It is well known that C.S. Lewis grieved over the spectacle of public squabbles between professing Christians and took great pains to avoid being drawn into such internecine strife himself. From his conversion forward Lewis exhibited consistent protectiveness of Christian unity. Not at the expense of Christian orthodoxy, but precisely for its defense. Note this excerpt from Lewis’ paper, Christian Apologetics, published in God in the Dock:

“We are to defend Christianity itself—the faith preached by the apostles, attested by the Martyrs, embodied in the Creeds, expounded by the Fathers. This must be clearly distinguished from the whole of what any on of us may think about God and Man. Each of us has his individual emphasis: each holds, in addition to the Faith, many opinions which seem to him to be consistent with it and true and important. And so perhaps they are. But as apologists it is not our business to defend them. We are defending Christianity; not my religion.”

Lewis’s quest for and protectiveness of Christian Orthodoxy parallels Jaroslav Pelikan’s quest for “what all Christians, everywhere and always believe teach and confess on the basis of the Word of God.” Exact identification of the content of this Orthodox Christianity may finally elude us, but recognizing the urgency and appropriateness of the attempt to seek it and insofar as possible distinguish it from “sectarian” matters seems crucial to the church’s ability to display the unity God expects and from which world evangelization would greatly benefit. In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, tolerance.