Earlier this week, Shane Pruitt shared his thoughts regarding division in the American church, arguing that splitting over secondary issues exposes how “privileged” we are.
Pruitt serves as the National Next Gen Director for the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). He is a husband, father, evangelist, Bible teacher, and author.
The evangelist, who was featured at the popular Winter Jam tour earlier this year, began his Facebook post with a bold headline: “CHURCH DIVISION IS A PRIVILEGE.”
“Let me explain,” Pruitt wrote. “When the Church in America has the ability to fight and split over secondary issues and preferences—it reveals how spoiled, rich, and privileged we really are.”
Pruitt went on to explain that churches in other parts of the world don’t have what he described as the privilege to divide over preferences, something he said might be a curse more than a privilege.
Some churches around the world are “in the minority, under-resourced, and are sometimes even persecuted,” Pruitt said. Therefore, “they lay down their secondary issues and preferences to rally around the core essentials of the faith and band together as the family of God. They don’t have the privilege of dividing, because unity is a necessity.”
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“When the church is pushed on, it often thrives,” Pruitt pointed out. He then warned that “when the church is lazy and comfortable, it often turns in on itself.”
Pruitt believes that the “true church” in America will soon be forced to reveal itself, because “many of our privileges as the Church in America are possibly going away in our lifetime.” This will result in the “true church” uniting for the only purpose for which it exists—”as the family of God for the glory of our King.”
