will ever be, please see the podcast that James White made on the topic.

The link will be in the description, and subscribe to his channel because, in my opinion, he is probably the most skilled apologist in the church right now. In any case, with a lot of research, I could take you through all of the divisions of the first 1 ,500 years of church history.

But that would take literally all day. The fact is, the earliest groups of people who called themselves Christians did not agree on everything. And that is why they had to have creeds and ecumenical councils to refute the constant spread of heresy and of false teachings coming into the church.

There were seven ecumenical councils in the early church, and the people who attended them fiercely contended with each other with regards to what biblical doctrine was. They did not agree on everything.

That's why they had to have the council in the first place. If they all agreed, why would they waste their time talking and debating these things? We can pretty much all agree that grass is green, the sky is blue, and there are fish in the sea.

That's why we don't normally see big debates and creeds and conferences and councils debating these settled issues. Because we all agree. So if you're going to say that there was one church of people completely in agreement for thousands of years, then you're also going to have to explain why on earth there were so many councils dedicated to settling doctrinal issues that apparently everyone already agreed on.

It doesn't make any sense. It's incredible, even with my limited study of church history that I've done, and it is limited, how incredibly romantic and idealistic Francis's view of church history is. More than this, the writings of the early church fathers are riddled with refutations of ancient false teachers and heretics in the church and disagreements over doctrine.

Early Christian leader Arrhenius was born between 130 and 140 AD, so this is within the range of the first hundred years or so of church history. One of his most famous writings is a set of books now entitled Against Heresies.

In these writings, he refutes falsehoods that he finds incompatible with Christian teaching. That is literally well within the first 200 years of church history, but Francis Chan is still confidently saying that the whole church had no divisions and virtually total agreement for the first 1 ,500 years of church history.

This kind of overly romanticized, idealistic view of church history is not helping anyone. And if you look at the first video, you just kind of see this general, oh, I really want unity in the church thing, but this is what he actually means.

Let's go back to the first thousand years when there was perfect unity, which is simply false. We're denying the plain facts of history here. And this is why Francis Chan's plea for unity, it's a good idea in principle, but it simply will not work in this way.

Because his solutions are founded on over exaggerations, gross misrepresentations of the facts. Once we abandon the truth, the facts of the matter, we cannot preserve unity on the basis of love alone.

Love, Truth, and the Real Basis for Christian Unity

Yes, we strive to love one another genuinely. 1 Peter 4, 8 says this, quote, above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins, end quote. If we do not have a genuine, sincere love for one another, this is not going to work at all.

That's the mark of us as believers, that we love one another. I agree with that. But we cannot simply declare our love for one another and our desire for unity, and then in turn deny the clear facts of church history.

We can't just do this and say, let's go back to the first 1 ,500 years of the church and that'll fix everything, because that's where the perfect unity is. It's just not true. The fact is, yes, we are divided, and yes, Christ's love and his truth are the answers to that division, ultimately.

But there is division now, and there was division in the early church. That's true as well. I mean, look at how many times Paul writes to the earliest Christian churches. We're talking about the first churches literally ever.

And Paul chastises them for believing false things, for having divisions, and chastises specific people for bringing bad doctrine into the church. Just one example of probably hundreds would be Galatians 1 -6, where Paul says, quote, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, end quote.

And the earliest churches had divisions not over just the gospel, but also over circumcision, what food to eat, abstinence from marriage, sexual immorality, and many other things. So yes, let's love people in the real world while acknowledging the real facts.

I don't think that ignoring the many feuds and disagreements of church history and romanticizing about some past, nonexistent, perfectly unified church is going to help anyone in the real world. If anything, the result of all this will frankly be more young evangelical Christians who are getting confused switching over to Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy.

And a lot of this will come about because Francis Chan gave them a false, utopian view of the early church in the name of Christian unity that is simply not based in reality. People want unity, but this is not the way to get it.

Again, I'm not saying that Francis is some horrible, sneaky person trying to bring all of this about intentionally. Rather, I'm saying that I, and many others more knowledgeable than myself, find his statements to be inaccurate and very concerning.

So let's earnestly pray for true unity in the church, that God would give us this unity based in His undying truth. And pray that Francis' teaching here would not lead anyone astray, but rather that he would reconsider this and move in a better direction according to the truth of God's Word.

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