Sunday, January 24, 2010

Christian Unity: Do We Really Want It?

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity began in 1908 as the Octave of Christian Unity, and focused on prayer for church unity. The dates of the week were proposed by Father Paul Wattson, cofounder of the Graymoor Franciscan Friars. He conceived of the week beginning on the Feast of the Confession of Peter, the Protestant variant of the ancient Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, on 18 January, and concluding with the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul on 25 January. That's tomorrow.

Our parish has been making a prayer for Christian unity in all its masses and the entire congregation drops to its knees as one. Yet, as we pray, I can't help wondering if we really want it in our hearts, given the prejudices we harbor against our Christian brethren. I reproduce an article that I wrote a few years ago here and invite your comments.

Ending the Catholic Protestant Divide

King Solomon was the third King of Israel. He was famed for his wisdom, and many people came to him for justice from far and wide.

One day, two prostitutes came before King Solomon, each claiming that the child they brought before him was hers. They had both recently given birth to a child but during the night one of the prostitutes rolled over her child and killed it. She exchanged her dead baby with the live baby of the other prostitute while she slept. When the other prostitute awoke, she found her baby dead but realized, upon close examination, that the dead baby was not hers.

So who did the baby belong to?

King Solomon ordered that a sword be brought and the baby be sliced in two, with each woman given one half. One of the prostitutes nodded her assent, saying she believed that justice was being done. The second woman, however, screamed a protest saying that the other woman could have the baby, but not to kill it. Solomon promptly had the baby given to her.

I heard this story as a child and I don't remember being particularly impressed by it. What person, no matter how miserable he or she was, would have it in their heart to have a little baby cut into half, I wondered. But after I returned to the faith, I realized that not only did a lot of people have it in their heart to do so, they went about it with great enthusiasm. I refer, of course, to us Christians from all sides of the divide who use the sword, which is the Word of God, to cut the baby, which is the body of Christ, into little, little pieces!

It is not hard to see why. There is tremendous pleasure — and power — you get from wielding this particular sword, and the temptation to do so is often overpowering, even when you don't quite know how to use it. Or, perhaps, especially when you don't know how to use it. I must confess to being tempted to do so myself on several occasions. When I first started reading the Bible, for instance, I remember coming across several references to Jesus's brothers, which disturbed me greatly, because I knew that Catholic dogma stated that Jesus had none and here it seemed "obvious" that he did. I promptly went to Jesus and asked him outright, "Jesus, did you have brothers?"

"How does it matter?" he asked quietly. "Would you love me less if I did?"

The questions threw me entirely off balance. "No, I wouldn't," I answered finally. "I just wanted to know the truth."

Jesus merely smiled.

That smile shamed me. He knew it wasn't the truth I wanted. What I was really looking for was a sharpened blade to cut down my opponents. Which is what a lot of us Christians use the Word of God for. We ignore the prime commandments to love God and love our fellowmen and focus on things that will lead us to widen the rift between us and hate each other more. And we do it in the name of truth!

This isn't to say that truth is not important. It is. There are truths that I hold dear to me. And I will die for some of them because I believe that there are truths worth dying for. But I do not believe that there is any truth worth killing for. God's Word does not tell me otherwise. There is nothing in the Bible that says I should take you out into a dark alley and pound the truth — or what I believe the truth to be — into you so that you may be saved. Or that I should savage you in an argument, leaving you wondering if salvation requires erudition or faith in Jesus.

I rarely get argumentative on issues of theology; it tends to be unproductive. If asked what I believe to be true, I state my beliefs. If asked why I believe what I believe to be true, I explain the reasons for my beliefs. But only if the questions are asked with a desire for understanding, not confrontation. If the latter, I simply mumble something about how Matthew 7:6 makes for a good answer and walk away. I have enough forums to state my views if I am inclined to do so and it is then entirely up to the people who choose to read what I write, or listen to what I say, to accept what I say or reject it. I am happy if they do the former, and though I might be a trifle disappointed if they do the latter, I don't let myself get unduly upset; I see no reason why I don't have to get along with somebody because he happens to disagree with me.

Holy Spirit Interactive is one of the forums that I use to state my views and thus far has been a superb forum. It is Catholic and unashamedly so. So am I and so are most of the writers who write for it. We all write about issues related to our faith. But the reason we write is not to cut down our Protestant brothers (for whom we have the deepest affection), but merely to teach Catholics about their faith. Blind faith is not something God asks us to have and it is important to know why we do what we do and why we believe what we believe. This often has to be taught. If there is something that others can learn about our faith, they are welcome to find out about it here. It might give them more understanding of the immense body of knowledge and wisdom the Church has gathered over 2000 years, and also let them know that much of the prejudice that they have inherited is unwarranted and needless.

There is no shame in learning from us, just as there is no shame in us learning from them. I have learned a lot from my Protestant friends over the past several months and so, I am sure, has the Catholic Church over the years. We can learn a lot from one another if we can only stop the ungodly hatred that flows through our hearts and come together in love. We do not have to resolve all our differences to do this; we share enough in common for the differences not to matter. All we need to remember is that we are all one family, parts of this huge wonderful body of Christ, and there will be so much of healing that we can bring to the world if we can come together in love. It is simply doing what Jesus asked us to do, after all. Love one another, he said. And if we do, then the song we sing about them knowing we are Christians by our love will be more than a series of words strung together by a pretty tune. It will become a truth. A truth worth dying for.

