Most of what I am about to say has already been said by people far exceeding me in understanding, knowledge and (particularly) wisdom. The problem is that not many people hear what they have to say, so I am going to attempt to share some of the knowledge that I have retained from reading and listening to those who have given testimony on the possibility of Christian unity.
First let me give Peter Kreeft's simple list of nine false grounds for Christian unity that have been tried without any real success and WILL NEVER WORK (caps stuff is usually important). I'll complicate each one for you with an explanation.
1. Reasonable compromise
- It is unacceptable that anyone of the Christian faith would attempt this because of the implications of compromising faith in Christ. To compromise of faith in Christ means to compromise Christ; to compromise Christ means compromise the Truth (since Christ is Truth); compromise the Truth is to compromise Love (for loving anything untrue is idolatry).
- Each of those direct and inevitabile effects is a tragedy in itself, which makes compromise wholly objectionable.
2. Education and Understanding
- The idea that we can study scripture and philosophize (it's a word) with open hearts and minds and all come to the same conclusions is not a reasonable one. Knowledge and reason can help us to understand parts of God, and this is obviously not a bad thing to do, but we are imperfect people and so this is not reasonable.
3. Mystical Experience
- "If you only have [a mystical experience] you will understand and believe." Kreeft's blunt definition is enough to steer us from thinking this.
4. Tolerance
- Division of God's Church is a serious matter, so while loving everyone for Who they were made by is not optional, accepting that Christianity is split lacks an understanding of the Church that Christ established. Jesus himself said that He desires for His kingdom to be one, so if the kingdom on Earth is the Church, why should we be ok with a separated, not-one Church.
5. Subjectivism (Relativism)
- Your truth is cool. My truth is cool. We all have a truth but none of us has The Truth. So, truly, none of us really has a truth at all. In truth, if a truth isn't true, then it is not a truth. True? True.
6. Skepticism
- We can't ever really know who is right, so if everyone just keeps doing what they're doing we'll all be ok. This is closely related to subjectivism only instead of rejecting that there is one truth, it tries to say there's no way we can know the one Truth so we basically have to settle for our partial truths. It's a castrated relativism.
7. Rational Argument
- This helps sometimes, but persuading people only through rational argument is a ridiculous idea. Argument can help some open minds come into the Truth, but a man can spend his whole life researching arguments and dogmas only to find that he can't decide which one is right. Even if he did find the right one, God is more than just a dogma. He's a person and reason alone, while it can lead us to a person, is not the ultimate end, the person of Jesus Christ.
8. Vague Optimism
- "Something will turn up" is not an acceptable attitude to have when it comes Christ is clearly not a passive being. We are the body of Christ, so how can the head be active while the body lethargically thumbs up and sits idly. No, Christ called us to live actively by going to the ends of the Earth proclaiming the Good News.
- Also, the Body that we are all parts of is broken and bleeding. "Splitting the Church is not" as Kreeft says, "a division of subdivision in an organization, but rather an amputation of limbs." We must be active in putting ourselves back together. If we are the hands and feet of Christ, then we must pick up the pieces of the mess we've made and allow the Spirit to be the glue that holds us together. We must be actively fighting for this or we will fall into the comfortable counterfeit of active faith: passive, mind my own business, only pray on Sunday, presumptuously apathetic and secularistic apathy.
9. An Ecumenical Jihad (a temporary common enemy)
- "Good, but not enough" We can unite for a time, and this can be very successful, but there has to be a perfect unity. This represents an imperfect unity, that is essentially a negative movement against a negative force or enemy. God is the ultimate positive and subtracting negative one trillion is not the same as adding infinity. (I hope that doesn't just make sense in my head.)
I think that each of these tried and failed "false grounds" for Christian unity can be considered shortcuts. They're shortcuts. God doesn't do shortcuts. It's unsure exactly how God's going to do it but we know it will be through insane amounts of grace to endure suffering and through blood. Christ's work is never without blood. We can be sure of that.
It also can't be done without saints. Not without people who totally surrender to God. Kreeft begs to question our ability to fathom even a dozen John Paul the greats and mother theresa's around the world. We can't. It would be astoundingly beautiful. We know that much.
Let's leave the practicalities to the next installment. Dream of a world filled with saints for now.
Peace.
**Disclaimer** If there were any good ideas in here, they were most likely Dr Peter Kreeft's found on his Ecumenism talk.
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