One of the things that I look forward to most is God sitting us down and going “OK, well, now, lets see, the Baptists had this part right, the Catholics had this part right, the Presbyterians had this part right” and so on...
I’m of the firm conviction that as Christians come more and more under attack nationally and internationally, its becoming more and more critical that we stand together and set down differences that aren’t essential, rather than trying to go for the long knives over sprinkling vs. total immersion or such things. Not that you or I in our respective denominations have to change our views on any given thing, but the standard for unity needs to be if someone believes on the Lord Jesus Christ. If you are trusting in Him to get you to heaven, the details don’t need to matter when it comes to recognizing brethren in Christ.
We might as well start getting along now, we’re going to be together for a very, very long time!
If you take a good look at history, you will see that the Muslims invaders swarmed into Christendom repeatedly, at exactly the times when the Christians were disunited. They invaded and conquered the Middle East and SW Asia with lightning speed because of the various Christians there (Nestorians, Jacobites, non-Calcedonian Orthodox, etc.) not being able to get it together. In around 710 AD or thereabouts, they crossed Gibraltar and invaded Spain because the Christians were fighting each other. In that case, I think it was Catholic Christians vs the Visigothic lords, who were Arian Christians.
Not always doctrinal splits. Probably not hardly doctrine at all. Just bellicose, personally ambitious, corrupt Christian princes and dukes and such, fighting each other for lands, power.
When the Muslims again hit the eastern and southern borders of Europe ---Vienna, Prague, Malta, Otranto --- they were exploiting the chaos of the wars of religion in Europe, Catholic vs Protestant vs Anabaptist. It was very hard to scrape together a tattered Catholic army to fight the Muslims, though fight we did --- and prevailed by God's mercy.
Read Chesterton's "Lepanto." Fine, fine poem, in my opinion; and what a miracle that the 23-year-old commander Don John of Austria and his patched-together coalition could beat back the most powerful fleet ever assembled on the seas--- the galleys of the Ottoman Empire, rowed by shackled Christian slaves! If the Muslims prevail, it will because Christians have already surrendered everything to secularism --- which is to say, to money, genitals and the belly --- and that we are fighting each other rather than carrying the Gospel to the all nations.
How true and it a special way at a time when Christians in the Middle East are suffering and dying for their faith in Jesus.
The focus should be on Jesus and the Gospel.