6 comments:

  1. Thanks for this I have forwarded it to a number of friends. I think your illustration of King Solomon's judgement, and your question to Jesus was really excellent.

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  2. I agree with you. Love can bring us together. I volunteer with one of the dearest Protestant friends. Helen is director of 3 pregnancy support services. I would not trade our friendship for anything here on earth. She is not bothered by me because I am Catholic and I do not see a veil between us. We would help each other without question. I wish more people could see things as they should be, as Jesus taught. Thanks for the article!

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  3. Holy Spirit interactive is indeed a superb forum. Through it I have found the answers to the questions I had about the Catholic faith, answers I had been seeking for the last forty years of my life.I am amazed at the richness of our Faith and as a Catholic seeking to serve God, would want to share it with the whole world.

    I am also grateful to my many Protestant friends who have helped me discover more about God. Songs written by our Protestant brothers have made our Catholic Praise and Worship sessions so very meaningful.If the Catholic Protestant divide were truly to end, it would not be long before we accomplished the mission entrusted to us by our Lord of "Making Disciples of All Nations."

    I pray brother that the little spark that you have ignited thru' this article may turn into flames of undivided, selfless love burning down all the differences among CHRISTIAN brothers and uniting us to fulfill the purpose that God has created us for.... See More

    Thank you brother!

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  4. Paul Flynn, Hong KongJanuary 25, 2010 at 6:19 PM

    I love everything you say in your article, but why do you not fill in the picture? If you have learned some important things from Protestant Christians, why not tell us what they are?

    Five years ago I came down with serious illness and had to spend a year in bed. The medical profession had nothing to offer for my particular condition, so I had to go on a desperate search for alternative sources of healing. My search led me to an evangelical healing group in England and ... well, for the rest you could say that the script writes itself. They sent me some sets of tapes, which taught me to rely on the word of God and to apply it to all the root issues in my life that could have caused my illness. I did, and I started healing, and healing fast. Thank God I was soon living a normal life again, and still am.

    It was an experience that shook me and my preconceptions to the very core. Here was a fringe evangelical group, of the kind that I had always laughed up my sleeve at, ministering the word and the power of salvation to me.

    How did they do it? Well, they took certain core truths and told me I would have to believe them because God had said so in his word. They taught me that you cannot walk in the power and authority that belongs to you as a Christian believer, unless you believe that the Lord Jesus is the only source of salvation and true healing. As long as you even entertain the thought that other gods, other authorities, other religions, can lead to salvation, then you are walking in unbelief, because you no longer believe that Jesus is the only Saviour of the world.

    How have evangelical Protestants got this so profoundly right? And how have we Catholics got it so profoundly wrong? Well, I searched this one too, and found that a teaching of Vatican II contained in Sections 2 and 3 of the Apostolic Letter Nostra Aetate (NOT a dogmatic constitution and NOT carrying the authority of the Magisterium) provides a succinct statement of where we have got it wrong.

    Aneel, there is a reason why the evangelicals are beating us hands down in so many parts of the world. I lift my hat to them and I rejoice that so many people are learning the truth. But of course as a Catholic I want my own church to learn from them and to return to proclaiming the truth that sets us free, heals us, makes us walk in authority, enables us to bring the nations of the world into the kingdom for Christ ....

    Next time, please don't hold back! Our church desperately needs the message I think you are seeking to give it.

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  5. Build the bridges brother ... build the bridges .. UNITE for Christ!

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  6. Every Christian worth his/her salt should be somewhat ashamed about the schism in the church. Not only that, it is a matter of great concern that we also have two different bibles.

    But what do we observe among the lay Christians - Catholic and Protestant alike? Absolute apathy to this grave issue. Rather the feelings espied by me, a catholic (also having worked and interacted closely for an organisation run by protestants) is that there is the game of one-upman ship without any regard to understanding the 'Holiness of God' or worshipping Him. In fact, among Catholics, when the whiff of protestantanism comes by, they whip up their rosaries and say they have a powerful weapon to thwart sin and sickness; and among protestants, when a catholic smell emanates somewhere, they are quick to carve the embellishments of catholic-dom including the Pope and Rome to pieces.

    So strong is this feeling that I must tell you about an incident that happened recently. I had put up a poster announcing my pilgrimage services to the Holy Land (I operate these pilgrimages), in a Protestant book store recently. In the poster I had mentioned that Mass (I hold that the Mass is the best system of worship for any Christian) would be arranged for Catholics. Many who came to the store were vehement about this and fought with this friend of mine who is the manager of the store as to how she could display my poster which was so blatantly catholic! On the other hand, if you were but to suggest to a Catholic that prayer isn't only the rosary, they would perhaps have their knives out at you. I think that this feeling of divide is more pertinent in those who don't know their faith or lack maturity in it.

    But this I must say, there are many among protestants and catholics, who are deeper in the Lord who accept each other as brethren. I have a protestant brother in Orissa who I have gifted the catholic Bible and he is delighted with it for where else but in the Catholic Bible would you find a hymn of praise so galactic - Dn. 3: 26-90. And how can you have the Bread of Life except that mere bread transubstantiated into Body and Blood is the only way. On the other hand, how can you know God and worship Him but through His Word. There's so much richness in each other provided we sit down and share and accept.

    Deep inside I feel that God alone can bridge the divide and He will provided we pray. Will we?

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