Just under a month ago I posted an article about Separation. At the end of that article, I took leave for a period of the book Presence. Today, I return to that book and start where I left off with the theme of separation.
Over the last month or so I have explored Wesley's doctrine of sanctification and I hope shown it is a doctrine that seeks reconciliation between the Christian and non-Christian worlds. There is a sense in which the separation Christian traditions experience, is a subset of the separation we experience from the wider world. This wider separation might be understood as the alienation of modern people from the cosmos. The sense in which we can live our lives cut off from one another, from the natural world or even the physical reality of the night sky.
In Presence the authors write:
... we tend to get stuck in a single story that we accept without thinking. And it seems to me that's exactly our larger predicament in the world today: we're stuck in a story of who we are on this earth as human beings, and something in us wants to break free of it. (Page 72)
Whilst this passage refers to the assumptions or world views all people live with, it can be applied to the experience of Christians within their traditions (or even narrower takes on the faith in local churches).
But as the authors go on to say, We have no idea the cost we pay for living this story of separation. Indeed, when we look at the history of persecutions, warfare and rivalries between Christians of different traditions, each convinced they are right to the exclusion of others, it is hard to imagine what we have lost.
The opportunity ecumenism offers to all Christians is to learn how to belong to a tradition whilst being challenged by the others. This is why the imposition of full visible unity is so problematic; is it at root the old Christendom approach to the faith? Somehow we have to learn how to live with uncertainty, our certainty about salvation must grow from our humility; faith in a God who is essentially unknowable. We must free ourselves from the tyranny of being right. Our commitment to ecumenism (or even oikoumene) might help us in this journey towards certain uncertainty.
Comments