By Dr. Ken Newberger
Special to The Answer

“But I thought the church was supposed to be different,” said one dismayed member when he observed the ongoing conflict in his church.  Surely, if there is one place where people expect to find relief from the tensions of the world, it is in their church.

Indeed, when pastors or Sunday school teachers look to a model of the ideal church, they inevitably turn to the snapshot of the newborn church recorded in Acts 2:44-47.   This passage is often cited as a description of the kind of loving fellowship that is expected to exist in our congregations today.  It is a reflection of Jesus’s words recorded in John 13:35: “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  The truth is such love and care can regularly be found in our churches today.

For a church to acknowledge the existence of conflict in its midst when it is supposed to demonstrate love is, for many, to confess failure.   To get around such an inconsistency, avoidance is the approach most often adopted.  But in the end denying reality only makes the problem worse.  Disputes, rather than being effectively managed, slowly simmer until they explode, catching the rest of the congregation off guard and totally unprepared to deal with it.   Then the hallmark of Christian fellowship, love, is truly nowhere to be found.  It is at times like these when people scratch their heads and say, “But I thought the church is not supposed to be like this.”  

It must be acknowledged that the snapshot in Acts 2 is only a momentary picture.  Reading on in the New Testament, we discover that the euphoria of those very early days gave way to instances of false pretenses and lying (Acts 5), to serious conflict between two culturally distinct groups within the church (Acts 6), to theological contention (Acts 15:1f), and to interpersonal disagreement (Acts 15:36f).  As Christianity spread, we find that first-century churches had their fair share of disputes. They are spoken of in virtually every epistle.  Paul's remark to the Corinthian church is an example:  “I fear that there may be [among you] quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, factions, slander, gossip, arrogance and disorder” (2 Corinthians 12:20, NIV). 
Does such a state of affairs diminish the words of Christ or the portrait of the early church?  I don’t think so.  They simply acknowledge the realities that churches face when diverse people from every age group, race, ethnic group, income bracket, and background come together to become part of one body. 

Conflict is a reality of human experience.  Churches are not exempt.  They never were.  A few years ago, a survey was conducted of over 14,000 congregations.  It is noteworthy that every area that has been identified as being a source of conflict in congregations today were also present in first century churches described in the New Testament.  The New Testament makes it clear that friction among Christians (as with other groups) is a reality.  This understanding in no way diminishes the goal of love.  Rather, such a realization opens our eyes to see what love must overcome to reach fulfillment.   More times than not, the real failure is not the conflict, but the failure to have process in place to constructively deal with it. 

Dr. Ken Newberger is author of the book, Hope in the Face of Conflict:  Making Peace with Others the Way God Makes Peace with Us.  He holds a Th.M. from Dallas Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Nova Southeastern University.  A former pastor, he serves as a church conflict resolution specialist, coach, and trainer.  Ken was raised in a Jewish home and lived in Israel before coming to faith in Christ.  For more information about his work or to sign up for his free monthly newsletter, go to www.HopeintheFaceofConflict.com.