Tim Cooper wants to give Christians the tools to disagree well and reconcile in his new book, When Christians Disagree. This book is an excellent aid for those who want to understand, respond to, and prevent conflict. The extended title might initially scare some off, When Christians Disagree: Lessons from the Fractured Relationship of John Owen and Richard Baxter. But fear not! This is not a niche book for history buffs. Learning from this conflict is helpful for us today because we have 400 years of distance and the benefit of hindsight.
Why Do Christians Disagree?
We have all had disagreements with fellow believers. Sometimes those disagreements are fierce. Why is that? The question ‘why?’ has two angles. Firstly, we might ask ‘why?’ as a lament. Christians should be of ‘one mind and one voice’ (Romans 15:6). However, division is part of the story of the church. Division often starts so subtly. Preferences can become boundary markers. Boundary markers become trenches. Other times, disagreement is necessary. In either instance it leads to pain. Despair is unsurprising in that context.
When Christians Disagree
Tim Cooper
There is a second way we can ask “why?” Rather than asking why as a frustrated lament, we can seek to uncover the reason why Christians disagree. Uncovering the reasons behind disagreement may assist us in understanding, responding to, and even preventing Christian conflict. This is a far more profitable question to ask.
Baxter vs Owen
Cooper notes that “we are too close, too invested in the disagreements we see around us. What we need is some distance and the objectivity to see things as they are” (p. 3). He suggests that the 400-year-old battle between Richard Baxter and John Owen provides an excellent case study to assess our own ability to disagree well.
Baxter and Owen were two highly influential English Puritan pastors in the seventeenth century. They had a very high degree of doctrinal agreement. They both opposed the same things. They both fought against Arminianism. They both fought so that pastors could freely minister apart from the Church of England. They were both on the same side in the English Civil War. You will probably find their books sitting right next to each other in the reformed evangelical theology section of your Christian bookshop. Yet they had a bitter, personal, vindictive, and lifelong feud.
As you read this book, you will experience many jaw-dropping moments. Baxter and Owen were two godly men who championed the gospel in an age of compromise and hardship. But in this book, we see them “in their worst light, not in their best light – indeed they brought out the worst in each other” (p. 6). Importantly, most of their disunity happened before they even met. Baxter and Owen’s battle was fought through print publication. Their story eerily maps onto modern Christians who take down other Christians online from afar. It is so easy for us to dislike a person or organisation despite never even meeting them or engaging with the members of an organisation in person.
Watching On
The book is masterfully structured. Each chapter represents a complexity which heightened the conflict between the two pastors, including life experience (Chapters 1-2), personality (Chapter 3), and theology (Chapter 4). It’s like watching a movie where we get to see the backstory that the main characters do not. And when they fight with each other (Chapters 5-7), we feel sympathy for both sides, because we see their whole story. We wish that each man knew the backstory of their sparring opponent.
Herein lies the genius of the book. As we watch their conflict unfold, the narrative helps us see ourselves in them. We ought to humbly realise that we are also flawed and in need of help. Cooper then guides us to be better. Each chapter contains reflection questions for self-examination. These questions are not tokenistic, reductionistic, or preachy. They are both sharp and warm and invite real change.
The One Downside
Whilst I heartily recommend this book, there is one flaw. This flaw is not fatal. To gain from this book you will need to be comfortable with moving past the details. Some readers will be acquainted with the English Civil War (1642-1651), English Nonconformity, and the finer points of Calvinistic doctrine. But for many, this won’t be common knowledge.
Cooper is translating his more complicated work John Owen, Richard Baxter, and the Formation of Nonconformity to a popular audience, and largely does a fine job. But at times, you may feel like you are lost in the details. If that happens, please persist! The lessons learnt about Christian disunity far outweigh the slight discomfort which we get from reading into a context which we are unfamiliar with.
Christians Can Disagree Better
A sobering reality of the Christian life is that sometimes disagreements just happen. Consider the disagreement between two giants of the New Testament, Paul and Barnabas. They disagreed over whether they should give John Mark a second chance to come on a missionary tour. We read in Acts that their disagreement was so sharp that they parted ways [1]. For the sake of gospel, it was better that they parted. However, the inevitability of disagreement may make us disheartened. However, if we understand each other’s arguments better, we can better ‘glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ’ even with those we disagree with.
Who Will Benefit Most?
Ministry teams will benefit from reading this book together and answering the reflection questions together in their team meetings. You will learn how others on your team respond to conflict. You will stretch your team’s ability to deal with the inevitable disagreement which arises in a ministry team.
This book is excellent for the church, even for Christians who are not serving in ministry teams, because conflict is inevitable. Christians who are self-reflective will be most aided by this book. Cooper ably helps the church to ‘as far as we possibly can…all be “of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (Philippians 2:2; p. 7).
[1] Thankfully, we see echoes of reconciliation in Paul’s recommendation of both Barnabas (1 Corinthians 9:6) and John Mark (2 Timothy 4:11).
