Desert Echoes #8 - A Comm-unity of Dreamers

One of the elders used to say:  In the beginning when we got together we used to talk about something that was good for our souls, and we went up and up, and ascended even to heaven.  But now we get together and spend our time criticizing everything, and we drag one another down into the abyss. (From The Wisdom of the Desert, by Thomas Merton, saying LXI).

There is no church without community.

There is no community without unity.

There is no unity without respect for difference.

I dream that someday the church will be whole again.  Perhaps not under a single organizational structure, but living out unification in purpose and relationship amidst the diversity of expressions of the faith.  In other words, I labor under the hope that Christianity really can be one faith, one holy catholic church, if each group learns to truly love the others and work together in celebration of their differences.  I don't think the church will ever be fully effective, truly function as the image and body of Christ, until it can do so.  I think, if it were able to accomplish this one simple yet seemingly impossible feat, it would be the greatest testimony to the truth of Christ and the Christian faith that the modern world has ever known.  In our splintered and individualized world, who could fail to be amazed by such a community of unity?

However, an unsettling realization has begun to dawn on me.  There are some attitudes within the modern church which - if maintained - appear to make unity a virtual impossibility.

I was recently given the opportunity to lead worship in the church where my wife grew up.  It was a wonderful experience and it reminded me of all the things I love about my evangelical background.  The people and the pastor were gracious, supportive, genuine and unpretentious.  The message centered on things from which we must separate ourselves.  On this most Christians would agree, that there are things that we are called to separate ourselves from:  selfishness, indulgence, injustice, pride, violence, jealousy, immorality.  However, I found myself at a loss when the speaker said that we must separate ourselves "from the saints."

"Lottie" Moon

The illustration was given of Charlotte Digges "Lottie" Moon, a Southern Baptist missionary honored even in the Lesser Feasts and Fasts of the Episcopal church.  In 1881, Moon made plans to marry Crawford Howell Toy, a scholar and professor of Hebrew at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville Kentucky.  These plans were later undone, with Moon citing "religious reasons" for the cancellation of the impending wedding.  Said "religious reasons" apparently related to his controversial beliefs regarding the Old Testament influenced by Julius Wellhausen and historical-criticism.  These beliefs ultimately led to a forced resignation from the seminary and his establishment one year later as professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages at Harvard and his later conversion to Unitarianism. [1], [2]  This controversy kindles Southern Baptist fires to this day:  Albert Mohler's Heresy is Not Heroic.

Crawford Howell Toy

The implication of this sermon illustration appears to be that "conservative" believers should separate themselves from "liberals" - defined as those who do not believe in scripture as "the inerrant Word of God."  I fully understand and respect the importance of the doctrine of inerrancy for some.  But I am confused and heartbroken by an attitude that unity is only possible with those who agree with "us."  According to such a view, those who believe otherwise can be deemed  nothing less than heretical and apostate at best - at worst, "the enemy."  Unity with one's enemy goes beyond reason.

Now, every community must have a core set of commonalities which unite them.  For a religious community, it is only reasonable that those essentials will involve beliefs about their god(s).  For Christianity, these essentials must relate to the nature and character of God in Jesus Christ.  For better or worse, that's what all the councils, creeds and treatises on heresy were about in the early years of Christianity.  The were defining who Jesus was.  Why?  Because Christianity was about Jesus.

Scripture is vital to Christianity.  It is the well from which we draw virtually everything we can know about Christ himself.  Nearly every Christian I've ever met - liberal or conservative - has agreed that scripture is inspired by God and authoritative for the faith.  They have not, to be fair, been unanimous about what exactly that means.

But Christianity is not about the Bible.  Once again, it is about Jesus.  It is about Jesus being God and revealing the Father to us.  It is about God redeeming humanity in Christ.  It is about the invitation of God to live in response to - and in imitation of - his grace and love as revealed in Jesus.

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, 

though he were dead, yet shall he live: (John 11:25, KJV)

As such, our faith must be based fundamentally in the person of Jesus Christ, not a particular understanding of the nature or role of scripture.  With all love and respect, it seems to me that to insist otherwise goes against the fundamental message of all scripture, all tradition and every word of Christ himself.  Neither is our faith placed in a particular tradition, intellectual belief or spiritual experience.  Those things are good.  These are important.  All of them play a part in piecing together our patchwork understanding of the mystery of God in Christ - as encountered spiritually or mystically in faith, as discovered in the cogs of creation or the revelations of reason, as handed down by our forebears in the faith.  The essence of our faith, on the other hand, resides in the reality of Christ that lies beyond all understanding.

Clearly, the writer of the saying above did NOT have the modern ecclesiastical dilemma in mind.  Instead, he spoke regarding the tendency of monastic community to degrade from mutual inspiration to mutual dissatisfaction and discontent.  Still, the application is similar.  As the church, let us return to the things that mutually nurture our souls and the lives of those around us instead of turning every whim or personal conviction into a source of division threatening to drag us down into mutual destruction.  I believe the dream of a holy, catholic church can come true, but it will have to be our dream.  All of us, dreaming together about Jesus and about his Kingdom, even when our dreams aren't the same.  Maybe because our dreams were never intended to be the same.  Maybe because all those dreams together give us a picture of something bigger than anything we could dream separately.

Questions:

1.  Is the dream of a unified Christianity practically possible?  Is it naive/foolish/evil?  Why or Why not?

2.  How do certain moral views play into unity?  Can people who are fundamentally opposed on a moral issue like abortion, still live and worship in unity?

3.  Obviously there must be boundaries to what defines "Christianity".  What defines Christianity to you?  What is the widest possible net one can cast?