Exploring Ecumenism: Diversity

Not Disorder, but Peace

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

1 Corinthians 14: 31 - 33

This passage tells us we are indeed different and so need to organise ourselves accordingly. If we prophesy one by one, then we will hear something new, we will learn and be encouraged by the breadth of faith expressed.

Peace is not a result of uniformity but of a disciplined approach to faith. Our call is to learn to listen to others and in turn share our own experience of God.

Much talk of unity ignores the impossibility of knowing God fully. No one tradition can possibly embrace all there is to know of faith. Indeed, if we put every tradition's understanding of God together we would still not know God.

The task is to perceive God in the here and now. To do this we can pool our experience. We need to do this in a disciplined and so peaceful way.

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All Together in One Place

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

Acts 2: 1 - 6

It is a fallacy to believe this story illustrates the unity of the Church. Pentecost is always seen as the birthday of the Church but what do we find?

A flame divides into a number of flames. The people speak in different languages; although from all over the known world, they hear their own languages. They do not all understand a single language.

This reads to me as an affirmation of diversity. I cannot see a mandate for unity as a single organisational structure.

Organisational unity is a lazy way of understanding unity; 'if only we all agreed, then we would have unity'. It is much more rewarding to be united with those with whom we disagree.

The assumption is God seeks unity in the sense of a single structure but where is the evidence? The challenge is to love one another, not to become like one another.

There is another thing too. What about the dissenters, the marginalised? Where do they fit into the single full, visible and unified church? The static model of unity does not take into account the dynamic of love.

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Let All the Peoples' Praise Him

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

Romans 15: 10 - 11

This final passage, from the section of 'one light: one world' headed 'Christ's work in bringing us into unity', is something of mystery.

The burden of the message seems to be now gentiles are admitted into the faith, they can join all peoples in praising God.

Churches Together in England has selected these passages to encourage us to reflect upon how we may all be one. Some of them don't make any especial connection to ecumenism for me and this one in particular seems to be something of a space filler.

One thing I can do is use the opportunity afforded by the last line 'let all the peoples praise him' to reflect upon one theme that has emerged from this section of passages.

That is the theme of 'glory'. As I understand it, the glory of God is the means by which we are made aware of the presence of God. God is not accessible to our senses and so we need signs of God. These signs represent the real presence of God.

In a way the halo is one way artists have tried to depict God's glory. It is a metaphor for something more difficult to define.

What John 17 seems to be saying is unity is the glory of God. It is the ultimate reconciliation of all things. It can be prefigured in the church and the divided church is our opportunity to demonstrate the glory of God, being united despite our differences. Ecumenism is the laboratory in which the churches experiment with unity.

When we are prepared to take responsibility for unity, by being prepared to risk our own integrity in order to embrace the other, then we see God's glory. This is what the early gentile Christians experienced and what gave them cause to praise God.

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God Was Pleased to Reconcile All Things

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

Colossians 1: 15 - 20

The bombshell is in verse 16: 'in him all things ... visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers - all things have been created through him and for him'. These are the very things that enslave us! And these things were created through him and for him!

But note these are human institutions. The very institutions that enslave and disempower us are created though and for him. The thing is, these institutions are both necessary and oppressive.

The law is necessary to enable the development of culture and society. There has to be legal redress for wrongs done because the alternative is vigilantism. But these very institutions, designed to protect us, become oppressive. Why? Because in our minds we absolutise them and make them into gods.

The promised reconciliation is where these institutions begin to work as they should and not as the play things of perfectionist control freaks.

And so we learn, the church is intended to be the beginning of this alternative way, verse 18 'he is the head of the body, the church'. This accounts for the difficulties we all encounter. We have institutions based on the old methods shot through with the brilliance of a new way of working. The church is a hybrid institution, both near to and far from the will of God.

I think this is why the church is broken. It is the broken body of Christ because it is only in its brokenness that a place can be found for all.

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We Will be Saved by His Life

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

Romans 5: 10 - 11

It beats me what this has to do with ecumenism, although once again it is about the reconciliation of all to God. And of course, the wrath of God is not far away (in verse 9).

So, let's nail this - how are a God of Love and the wrath of God compatible? This question is muddied by 1000 years of atonement theology. This theology is alien to the Bible and Paul would not have recognised it. So, what is this passage about?

The powerful use fear of death to control others. Jesus through his death and resurrection conquered death and so also the fear of death. The thing that makes God wrathful is not individual sins but the way in which we all collude with power, out of fear.

When we abandon fear, we no longer depend upon things that distract us from God and so we are reconciled to God. No longer fearing death, we are saved.

In addition verse 11 is saying, those who no longer fear death may boast in God. Those who live by control, use God to justify their actions. They practice unspeakable cruelty in God's name. Those who know Jesus abandon control, as they are no longer fearful. In this they are modelling themselves on Jesus and so reconciled with God.

