Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

Dann writes:
„Here is the key, Groves thought, to Christian unity. Unity in heaven will not be a result
of intellectual agreement on matters of doctrine or church practice; it will be a unity of
love embracing all who belong to Christ. And if this is the basis of unity in heaven,
should it not be the basis of unity on earth?‟ 111
Dann goes on to quote Groves:
„Loving all whom Christ loves because they bear his impress; let this same rule then
decide the question as to the subjects of our communion here on earth: all whom Christ
loves, who bear his impress, or whom we ourselves acknowledge as Christians.‟
Dann himself writes:
„We may be aware of errors in the doctrine or practice of other Christians, but Christ
himself is aware of those errors and has never made that a reason for denying them his
love.‟
He quotes Groves again:
„So long as we judge Christ to be dwelling with a man, that is our warrant for receiving
him – and as to his errors, though we bear them weeping, still we must bear them.‟
And we ought to add to Groves: „Our fellow Christians ought to bear our errors, too.‟ It is,
perhaps, Groves‟ insistence that true Christian fellowship requires us to bear with
imperfections and errors in our fellow Christians that is his greatest contribution to the cause
of Christian unity.
We should note that on this principle the key to deciding if a congregation or church is
apostate or not is its manifestation of Christ in them. A group of Christians may be in
error (from our point of view) on many things, but we need to know if Christ is the
acknowledged head of that fellowship or not. If a religious body does not uplift the
headship of Christ there can be no basis of unity with it. Note, too, how seriously Groves
regards the sin of disunity in the Church, ‘the awful sin of schism, of sin against Christ
and his mystical body.’ 112
FEELERS TOWARDS UNITY
What can we say about these 19 th Century attempts to further Christian Unity? The Irvingites
paved the way for what was later to be known as Pentecostalism and later still the
Charismatic Renewal of the Church. There is no doubt that the 20 th Century renewal
movement was an attempt to revive the more spontaneous worship that it was believed the
111 Dann, Robert B, Father of Faith Missions, the life and times of Anthony Norris Groves, Authentic
Media, 2004, pp 269-270.
112 Lang, G H, Anthony Norris Groves, saint and pioneer, Thynne and Co, London 1939 p 157.
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