by John Turner, at Patheos.com:
There is a very useful but very sobering chart partway through James H. Smylie’s A Brief History of the Presbyterians. It documents the various strands that became American Presbyterianism and the many schisms that emerged from those stands (some of which later merged back into the larger Presbyterian churches): the Old School and the New School, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (and the Second Cumberland Presbyterian Church), the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Bible Presbyterian Church, and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, to name just a few. Looking at the chart makes my head spin. Anglicans get plenty of well-deserved attention for their efforts at disunity, but Presbyterians at least deserve an honorary mention in this game.
Ephraim Radner, in his A Brutal Unity: The Spiritual Politics of the Christian Church, reminds us that it should also make our hearts sag. The division of the Christian Church mutes its voice and renders impotent its opposition to the evils surrounding it. Radner frames his discussion around eristology rather than schismatology or heresiology. That in and of itself is enormously helpful. Eris is the Greek goddess of discord and strife.