Respecting and appreciating different traditions only teaches us more about our faith, but encourages a measure of theological humility

A Ugandan pastor provides a powerful illustration of this point.

Kefa Sempangi came to the United States for training at Westminster Seminary, where he was not only well educated with orthodox theology, but also with conservative, Western evangelical culture. When Sempangi returned to his own country after several years, he was horrified to see Ugandan Christians dancing in the streets, hands upraised, chanting in unknown tongues...... At Westminster, at that time, the young pastor had learned that worship was solemn and reverent. Charismatic expression was distrusted.

As he sat in his room one night watching his exuberant countrymen dancing in the streets, it suddenly struck him: These people could never identify with what I learned at Westminster. There's nothing unorthodox here. This is simply their natural means of expression, and they can use it to worship God just as I do.

Cultures may differ and individual expressions may vary, but the intent of the heart is the same. Ecuadorians may present in drama or dance the same biblical truth that conservative Scottish preachers exposit from the pulpit.

I have beloved friends who, whenever they attend my church, feel uncomfortable over the hand-clapping informality. That's fine; they love the Lord no less because they choose a more somber mode of worship. Some individuals are drawn to liturgical services, others to those which emphasize teaching, still others to music. Pluralism about the form of worship, as distinguished from who we worship, is healthy; it broadens the outreach of the church.

Neuhaus puts it with his customary eloquence when he says that one should engage in "the most vigorous advocacy of what one believes to be right," but at the same time make "a mutual pledge of allegiance to reverence one with another within the mystery of our being a people led by God toward that time in which we shall 'know even as we are known'."

Calvin, who saw that the Devil's chief device was disunity and division and who preached that there should be friendly fellowship for all ministers of Christ, made a similar point in a letter to a trusted colleague: "Among Christians there ought to be so great a dislike of schism, as that they may always avoid it so far as lies in their power. That there ought to prevail among them such a reverence for the ministry of the word and the sacraments that wherever they perceive these things to be, there they must consider the church to exist . . . nor need it be of any hindrance that some points of doctrine are not quite so pure, seeing that there is scarcely any church which has not retained some remnants of former ignorance.