Historically, we have worked our way through the Godhead to find our excuses: In the 10th century it was ostensibly an issue over the relationship of the Father to the Son and the Holy Spirit which split the church between the East and West. In the 15th century the split which arose from the Protestant reformation was largely over the work of Christ. In the late 19th and early 20th century Pentecostal split, it was over the Holy Spirit. And now, at the beginning of the 21st century, we are awaiting a further significant split, this time centred on human identity, and, specifically, sexuality.

However, dressing up all of the splits in the church as issues of crucial theological truth where people had, in the tradition established by Moses, to choose between life and death, makes them out to be more honourable and admirable than they are. One lecturer I had (of an ecumenical bent) put them all down to human sin. This always wound up us dyed-in-the-wool evangelicals, but what he said is undoubtedly true, and the sin in each split was not all on one side, nor truth all on the other (our) side.

The contemporary theological landscape for each of the historic splits in the church was merely the backdrop against which a much more ignoble drama of human personality, politics and power was played out, with the church getting sucked into the world's, and, if you want to put it in such terms, Satan's agenda. The tenth century split was not primarily about the Godhead at all, but a tug of war between eastern and western power-blocks. The 15th century reformation was as much about the abuse of power by the central authorities of the church, and a resistance to that by various individuals for various reasons (the English reformation being the most obvious case in point), using the interpretation of different parts of scripture as an excuse (a process which has continued within Protestant evangelicalism to the present day). The Pentecostal split was again as much an issue of personalities and social class as it was about theology.

But each split has left each "side" theologically and experientially impoverished and less able to respond biblically and holistically to the full range of issues affecting humanity. Not just babies get thrown out with the bath water in each instance, but entire generations… The cross of Christ is emptied of its power.

And so what will be the fall-out of the expected split between liberal and conservative on the issue of human sexuality, or "pelvic politics" as one colleague memorably dubbed it recently? The thought that the church might yet again split and so dilute its witness to the world over something that is not central to the gospel fills me with despair. In this, once again, we are buying into the world's agenda and analysis rather than a biblical one. It was Freud who introduced the idea that our sexuality was central to our human identity, not Jesus or any biblical writer. For those who argue that the Bible repeatedly cautions against sexual immorality, I would affirm that, but would remind them that Jesus says next to nothing on the issue, and the Bible as a whole is infinitely more interested in issues such as poverty and social justice. If we are going to split, let's do it over how we use our money, because that is an issue Jesus spoke about more frequently and is more representative of biblical priorities.

It isn't a matter of splitting hairs; human sexuality is a key question in the modern world, but to split the church over it is sinful, because while we split with one another over human sexuality, humanity, whatever their sexuality, goes to hell…

David Campton

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