Discussion Questions

Dean Taylor says church splits “grieve God” and then points to Galatians 5 where “heresies” is “literally in the Greek, the ones who split,” with the warning “shall not inherit the kingdom of God”; how does that reframe the moral seriousness of dividing from other believers compared with how church separation is commonly justified today? JumpstartAnother way to ask: If splitting from other Christians can “grieve God” and even endanger our place in God’s kingdom (Galatians 5), how should that change the way we think about church splits today?

In Mark 9, Dean describes the apostles as effectively preferring people remain demon-possessed than see ministry done “without them,” and then highlights Jesus’s balance: “Have salt within yourself, but have peace with one another”; where have you seen a church or movement choose “our way” over actual deliverance and fruit, and what would it look like to practice Jesus’s balance without becoming either compromise-driven or combative? JumpstartAnother way to ask: Where have you seen a church care more about “our group” than about real help and good fruit? What would it look like to follow Jesus by keeping peace and still staying faithful, without being weak or picking fights?

Dean paraphrases Tozer: many church problems come from “missing an attribute of God,” then ties unity to the “brotherhood of the Trinity” in John 17 (“as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee”); what does John 17 suggest God is like within Himself, and how should that pressure our definition of “faithfulness” when faithfulness seems to pull us toward separation? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What does John 17 show about how God relates within Himself (Father and Son)? How should that affect what we call “faithful” when being faithful seems to push us to separate?

Irenaeus warns that people who cause schisms “look to their own special advantage rather than to the unity of the church,” and even says no “reformation” they achieve can compensate for the damage; what “trifling reasons” today tend to feel weighty enough to justify division, and how might Irenaeus’s warning challenge the way we measure “success” or “purity” in reform efforts? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What small issues today often get treated as big enough to split a church? How does Irenaeus’s warning challenge how we define “success” or “purity” in church reform?

Cyprian’s line—“In the day of judgment… both [letters] will be read”—is applied to emails and rebukes; if your church’s written messages during its hardest conflict were read aloud “before the tribunal of Christ,” what would be most embarrassing or damning, and what concrete communication practices would have to change immediately? JumpstartAnother way to ask: If your church’s emails and written comments from its worst conflict were read out loud before Christ, what would you be most ashamed of? What specific communication habits would need to change right away?

Dean uses the Frisian/Flemish cultural clash (dress, food, furnishings, “bourgeois” vs. farmers) and then Titus 1 (“Cretans are always liars… this witness is true… rebuke them sharply”) to argue cultures have weaknesses that must be confronted rather than excused; what cultural “sins and weaknesses” in your own background would you least want another culture in the church to expose, and how could that exposure become a gift rather than an insult? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What weaknesses or sins from your own culture would you hate for another group in the church to point out? How could their honest feedback become a gift instead of an insult?

Dean says, “Question the questions,” warning that entering debates can mean entering someone else’s worldview; using his Mother Teresa example (“I don’t think that way”), what are some modern church questions (about power, identity, rights, or “who’s in charge”) that might be the wrong frame altogether, and what would it look like to refuse the frame without dodging truth? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What church debates today may start with the wrong questions (about power, identity, rights, or control)? How can you reject that “frame” while still facing the truth?

In the Sewin Rutgers case, leaders demanded that a shunned man’s wife also separate from him, and the class wrestled with aims of shunning (reconciliation) and texts like 1 Corinthians 7 about winning an unbelieving spouse; how should loyalty to the church-as-family and loyalty to the marriage covenant relate when discipline happens, and what dangers emerge when leaders make rules Scripture does not clearly require? JumpstartAnother way to ask: When church discipline happens, how should loyalty to the church family and loyalty to a marriage work together? What can go wrong when leaders demand things the Bible doesn’t clearly command?

Dean highlights how the conflict escalated through name-calling (“the garbage wagon”), sweeping excommunications (“if you disagree… you’re out”), and the principle “there is no situation bad enough that you can’t make it worse”; when have you seen “protecting holiness” become fuel on the fire, and what specific early off-ramps (deep breath moments) could have prevented escalation? JumpstartAnother way to ask: When have you seen “protecting holiness” make a conflict worse instead of better? What early steps could have slowed things down and stopped the fight from growing?

In the Frisian/Flemish reconciliation meeting, the moderator made one side stay kneeling until the other side “lift you up because your sin was worse than theirs,” leading to lasting division into Russia and even Canada; what does this incident reveal about pride disguised as repentance, and how might Jesus’s “log and speck” teaching demand a radically different approach to apologies, mediation, and “who started it” in your own church conflicts? JumpstartAnother way to ask: What does the kneeling incident show about pride that looks like repentance? How does Jesus’s “log and speck” teaching change the way we apologize, mediate, and argue about who started it?