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 reason...

A great many thoughtful Christian people have a "what's the rush?" attitude toward unity. We have been a long time without unity among our churches; will we achieve it all at once? That thinking justifies a wait and see attitude. The trouble is that "wait and see" is an inherent contradiction, if you are the one who needs to act. If you wait you will never see anything happen, because you are the one to make it happen. I don't think we can wait around on this. Christianity is under attack on all fronts. Secularism and its fashionably amoral views are against us. Religious extremists in the Mideast and beyond are against us. Even some theological renegades within our own ranks oppose the historic Christian faith and upend its morality. If all that is not cause enough to act, I have difficulty imagining what is.

Matt. 20:25-28 Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” We have failed at this, as abjectly as we have failed at unity. Theories of who has authority in the church are as numerous as church denominations. Of course it is a point church leaders are unwilling to debate. Their own authority and prestige are at stake, so it's quickly on to another topic when this one comes up. The Pope using for an official title "Servant of the servants of God" is unconvincing to Protestants, especially so because the phrase sometimes has prefaced declarations not very servant-like. There is no cause and no need to single out ...

Here's a question about our hidden assumptions. If we reason using our God-given faculty for reasoned argument, does the premise bless the outcome? That is to say, if our premise is revealed truth from God, does our conclusion take on the character of revealed truth? Or is it still just human reason, having for its subject something God revealed? This question is a knife with a greasy handle. You must be careful with it or you will cut yourself. You can answer either yes or no to the above challenge, but is your answer consistently carried out in all your beliefs? My thought on the matter is that twenty centuries on from the start, theologians still argue. It is in their job description; they devise and defend arguments. Rather than grace and peace, this has brought us strife and division, or at the least prolonged them. Thus it seems to me a hopeless hope to wait for theologians to solve our differences, for that is so very far from the work they do and the tools they ...

One is saved by seeing that Jesus told the truth about himself and his mission. The joy of that is something we can celebrate in common. In this entry I rehash some points I have already made. The idea is to try to stir up some interest in a thought experiment. What would happen if all the churches of Christendom agreed that all public preaching and discussion would be limited to only the kerygmatic core of Christianity? Discussion of any further matters would take place only among believers, and then only if it could be done respectfully. For reasons detailed elsewhere in this blog, and touched upon in this post, I think that is an essential step toward Christian unity. As matters now stand, the unsaved have a hard time understanding what the gospel is and isn't, because different churches preach it differently, with various amounts of extraneous detail. If we all spoke one message, leaving out the extraneous points on which we differ, it would at least be clearer to t...

Prophecies are oftentimes clearer after their fulfillment than before. Consider the many Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah. What reader of those words, in the days when they were written, could have predicted precisely what would happen to fulfill them? In Jesus' earthly ministry, some people disbelieved him because he did not quite match what they expected from their reading of the prophets. There are several responsibly held views about the thousand year period spoken of in Rev. ch. 20. What we read there is a prophecy that surely will be a good deal clearer after the fact. I suggest people stop arguing about it, except in a friendly fashion and in private. I suggest we wait and see. It is the kind of dispute that we should never air before unbelievers. It does not help them. It tells them nothing of what they really need to know if they are to be saved. It distracts them from the idea that there really is one Lord whom all real...

Can a Christian be a socialist? Of course, for anyone may become a Christian. But with conversion comes growth and change. One's old ideas are all on the line. One's former beliefs and tenets are challenged. A well grounded Christian exposes all his views to God's critique and finds that no man can serve two masters. Mammon, whether wearing the mask of capitalism or socialism, must not hold sway. Socialism begins in covetousness and ends in misery. It is Mammon's cleverest mask. Socialism is obsessed with money--other people's money, and how to demand it from them and spend it for them. Its hallmark is boundless enthusiasm for society's future, but the glorious socialist future never arrives. If you look at socialism in history, you see that it promises comfort to the poor, but ends up oppressing everybody. We must not imagine that supporting socialism absolves a Christian of his responsibility for personal giving; care for the poor is not a matter where we...

The key question in church unity is whether our love for Christ will ever be reflected in our love for one another. We have not placed our unseen spiritual kinship ahead of our earthly differences. In essence, I am talking about overvaluing our theology and church politics and undervaluing one other. When we all get to heaven we will know that we have each made mistakes on religious questions, of just the sorts on which we now judge one another, and separate ourselves from one another. Jesus gave us a new commandment, that we love one another. If we do that fully, it will simplify a great many questions that now divide us, because it will be less important to insist that you are right and everyone else is wrong. Do you do that with members of your own family? Shout always that you are right? And what is the result?