And presumably this is the nature of the unity that exists between Christians, despite the best efforts of the institutional churches to find ways to keep Christians apart.

I am aware I'm sounding negative about the institutional churches in this series of posts. I hope for an opportunity to redress the balance as the series continues.

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We Are His Children

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

Galatians 4: 6 - 7

Two points about this passage.

It is one of only three places in the New Testament, where the Aramaic word 'Abba' is used. It is always presented as 'Abba! Father!'. In the original Greek, the word for 'Father' is 'Pater'. The reason 'Pater' features is the first readers did not know Aramaic and so needed a translation. Why feature 'Abba' at all? Because it was the word Jesus actually used. The beauty of it is all Christians, whatever their language read 'Abba' followed by their word for 'Father'. Given that to this day in some places 'Abba' is the first word a child speaks, it is a word for all people - all ages and everywhere.

My other point is, what difference does being a child of God make? The text says God has sent the Spirit into our hearts because we are children. So, what does this mean?

The meaning hinges on how we understand the metaphor of a loving father. The slave receives and obeys orders. The good father encourages his children to stand on their own two feet. It is no longer a question of obedience to a dictator God, but liberty supported by a father (or loving parent). To be a child is a commitment to learning to do without the father figure. This includes human father figures such as priests.

When the inevitable questions start about why God allows the good (whoever they're supposed to be) to suffer in earthquakes, for example, our understanding is these are not judgements on human behaviour. We do good in the way we take responsibility for others, as we respond such events.

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One Flock, One Shepherd

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

John 10: 14 - 16

This is a similar message to the last post. The difference is a matter of emphasis. You can read this passage as a vision of unity; all the different traditions will in time be united.

Or else you are invited to understand there are others, not counted by the existing churches because they are peripheral. They are people who Jesus died for (John is writing from after the passion) and are not a part of the recognised Christian traditions.

There is a lot of debate these days about Universalism, the belief that ultimately all people will be saved. One argument against Universalism assumes those who are saved must accept Jesus Christ as saviour.

What is rarely discussed is, the identity of the saved. It is easy to discount those who are on the margins. It is very easy to condemn those who are peripheral to social norms, for example gays; people who are already oppressed because they are despised.

If the anti-Universalists are right, and the axe will fall, cutting some off from God, the question is where the axe will fall. I suspect it will fall in unexpected places.

But it seems many are only too keen to leap to conclusions on God's behalf. Those who are saved in this passage are those who listen to God's voice. The key is not their goodness, you do not have to be good to qualify. It is by entering into a relationship with God that we learn to be good. It is those who 'listen to my voice' who are part of the flock.

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Called to be God's Holy People

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

1 Corinthians 1: 2 - 3

The image of Christendom haunts our ecumenical conversations because, whilst many of us long for unity, we dread the idea of a single institutional church.

Perhaps in the second half of the last century, when the British churches were enthusiastic for unity, Christendom was a distant historical memory. Today, many movements are suspicious of unity schemes. Radical Christian movements see Christendom as an aberrant form of Christianity and seek church structures that resist it. I suppose radical Islam, at least as it is represented in the Western media, also reminds some Christians of the dangers of theocracy.

I share these suspicions. I don't see any value in a future where we are subject to a single institution. I have always understood holy obedience, not as obedience to institutional power, who justify their actions through claiming God's support, but as listening and discerning the will of God.

Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, a church which is prone to delusions of power. Paul doesn't build them up in terms of authority. Their unity is through Jesus Christ and their calling is as one community amongst many.

They are defined as church not through a single coherent church structure but with reference to their calling and the many other communities who share their calling.

The key to unity has to be in mutual recognition and solidarity, not through the imposition of a single universal church structure.

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A Great Nation

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This is part of a series of posts based on the Churches Together in England publication one light: one world. If you click on the link you will find the biblical texts. This post of the same name covers the purpose of this series.

Genesis 12:1-3

It is difficult to believe many people in the modern West see themselves as children of Abraham. The story goes, he is not only father of the Jews but also (directly through Ishmael) of Muslims and (indirectly) of Christians.

I suppose this passage is here to make the point that we are all of one nation. But the very concept of nation implies there are other nations. Can this be read as divisive, as well as implying the unity of all Christians? Certainly insisting that we're all part of the same nation will cut little mustard in the entrenched conflicts around the world.

We are it seems divided according to whether we bless or curse Abraham. The final clause however says, in Abraham all families of the earth shall be blessed. Perhaps there is a glimpse here of the final Oikoumene.

I can see the logic but I must confess I am indifferent to this line of argument. Christians are one in the Spirit, in our recognition of Jesus Christ and in our hope that ultimately all shall be reconciled in Christ. Abraham seems a little superflous to me although I appreciate others might disagree. Perhaps it is a helpful text where there are conflicts between Christians, Jews and Muslims?