Holy Disunity: How What Separates Us Can Save Us

Summary: Unity is important for Christians, but there are times when unity can mask issues of justice and legitimate disagreement.

I probably would not have picked this up if it has not been included in Audible Plus Catalog (which means it is free to listen to for audible members.) Generally, I am strongly in favor of ecumenical work and of the church as a whole recognizing itself. I am part of a group called The Initiative, designed to facilitate understanding and cooperation between Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians.

I am a part of several groups trying to build a similar understanding and cooperation among Christians of different racial groups. But you cannot seriously participate in groups like this without thinking about lines you will not cross. One of the significant and accurate charges in White Evangelical Racism by Anthea Butler is that White Evangelicals often claim to be against racism but rarely are willing to make racism a line which they will break fellowship over. One example in that book is MLK Jr directly asking Billy Graham not to appear on the platform with a noted segregationist in 1957, a request that Graham refused.

Not all unity is a positive unity. Unity can be achieved through various means, and sometimes the means to unity actually subverts the cause of Christianity. If visible unity requires suppression of people or their personhood, then that unity is a false unity. But even that is not nearly nuanced enough. There are times when it seems appropriate for a person to choose to voluntarily not exert their own rights for the sake of unity. It becomes more difficult when a larger group, especially a group of historically marginalized people, is required to not exert their rights as a Christian for the sake of unity.

Layton Williams is an ordained Presbyterian pastor. This book is filled with examples of disunity within her own life as an openly bisexual pastor, ordained in a denomination that has recently begun to ordain LGBTQ+ pastors. The examples of her life, including her discussion of the fact that she and her mother are theologically on different sides of the ordination of LGBTQ+ pastors and the fact that her mother left the denomination after it allowed ordination, shows exactly how personal many of these issues are. The personal largely adds to the nuance and helpfulness of the book. But I know that some who object to LGBTQ+ marriage or ordination or other nuanced issues may not want to pick up this book, but I want to encourage you to pick it up if that is your position. Listening to others is part of how we gain understanding and empathy and how we confirm our positions.

In the introduction, Rev. Williams states the purpose of this book, “This book is an argument for how disunity can be holy, and how we can faithfully coexist without being united, at least in any earthly way.” (3) She describes the difference between a false kind of earthly unity and a holy disunity throughout the book. Earthly unity is a false unity that can easily become an idol for us and “a distraction from the greater unity that comes from God.” (2)

I found Williams's first sentence of the introduction very relatable: “I have spent my entire life deeply loving people with whom I will never agree. We disagree on politics, on faith, and on some of our core values.”

There are twelve chapters:
1. The Gift of Difference
2. The Gift of Doubt
3. The Gift of Argument
4. The Gift of Tension
5. The Gift of Separation
6. The Gift of Vulnerability
7. The Gift of Trouble
8. The Gift of Protest
9. The Gift of Hunger
10. The Gift of Limitations
11. The Gift of Failure
12. The Gift of Uncertainty

Williams cares about unity and believes we are unified in Christ and bound together in God's love.
But she doesn't believe in a false unity that would ask people to leave huge parts of themselves at the door “in exchange for a tenuous and disingenuous belonging,” and neither do I.