Separation

The discipline of writing a single point most days, which may collectively add up at some future time to something else, is interesting.  Sometimes it is invigorating as I save a post to find a new one spring into my mind.  At other times it seems impossible to say everything and I find the latest post acts as a corrective to the one before.

Yesterday I began to stray into territory commonly known as ecclesiology (commonly amongst ecclesiologists at any rate).  I don't at this stage wish to go any further in that direction but I do want to apply, as ever, a few correctives.

1. Is it legitimate to view the Christian faith as a system?  If we understand it as a sociological phenomenum I think we can.  The growing field of congregation studies does exactly that, for example.
2. Why do I refer to it as the 'Christian faith' rather than the 'Church'?  I certainly don't want to rush to the defence of 'Christian faith' - it's simply the best term I have come up with so far.  The problem with 'Church' is that there is an ambiguity as some traditions refer to themselves as the church, and I wanted a term that unambiguously covers the whole of Christianity however that term might be understood.
3. So, why do I refer to traditions rather than churches?  Most traditions as far as I'm aware are happy to be referred to as churches.  Or part of the church, I suppose.  I think tradition has a time element, it reminds us that traditions evolve through time and are not static, although recognisably of their tradition.

Finally for this stretch of my argument I want to bring together two observations.  Oikoumene understood as the reconciliation of the whole of creation and our traditions.  To be committed to a tradition is to know it from the inside out as it were.  But it is also to experience a sense of separation from other traditions.  People react to this differently.  Some will take great pride in their tradition and assert its superiority to the others.  Others will embrace other traditions either by seeking unity or by experiencing what they have to offer.  Some feel real pain because there is no common communion across the traditions.

The point is though that the same sense of separation is experienced between Christians and the non-Christian world.  If we are serious about the reconciliation of all things in Christ - we cannot have boundaries that delineate the Christian world and separate it off from the rest of the world.  We are surrounded by conflicts relating to race, nationality or faith, by the destruction of the environment because wealth is systematically put before God and disabled by the inability of many to participate in significant decision making because of debt or poverty.  So, what if Christians attained full communion while the rest of the world is in this state?  And which of these should be our priorities?

Never fear, I have a lot more to say about systems and Presence.  But at this stage I need to open a new strand, rooted very much in my own Methodist tradition, Wesley's doctrine of sanctification - as you've (possibly) never seen it before.