Subversive Christian Unity

Glum Christianity is false religion. Sour, suspicious, fearful of small religious errors yet committing colossal uncharity, it is nothing our Lord has called us to. A certain amount of Roman Catholicism shows itself to be false worship because it is colored by fear not joy. You see grim Catholics laboring along with mechanistic ideas of religious observance, fearful of making mistakes. But perfect love casts out fear and the Holy Spirit wants to make us joyous. He wants us free and happy so that we can serve others spontaneously, and cooperatively, and sometimes in original ways that do not fit into our stereotypical patterns. We cannot be original if we are afraid. It is also a problem that afflicts parts the Protestant world. Roman Catholicism has had that heavy spirit within it at least since the late medieval era and some kinds of Protestantism brought it with them when they split off. The lack of freedom it brings makes unity impossible with those of other churches, because

We are nearly a thousand years on from the East-West Orthodox schism, and coming up on five hundred years since the North-South Protestant schism. Ever since, and for all this time, the theologians have been working on arguments against unity not for it. They have strengthened their positions, circled their wagons and dug foxholes. You can never trust a theologian with anything important. He will forget what he is about, set his teacup down somewhere, forget where he put it, and go off and hatch a controversy. Think about it and you will see why he is not very useful for the work of peacemaking. His job description is to create and defend arguments. Well, we have been arguing now for a thousand years, often over the selfsame questions with which we began. If you are seeking a peacemaker, do not look among the men who specialize in arguments .

We are living in an era full of boastful, self-righteous evil, it's not the kind of thing you can argue with rationally--as it is irrational — Kendal Black (@KendalBlack) October 16, 2014

It is a very old trick of the devil to charge God with sins of omission. Where was God, that he allowed this or that bad thing to happen? Why did God allow you to be hurt or disappointed, if he watches over you? Or, more crassly, why didn't you get what you prayed and prayed for? Is God...even there? More that one person has ended his walk toward faith this way: "I prayed and I told God what he needed to do, and he didn't do it, so it must be there is no God." The devil and all the demons have a good horselaugh, slapping each others' backs and hooting, when a mortal says that. The oldest demonic lie of which we have any record is, though, " Did God really say ...?" The devil never tires of that one. If he can undermine people's confidence in the truth and authority of God's word, all sorts of devilish things begin to happen. The bad repercussions may go on for a very long time, once the habit of rejecting God's moral judgment and preferr

The entrance exam for membership in God's kingdom has only a single question on it, and that question is true/false. Is Jesus who he says he is? (Or more formally:  Is Jesus who and what is claimed, in the New Testament and in the testimony of the historic church?) Answer yes and you are in. Your life after that will include some trials and troubles to show whether you really meant it, but those who answer "true" and do so truly are the Christians the Bible talks about. There are some people who answer "false." These days Christianity has many detractors who attempt to critique it. They have the facts of the faith before them but reject it. Little need be said of them; they will cease to trouble us by and by. Where we are going they cannot follow. There are some also who say no out of indifference to the subject matter; they hear about it, they shrug and think the matter silly, and take no interest. How, they ask, are they to credit claims made about unseen