Toward a solution. Part three: The new commandment

Many in today's church world do not fully honor Christ's new commandment to us. If we did, it would have the result he stated.

Christ calls on us to love other Christians as he has loved us, and said that by this sign all people would know we are his disciples. He prayed that we all would be one, so that the world would know that the Father sent him.

Applying Christ's standard makes theological disputes look different. The Thomist and the Reformed may never agree with one another, but they will characterize their differences differently if they love one another as Christ does. We should all hope fervently that Christ does not reject us when we have imperfect theological understandings!

So the new commandment impacts theological differences, not to make any stance right that is wrong in fact, but to make whatever wrongness there is a matter between brothers not foes. There is no room for nonsense about torturing you for your own good, or burning you at the stake for the progress of Christianity.

It now looks to me like the unity question's real solution is in the new commandment, and all important questions from that point on concern why we are failing at it and how we can succeed.

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