The discussions of unity in 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 2, 4, both mention church officers, but as gifts to his church that is one (1 Corinthians 12:28-30; Ephesians 4:11-16). Nothing in these texts suggests that the officers constitute the unity as Rome believes. Rather, officers serve the one church. In 1 Timothy 3:1-13, which gives qualifications for officers, nothing points in a different direction. If anything, it indicates that the church as household of God already exists, and the way to behave in it is to appoint qualified officers (3:14-15). Similar in Titus 1:5-9. Obviously, it would be impossible to express our unity without believers being brought together in institutional structures. But a single, worldwide body is not necessary for such unity. Christians and churches can express much unity across ecclesiastical lines. We can and do participate in each others’ sacraments, etc.

Having considered the marks of the church, we now move on to consider the attributes of the church.  
There are four classical attributes of the church as expressed in the Nicene Creed which are held in common by all major Christian traditions.  These are:  1).  Unity, 2).  Holiness, 3).  Catholicity, and 4).  Apostolicity.  The Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Reformation churches all confess these same attributes, yet understand them in fundamentally different ways.  The Lutherans, for example, add “invisibility” to the four marks expressed above as a polemic against Rome’s claim of the visibility of the true church (Rome claims to be the true church because of its visibility).[1]
James Bannerman, a Scottish Presbyterian, who wrote what many consider to be the definitive volume on Presbyterian polity (The Church of Christ) offers a number of reasons why discussing the marks of the church should be done before considering the attributes of the church.  He lists the four attributes of “Unity, Sanctity, Catholicity, and Apostolicity.”  But then notes that these “belong . . . to the Christian Church, in consequence of the Church holding and professing the true faith of Christ.”[1]  Herman Bavinck also considers the marks before addressing the church’s attributes since, as he contends, it is important to distinguish a true church from a false church since this determination defines how we are to understand the attributes of the church.[2]
As some Reformed theologians point out, the classical attributes are not merely descriptive but also function as exhortations.  According to Heyns, unity, holiness, catholicity, and apostolicity “provide, not only a factual description of the current situation, but also a factual command:  they set the ideals to be realized, the objectives for which the Church must strive.  They are both a gift and a mandate.”  Heyns also adds that these attributes are to be viewed in terms of the already/not yet.[4]  As attributes of the church militant, they point ahead to the church triumphant in which all four attributes will be fully realized.
The seminal biblical text when discussing the attributes of the church is 1 Corinthians 1:1–2.  Paul opens the letter with an important declaration about the nature of the church.
I Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.
First, Paul speaks of unity as an attribute of the church when he identifies the church in Corinth as a “church of God,” composed of those who are called together with all who call on the name of the Lord Jesus.  Second, Paul identifies holiness as an attribute.  Paul says the Corinthians are the sanctified but also called to be holy.  This speaks both of the church’s status (holy) but also the importance of reflecting such holiness in the life of the church (aspirational).  Third, Paul speaks of the church’s catholicity.  The apostle declares that the Corinthian Christians are called together with all those who in every place call on the name of Christ.  Finally, Paul speaks of the church’s apostolicity–they are authoritatively addressed by Paul, who was called by the will of God to be an apostle.
The First Attribute in the Creed: Unity
Roman Catholicism understands unity in terms of the church as an external, visible organization united in the Pope.  “Where the Pope is, there is the church” (ubi papa ibi ecclesia).  Also, “where the Pope is, there is the true church, pure doctrine, and apostolic succession.”[5]  In Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s Called to Communion, the second chapter begins with Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) connecting the primacy of Peter with the unity of the church.  That is not accidental.  At the end of the chapter he states: “The Roman primacy is not an invention of the popes, but an essential element of ecclesial unity that goes back to the Lord and was developed faithfully in the nascent Church.”[6]
The Eastern Orthodox understand unity in terms of visible communion of the saints in the Eucharist.  Timothy (Kallistos) Ware (an Anglican convert to Eastern Orthodoxy) writes:
In its teaching upon the visible unity of the Church, Orthodoxy stands far closer to Roman Catholicism than to the Protestant world.  But if we ask how this visible unity is maintained, Rome and the east give somewhat different answers.  For Rome the unifying principle in the Church is the Pope whose jurisdiction extends over the whole body, whereas Orthodox do not believe any bishop to be endowed with universal jurisdiction.  What then holds the Church together? Orthodox answer, the act of communion in the sacraments . . . . The Church is not monarchical in structure, centered round a single hierarch; it is collegial, formed by the communion of many hierarchs with one another, and of each hierarch with the members of his flock.  The act of communion therefore forms the criterion for membership of the Church. 
Ware concludes that “Orthodoxy, believing that the Church on earth has remained and must remain visibly one, naturally also believes itself to be that one visible Church. [7]
The Reformed Understanding of the Attribute of Unity
The Reformed understand the attribute of unity in terms of both the invisible and visible church.  Members of the invisible church enjoy common union with Christ, by one Spirit, through one faith, hope, and love (cf. Ephesians 4:5-6).  God calls Christians to strive to give expression to this unity visibly, in part, but not exclusively, through external organization.  The Belgic Confession, Article 27 (of the Catholic Christian Church), states “We believe and confess One single catholic or universal church—a holy congregation and gathering of true Christian believers, awaiting their entire salvation in Jesus Christ being washed by his blood, and sanctified and sealed by the Holy Spirit.”  Throughout article 27, the Belgic Confession speaks of the church in the singular.  The article concludes by confessing that the church is “joined and united in heart and will, in one and the same Spirit, by the power of faith.”
In regard to the invisible church, Bannerman writes that the unity which is characteristic of the church is “a spiritual unity.” 
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As Christendom has collapsed in the West, Wilson has offered a vision that plays on the fears and emotions of those who are panicking. This is precisely why the mission of the church, all of the sudden, takes a drastic turn in its elevating of cultural transformation while “saving people from their sins” becomes only a means to this greater end. While we might look at the psalm-singing, the community, the safe space, the building of schools and churches in Moscow as good things (and I do indeed admire much of it) we can’t miss what has drawn such an attraction.

