We are told the Church has “fragmented”, as if that is the great tragedy of our age. Scripture treats division differently. Paul warned that factions appear so that the approved may be seen. Division exposes error. Division draws a line around fidelity. Division is God’s way of keeping the lampstand from suffocating under blankets of compromise. To mourn division without mourning the lies that caused it is to confuse symptom and disease. It is to echo the priests of Jeremiah’s day who healed the wound of the people lightly, saying, Peace, peace, when there was no peace.

Where Truth Is Trimmed, Judgment Begins

The article then recalls the collapse of twentieth-century ecumenism, noting that unity was pursued at the cost of truth. Yet with astonishing blindness it walks back into the same swamp, only more quietly. To admit the failure of the past and then repeat its logic in a softened form is the double-vision Scripture calls folly. The serpent did not deceive Eve with a shout but with a question. This article follows his method. It asks whether Christian truth must be sacrificed to achieve unity. The answer is obvious. The question is dangerous. The moment you ask whether truth can bend, you have already begun to bend your allegiance.

We are then treated to culinary analogies. When Paul confronted Peter to his face, he did not reach for salad bowls. He reached for the doctrine of justification. The Church is not a salad of theological scraps tossed together for flavour. She is a body held together by a Head who demands obedience to all He has spoken. The temple of the living God. A salad can celebrate diversity because its ingredients have no life. A body cannot celebrate doctrinal drift without risking infection. These metaphors expose the problem. They replace Scripture’s solemn language with kitchen-table whimsy.

Unity Built on Ashes

When the article finally attempts to name gospel essentials, it reveals an understanding so broad that Scripture itself would blush. “The triune God rescued humanity,” it says, as if the cross were a general gesture rather than a particular redemption. Scripture never says God rescued humanity. It says Christ saved His elect from their sins. It says the Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep. It says the Father gave His people to His Son. To speak of humanity rescued is to offer peace where God has given warning. It dulls the sharp edge of grace until the unconverted can rest easy in a comfort God has not provided.

Then comes the claim that diversity in this softened gospel should be celebrated. Show me where Scripture celebrates doctrinal plurality and I will show you the pulpit handed over to whatever glittering costume the age demands. Paul tells Titus to rebuke sharply so that the Church may be sound. He tells Timothy to guard the good deposit. He warns that a little leaven leavens the whole lump. He does not say, “Preserve unity on the big points and let the rest drift.” The apostles recognised diversity of gifts and callings, not diversity of doctrine. The Church is a temple, not a food court. A temple tolerates no stone out of place.

Next, we are assured by David Burke that this blended gospel strengthens witness. Yet Christ said the world would hate those who are not of it. Only holiness, conviction and faithfulness strengthen witness for Christ. A Church that trims doctrine to attract the world is like salt that has lost its savour. Christ did not say such salt becomes mildly useful. He said it is thrown out and trampled. A witness crafted for worldly approval ceases to be a witness. It becomes an advertisement.

When the article finally touches Presbyterian particularism, the argument collapses. That particularism may grate on the modern ear, we are told. Scripture never commands the Church to adjust truth to the appetites of the age. Has the Immutable changed? The prophets thundered judgment despite the world’s displeasure. The apostles stood firm before councils. Christ Himself lost disciples because His words were hard. The Reformers chose the flames over applause. If modern Australia dislikes doctrinal precision, modern Australia must repent. The Church’s calling is not to soothe the world. It is to confront it with the truth that convicts.

Then comes the most poisonous suggestion of all: that doctrinal precision may hinder the fulfilment of Christ’s prayer. This is not a small error. It’s a perilous blasphemy. It treats truth as the obstacle to unity instead of its foundation. It implies that God’s Word must be softened so His Son’s prayer may be honoured. Yet Christ prayed for unity grounded in truth. To argue that precision hinders unity is to pit Christ against Himself. You do not honour His prayer by weakening His Word. You do not advance His unity by dulling the doctrine that sanctifies.

What emerges from this article is not a call to unity but a call to burn Reformed heritage to warm our hands. Every line nudges the Church toward the kind of compromise Scripture condemns. The unity proposed is not the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. It is the unity of men who agree not to inconvenience one another with the Word of Truth. It is the unity of Israel with her high places. It is the unity of the crowd that cried, Crucify him.

Come Out of Her, My People

Take one step into this logic and Scripture rises against you. Truth ceases to be the measure. Peace becomes the idol. Witness becomes marketing. Diversity becomes a shroud for decay. And unity becomes an end in itself, severed from the God who defines it.

Do not ask whether the Church may extract something useful from this article. Ask whether she can keep her lampstand if she even touches it. The moment she adopts counsel that trims the Word, she ceases to be the bride who hears her Groom’s voice. She joins the mob that chose Barabbas. This proposal does not call us to unity. It tempts us toward the quiet unbelief that grows wherever men prefer the world’s applause to the fire of God’s truth. If the Presbyterian Church of Australia follows this path, she will find that unity without doctrine is fellowship with demons, that peace without holiness is the stillness of spiritual death, and that a gospel broadened for human approval loses the power that saves.

Let the reader understand. Some choices do not merely shape the Church. They reveal what spirit rules her. Every line of this article presses the Church to choose between the Word that sanctifies and the world that applauds sin. One road leads to life. The other leads to death. May God grant us the fear of Him to know the difference.

 The release from David Burke, Moderator General of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, may be read here:  Gospel Ecumenicity.