Subversive Christian Unity

Looking at the sad spectacle of Christendom divided, I note these few self-evident things when I look at our sundered church denominations. 1. When we do the gospel, what we do is remarkably similar. As I've remarked before, there are only so many ways to help the hungry or those who lack clothes, the sick, prisoners and so on. There is only one Lord Jesus toward whom to direct the world's attention. 2. When we talk about the gospel, what we say often sounds very different from one faction to another. Here centuries of division and doctrinal divergence have made a new Babel of Christ's church. 3. More doing and less talking are called for.

Looking at my web stats, I find that these are my the most-read posts. I list them in order of popularity. Science versus religion is a phony issue What is included in the kerygma? Jesus the Commie Fall of the West Catholic quasi-universalism Enough with the dinosaurs, already! Whither Anglicanism? Believable versus believed Enlightened ignorance The fault lines I cannot say that I agree with my readers' judgment about it. There are some posts I like better that languish in obscurity. But I am grateful to my readers just for showing up, and also for reminding me that some of my interests are not widely interesting to others...

New Atheists place great reliance on what I shall call the Bad Daddy argument: God is accused of numerous crimes and shortcomings. The idea is to portray belief as ridiculous by making God out to be a scoundrel, having done and said things inconsistent with being all knowing and all loving. The argument says that is more sensible, or even morally superior, to disbelieve in the character religion portrays as the supreme being. A milder form of this argument is that it is easier not to believe in a God guilty of sins of omission: an unanswered heartfelt prayer, a clear wrong that goes unrighted, an unbearable loss that you  must bear none the less. The goal of this argument is to undermine faith by equating the value of our faith with our wishes being met. Sometimes this form of the argument is given a metaphysical slant: If the universe really meant anything more than just our own experience of it, as accidental creatures, the universe would work better than it does. Our desires ...

Erasmus makes a very important point in the preface to his Manual of a Christian Knight . What most Christians need, most of the time, is good practical everyday Christianity, and that has little to do with the abstract wranglings of learned theologians. When put to practical use, in resisting evil and serving the cause of good, Christianity becomes a good deal simpler than the theologians make it out to be. If theology and the academic study of the faith is an ivory tower, the real work of the gospel gets done down at street level, and on the sidewalk out in front--in acts of kindness, mercy, forgiveness and truth telling, and in defying evil as it attempts, under one guise or another, to find its way into our lives.  What goes on in the upper floors of the ivory tower has little to do with the everyday, street-level work of the gospel. A point I've made before on this blog is that in the practical work of the gospel, Christians of various denominations look more alike than d...

Here is an election video produced several years ago by Catholics Called to Witness. It was released in two versions, one for Catholics, one for Evangelical/Protestant audiences. One says Catholics across the nation will be put to the test; the other uses the more generic "Christians." I do not know why the producers thought there needed to be two versions. Either video would be good to go with either audience. The biggest difference is that the Catholic version relies on Cardinal Dolan to establish a point. The Protestant version makes the point without quoting him. If the Catholics think Protestants are going to hate anything that quotes Dolan, they need to get out more. We think he is all right, and even enjoy it when he is amusingly himself sometimes. Writing him out of the script is too much caution, bending over backwards, even. But that's the same problem we see in many areas.  Catholics do not know much about Protestants, despite living down the street from t...

 It's good to have a wise and godly bishop, but the other sort we can do without. Notice the ingenious justice of independent bishoprics.  Once the believers scent a bad bishop, a nasty shepherd that sheep ought not follow if they know what is good for them, they shift one diocese over. Bad priest? Miraculously, the next parish grows. Sheep want shepherds who lead them to grass and water and stuff. That is why I like the idea of largely independent dioceses. It is a firewall of sorts to the spread of bad teaching and moral corruption. A way to envision one church for the whole world is on this episcopal, diocesan model. It is agreeable to scripture and tradition and appears to work well. I am impressed, in theory, with apostolic succession, but I am more impressed by apostolic success. Let me be indelicate. A bishop in gross impropriety* is no bishop to me, regardless of lineage, and a pope in error is simply a graven image who isn't a statue yet. It is rather like my ...

I was involved a little while back in an online discussion I should have avoided. I was applying basic Christian apologetics in a discussion that did not merit them. My interlocutors were stridently opposed to the gospel no matter what I said, or what anyone I could quote from said, and no matter how humbly I presented my case, they were self-superior and insulting. There is a time to shake the dust off your sandals and move on, and that has application, too, in the quest for Christian unity. There are some churches, and some groups within some churches, who are so self-sufficiently superior that no consideration of the ideas and experiences of lesser Christians is worthwhile to them. Such a group thinks that if the rest of Christendom wishes to unify with them they can become just like them in all aspects of belief and practice, an approach to unity that I am pretty sure can never succeed among fallen human beings. Such churches or groups will have to be left behind as w...

A fundamental failing in today's moral thought is the inability to separate the concept of "good" from "I want." — Kendal Black (@KendalBlack) November 17, 2014 I wonder how much this widespread moral failing has to do with the rot that that is consuming orthodox, historical Christian teaching. If the gospel is not as you would quite like it, it is tempting to change it. But has there ever been a believer who did not find some or other aspect of obedience to the gospel difficult? The solution is not to smudge or obscure what it really says, but to confront what it is calling for and then admit you are not doing it.

In a previous post I have answered why I do not think I am indifferentist. You may read it if you like ; the short version is that it may well be that some Christians are wrong on some issues. That may well include me. On what issues, precisely, does Christ call us to be unified? It is a visible unity he desires, the text stipulates that, unity visible to the world, so that the world may know that the Father sent Christ... The world, that is, the people we are trying to show this, have no concept of the little arguments in theology, the red herrings, the bunny trails, the fascinating historical developments. If we are to hold to the letter, what we need for Christian unity is unity in the things the world can see and comprehend. Would you, because of Jesus, give a poor man your lunch? You are a Christian. Would you give an Orthodox Christian the shirt off you back? You might, then, be a real Catholic. What the world sees is the coarse and general trend and effect of ou...

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 ...