This entire article may be a fool’s errand. I mean, it’s easy to watch two men mud-wrestling from afar with the hopes that none of the mud lands me as a spectator. But there are some fights so nasty that the mud is unavoidable. And if you are one to pray for rain, you certainly have to deal with the mud. That’s somewhat how I feel reading the responses to Kevin DeYoung’s article that raised concerns over the “Moscow Mood.” As a whole, I thought DeYoung’s article addressed some very fair concerns about the trajectory of what is clearly a movement that should concern Christians in terms of mission and witness. Yet, the responses indicate, as I suspected, that the issues plaguing Christians over the end of Christendom are far beyond that of a mood.
I’m not convinced you can take on Doug Wilson over style alone. As one friend said, that’s like teeing up your head and Wilson likes to swing with bats. Jared Longshore likes the metaphor since he expressed that DeYoung certainly teed this up for Wilson, but he just didn’t mention the bat. Yet, to engage Wilson over style is a losing battle—every time. Many will silently read a piece like DeYoung’s and say, “just another critique of ‘Moscow man bad’ over tone.” There is much more to the issue, of course—things to which DeYoung alluded—but to make any progress in helping people see clearly through the issues, theological substance has to drive the critique.
But the present confusion of Christ and culture is complex, and we American Christians do not like complexity. There is a sense that something must be done to curb the flood of iniquity coming upon us. It’s a tough pill to swallow in accepting that what happens in the culture is the will of God, especially as he executes his righteous judgments. But exactly what our calling should be in a moment like ours dominates the minds of Christians in the West. Wilson has taken the reins and is offering a vision forward that few seem to have. Yes, it’s all about vision. And I agree, other current eschatologies are not resonating with people at the moment in terms of vision. No matter how many different reasons Wilson may present as to why people are flocking to Moscow, what undergirds it all is an eschatology that gives people a sense of doing something to stop the avalanche of our culture. And therein lies the heart of the issue.
Wilson’s vision stands somewhat alone in its robust, Billy Sunday, strong-man approach, while many quarters of the church are caught up in the pathetic woke ideals that have invited much of this reaction to begin with. Who can forget Mark Driscoll convincing us that he was a tough guy from the other side of the tracks in his constant take down of effeminate men? It worked, certainly–for a while. And let me say that unequivocally, I agree that wokeism is a neo-orthodoxy that also is crippling the church’s witness. I’m only going to assert here that the approach under consideration is not the solution.
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According to WORLD, this year’s conference encouraged attendees to leave churches that do not affirm their orientation/gender identity and to form LGBTQ “affinity” groups in their local setting. Revoice doesn’t aim merely at being a conference. Its organizers aim at being a movement that spreads in churches throughout the country. And if your church doesn’t agree with Revoice teachings about affirming LGBTQ+ identities, then people should leave your church and find one that does.

When organizers announced the program for the first Revoice conference in 2018, the controversy surrounding the meeting was sharp and protracted. It was a conference appealing to so-called Side-B “gay Christians,” and it was founded in part as a repudiation of the Nashville Statement. Indeed, founder Nate Collins told Religion News Service in 2018 that he viewed the Nashville Statement as “pastorally insensitive” and as a form of “spiritual abuse.”
If the organizers of Revoice were trying to repudiate the Nashville Statement, they did a good job of it from the very beginning. The part of the Nashville Statement that seemed to offend so many of them was Article 7, which says, “WE DENY that adopting a homosexual or transgender self-conception is consistent with God’s holy purposes in creation and redemption.” Article 7 was trying to communicate that followers of Christ must not construct an identity for themselves that contradicts God’s design in creation. And yet, forging and expressing LGBTQ+ identities seems to be a central focus of Revoice.
A lot has changed in America and even among evangelicals since that first Revoice conference. Since 2018, Bible-believing Christians have been put on notice about the dangers of Critical Theory and its offshoots in queer theory and third wave feminism. In 2020, Carl Trueman published a watershed book explaining how people in the West have come to think of maleness and femaleness as social constructs—malleable concepts that individuals can shape and adjust by an act of the will. We have all been witnessing radical gender theory trickle down from the ivory tower to main street as countless public schools and HR departments are force-feeding this ideology to their charges. There has been as much as a 4,000% increase in adolescent girls identifying as transgender—many of them still minor children and undergoing destructive “medical” interventions, including double mastectomies and puberty suppression.
In this context, one would think that Revoice might retreat from radical gender ideology and its denial of the male-female binary. And yet, WORLD magazine reports that the most recent Revoice conference—held a couple weeks ago in Plano, TX—has launched headlong into this error. The report says that Revoice has changed, but not for the better:
Revoice has changed, too. Speakers have always emphasized homosexuality as an identity, not just a behavior. But this year, such assertions from the dais seemed more insistent, with speakers assiduously using civil-rights language to present radical change as settled truth. That identity rhetoric extended to transgender ideology. Speakers frequently referred to “sexual and gender minorities” and used preferred pronouns, along with terms such as women “assigned female at birth.” The group’s reach and influence are growing, but leaders now emphasize parachurch activities. Speakers frequently referenced ongoing rejection within the church and encouraged attendees to form their own spiritual communities in local Revoice chapters.
This doesn’t sound like a retreat from radical gender theory, but a doubling-down on it. The report goes on:
On the conference’s first night, attendees formed lines at registration tables.
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