Disunity in Christ Chapter 1-2

Chapter 10 of disunity in Christ does a good job of wrapping all the chapters together and closing out the book. Christena Cleveland brings up many reasons that unifying into one larger group can erase a lot of the bad feelings that we struggle with today amongst different groups. She emphasizes the importance of maintaining different cultural backgrounds because it is biblical and it is something everyone should be proud of. I like this final chapter and can agree with a lot of what she said. Becoming we instead of they causes for groups to build each other up and grow closer to one another. A good example is the senior all state games at the end of many sports seasons. Often teams are rivals throughout much of the season and have very little good to say about each other. However, when they are put on a team together they can focus on one main goal and they come together as a team on their own. Our faith works in much the same way. We may always hold some sort of grudge or uncomfort...

Chapters 8 and 9 deal with different conflicts in the church such as unity and disunity among different cultural groups and different denominations. Cleveland points out many differences however, the main idea of chapter 8 is that it is ok to have different religious views even within the same denomination. One scholar pointed out that none of us are God so we do not know exactly what is right or wrong in his eyes making it harder to know exactly how to treat each situation. Some Christians are more reserved and focus on individual Christian values while others find it more important to focus on unity amongst the entire collective church. In reality, both are important and feed off each other to help us grow in our faith and further the kingdom. Chapter 9 deals with unity among different ethnic groups and cultures. Often times we get caught up in disliking other groups simply because they are different then us but cleveland makes an emphasis on coming together to serve one specific pu...