Subversive Christian Unity

We will get nowhere with this business of unity until we love one another more than we love our separated churches and their denominational opinions. I was lately browsing around on YouTube. There I happened upon Protestants giving deeply felt reasons why we ought not invoke the saints in our prayers. Just to check, I looked further and, yes indeed, over to the right, just a click away, we find Catholics who are at least as sure that we should. Some on both sides are well respected thinkers in their own churches, pastors and teachers, proclaiming one Lord, yet miles apart on this and other matters. Is it even possible for them to see one another as more important than a centuries-old divide in reasoning? I am not talking about anything so ambitious as full communion among all Christians, at least not right away. But even to progress in that direction, we have to greet and value one another as brothers and fellow laborers in one vineyard, rather than enduring one another while under

The contrary of a bad idea is not always a good idea. Where two views contradict each other, at least one of them is false. It may be that both are false. People overlook that, with an easy assurance that because the other fellows are wrong, it must be that we are right. It is valid to say something like this: If it is a given that either A or B is true, and then we prove A is false, then B must be true. The trouble is that, in real life, we sometimes do not have the assurance that it is a matter of A or B; the answer could instead be C or D, or perhaps some E we have not even thought of. To say that a thing is true because a position that disagrees with it is false demands that we first limit the universe of possibilities to one or the other. We really need to use more caution on that point than, historically, we have been wont to use. Of course the reason I am bringing this up is the cocksure tone Christians sometimes use when arguing against other Christians. I for one am no

To my surprise, the line of reasoning mentioned  here undermines the whole basis for the theological disputes that have so long divided the Christian faith. If the use of human reason does not reliably extend and increase our store of revealed truth, we exceed our warrants when we act as if it does. That is to say, it is claiming too much to say that my church doctrine or yours stands equal with the word of God. This is a touchy point with some people, who place the pronouncements of their churches on a par with holy writ. It will be difficult for those people to enjoy the point I am making here, but I invite them to try. If we separate revealed truth from reasoning about revealed truth, seeing them as different and incommensurate, belonging to two different orders of things entirely, we will not be nearly so offended by those other Christians who reason differently about some matters. It is not God and His truth they are sinning against; at worst, they are guilty of not reasoning