Book Review: Holy Disunity

Stepping away from the music-themed stuff (which has obviously fallen off a bit...) to give a good word for a good book...


Williams, Layton E. Holy Disunity: How What Separates Us Can Save Us. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2019.

A desperately needed book for a contentious time.

Here is a book that dares to speak what is deeply uncomfortable for many to contemplate: unity – human-instigated and human-enforced unity – is not the end-all and be-all of the Christian faith. Not only does it make this needed claim, it also explores strategies and thoughts on how to deal with disunity by recognizing the forces and injustices that drive us apart from one another. 

The author makes the stakes clear quickly; just two pages into the introduction comes the throwdown statement: “…I believe that when we pursue earthly unity at all costs, it becomes for us an idol – a distraction from the greater unity that comes from God. And in fact, I think this sort of unity – which seems to value collective togetherness over genuine complex relationship – is unholy (emphasis mine) and is driving us farther and farther apart.”

With the stakes established, the author turns to those means by which disunity manifests itself – difference, doubt, argument, tension, separation, vulnerability, trouble, protest, hunger, limitations, failure, and uncertainty. While the chapters that address these points of division speak of “gift,” the author makes clear that these things themselves are not “gifts,” but provide the opportunity for relationship to be worked through and possibly even strengthened, although that isn’t always guaranteed. For example, chapter 7 (“The Gift of Trouble”) offers the caution that “in our rush to put distance between ourselves and what troubles us, we end up putting distance between ourselves and other people whose realities make us uncomfortable. By refusing to see the full scope of their story we also fail to fully see them” (111-112). Remembering this risk prompts us to listen with renewed sensitivity and compassion, opening the possibility for greater understanding and even reconciliation.

The author, an ordained Presbyterian minister, speaks from experience, and unflinchingly names those events and places in her own life that have made these lessons necessary. That experience, honestly recognized and reckoned, gives the book an authority and depth that might be possible for others who might seek to address this subject.

There is no such thing as a perfect book, nor is there a book with which you will agree with everything said (unless you write it yourself, and maybe not even then). This book, though, is undeniably necessary in a fractious time when division and strife is too readily met with demands for unity at the expense of things like justice and mercy, things that are mandates to anyone who would claim to be a follower of Christ. Read it. Get others to read it. Get your church folk to read it. Recognize those things that trouble you or provoke tension or uncertainty or doubt, and listen to those points of conflict, and learn how relationship might yet still bloom when unity is in doubt.