Wednesday, December 20, 2006
What unites us?
I have been quite upset by the recent events within the Anglican Communion and the Church of England - where some have deemed it necessary to push for a rather rigid definition of who is in and who is out and what is orthodox and what is not - i.e. what constitutues being a proper Christian and who is damned to an eternity at 1000 degrees C with a strange guy in a red costume.
Henry Venn, a 19th century missiologist said, 'we need a whole world to see Christ'. That statement contains a few truths worth expounding... It suggests both a world that is whole: that is healed and renewed - made whole, as well as a whole, meaning totality, both in the now, the past and the present. Only then does a full picture of Christ emerge.
It seems that today the Anglican church is intent on tearing itself to pieces over the issues of women bishops and homosexuality. It seems that some do not seem to need the whole church, let alone the whole world, to see Christ, rather they just need a pure world, rid of all those nasty unorthodox people, for only those that agree with them are part of the body of Christ.
This dismembering of the body of Christ is very worrying. For if Christ is the great reconciler - bringing all things together: that is reversing that division that we see emerge in Genesis with the story of the tower of Babel. And if Christ makes all things anew: where old divisions are removed and we stand as one equal humanity before God - transformed, and made whole, no longer Jews, Getiles, male and female, but rather all sons and daughters of God, co-inheritors. Then do these actions not cut right against this vision which we encounter in the New Testament? Where prostitute and rabbi sit and eat together. Where lamb and lion play together. Where liberal and conservative celebrate and feast together. Where gay and straight laugh and have a drink? Where Charismatic and Alt.worshipper share in the breaking of bread?
If our unity lies in agreeing upon common theological principles then we can forget ever getting much done, we will be left forever arguing over what those principles are - and making sure all who disagree are quickly removed and fogotten. And gone will be that great impetus of living out that which we each have experienced -- that grace and acceptance of God towards us through the work of Christ -- gone will be that struggle to show that same radical acceptance and generosity to all we come across whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, athiest etc...
My dream for moot is that it would be a warm place of welcome and hospitality, where evos, charismatics, liberals et al could feel at home - not because they believe the right thing but because at moot they encounter something of the grace we have each encountered in Christ - a grace that is not dependent on us (thank God) but relies on the endless love of God towards both Godself and the whole of creation.
Then as we come together and listen to the story of one who entered the world in order to serve it, and as we share our stories, the hurts and the pain as well as the joy and the happiness, and as we remember also the stories of old, of St Paul, Isaiah, Jeremiah and all the Saints, then... then... Christ emerges in our midst - not as one of us, in our exact likeness, but as a stranger and yet also as one familiar and known.
Henry Venn, a 19th century missiologist said, 'we need a whole world to see Christ'. That statement contains a few truths worth expounding... It suggests both a world that is whole: that is healed and renewed - made whole, as well as a whole, meaning totality, both in the now, the past and the present. Only then does a full picture of Christ emerge.
It seems that today the Anglican church is intent on tearing itself to pieces over the issues of women bishops and homosexuality. It seems that some do not seem to need the whole church, let alone the whole world, to see Christ, rather they just need a pure world, rid of all those nasty unorthodox people, for only those that agree with them are part of the body of Christ.
This dismembering of the body of Christ is very worrying. For if Christ is the great reconciler - bringing all things together: that is reversing that division that we see emerge in Genesis with the story of the tower of Babel. And if Christ makes all things anew: where old divisions are removed and we stand as one equal humanity before God - transformed, and made whole, no longer Jews, Getiles, male and female, but rather all sons and daughters of God, co-inheritors. Then do these actions not cut right against this vision which we encounter in the New Testament? Where prostitute and rabbi sit and eat together. Where lamb and lion play together. Where liberal and conservative celebrate and feast together. Where gay and straight laugh and have a drink? Where Charismatic and Alt.worshipper share in the breaking of bread?
If our unity lies in agreeing upon common theological principles then we can forget ever getting much done, we will be left forever arguing over what those principles are - and making sure all who disagree are quickly removed and fogotten. And gone will be that great impetus of living out that which we each have experienced -- that grace and acceptance of God towards us through the work of Christ -- gone will be that struggle to show that same radical acceptance and generosity to all we come across whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, athiest etc...
My dream for moot is that it would be a warm place of welcome and hospitality, where evos, charismatics, liberals et al could feel at home - not because they believe the right thing but because at moot they encounter something of the grace we have each encountered in Christ - a grace that is not dependent on us (thank God) but relies on the endless love of God towards both Godself and the whole of creation.
Then as we come together and listen to the story of one who entered the world in order to serve it, and as we share our stories, the hurts and the pain as well as the joy and the happiness, and as we remember also the stories of old, of St Paul, Isaiah, Jeremiah and all the Saints, then... then... Christ emerges in our midst - not as one of us, in our exact likeness, but as a stranger and yet also as one familiar and known.
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