Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

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CHAPTER 12 NOW WHAT? This book began with my finding a simple company of believers in an East Yorkshire country town and subsequently finding that their confession of faith in Christ as Saviour and Lord was consistent with the confession of the faith in all three classical traditions of Christianity. The way they worshipped, having no clergy as such nor any central Church authority, made them so very different from the majority of Christian churches. But I found Christ in their midst as I was later to find him in Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, Reformed, Catholic and Orthodox hearts and in the lives of many other believers. It seems to me that there are several reasons why Christians hold back from ecumenical activity. REASONS WHY CHRISTIANS HOLD BACK FROM ECUMENICAL ACTIVITY a) The word ‘ecumenical’ itself. The word, from the Greek „oikumenikos‟, „of the inhabited earth‟, means universal, worldwide. So to have ecumenical interests is to have the interest of the worldwide church at heart. But for many Christians, Catholic or Protestant, the word is associated with the idea of compromise. It is assumed that ecumenism means finding the lowest common denominator of the Christian faith and having to give up the rest. However, that is not the concept of ecumenism envisaged in this book. Again and again the idea of „unity in diversity‟ is expressed across a wide range of denominational loyalties. There is a basic core of „primary truths‟ which cannot be yielded, which true Christians of all denominations hold. These truths are those which Christians throughout history have held: that Jesus, true Man and true God, is our Saviour and Lord; that the Bible holds the revelation that brings us that truth and is the supreme authority for faith and conduct; and that the Niceno- Constantinopolitan Creed is the essential Confession of the whole Church. A person or church may hold ways of expressing these primary truths which seem strange to other believers, but if they are ways which do not undermine the truths, they must be accepted as part of the Church‟s rich diversity. b) Some believers avoid ‘ecumenism‘ because it seems to be dominated by either ‘charismatic’ Christians or so-called ‘liberals’ who do not have a high view of the authority of the Bible. It is true that in Churches Together both these groups can be found, but that is no reason to avoid trying to „dig out‟ the embedded Church within those groupings who love and worship Page 155
Christ and are trying their best to serve him. Of course there will be difficulties if the Bible is not authoritative for some members of ecumenical groups. It is not unity at any price. I have quoted in this book instances of „Reformed‟ Christians who are happy to engage in common witness with Roman Catholics, knowing that many of these will be „charismatic‟ Catholics. In his Foreword to Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones‟ book Joy Unspeakable, Peter Lewis says both the charismatic movement and the renewed interest in Reformed and Puritan teaching have contributed to the revitalisation of the Christian Church – but that they are both in danger of becoming stale. Instead of seeing the two movements in opposition, Lewis sees they have much to contribute to each other. He writes: „We are beginning to see an appreciation of expository and doctrinal preaching and teaching among “charismatics” and a real attempt to introduce greater congregational participation and more contemporary expression of praise into certain “reformed” churches and meetings. At a deeper level, the profounder reaches of spiritual experience are already sought and shared by both alike. For many reasons, biblical, historical, and experiential, it is becoming increasingly untenable and even absurd to see these two movements as fundamentally alien to one another.‟ 196 c) For some Protestants ecumenism means a ‘sell out’ to Rome, or a ‘take-over’ by that Church. Certainly some of the Papal pronouncements, particularly in the 19 th Century, might have given the impression that Protestants needed to be absorbed into the Catholic Church in any meaningful ecumenism. But Vatican II made it clear that, while the Roman Church longs for all Christians to come into its fellowship (koinōnia), those who stayed outside were to be regarded as „separated brethren‟, with no compulsion for them to come in. Just a cursory reading of church history makes it clear that there are too many strongly held convictions within the Christian body for a unified, monolithic church ever to become a reality. The Orthodox Church, even more strongly, considers their communions to be manifestations of the one true Church, though they can relate to other bodies of believers as containing fellow Christians. However, many Catholic and Orthodox believers see ecumenism as a threat to their standing as being the only „true‟ churches. Protestants ought to remember that they have a history of proselytising, „sheep-stealing‟, from other Christian communions in order to bring them into Reformation truth. Today there is much more awareness and valuing of the riches of other churches‟ traditions. Timothy Ware in his book The Orthodox Church, 197 quotes from a letter of Khomiakov as he describes his view of the relationship of Orthodoxy to other churches. He writes: 196 Lewis, Peter, Forward, in Joy Unspeakable by Dr Martyn Lloyd Jones, Kingsway Publications, first published 1984, p 8. 197 Ware, Timothy (Kallistos), The Orthodox Church, Penguin Books, 1967, pp 332-333. Page 156
Page 1 and 2:
Digging Out the Embedded Church Dis
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The Maranatha Community comprises t
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Introduction CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chr
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ead, nicely browned on top. He plac
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HOW DO WE DIG OUT THE EMBEDDED CHUR
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That the Church should express this
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For Alfeyev, „Faith is a gift, th
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„heresies„ of the Early Church
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Traditionally, the Church has made
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CHAPTER 1 CHRISTIAN UNITY IN THE EA
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A certain Docetic teacher, often id
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Novatianism When the persecutions o
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The fortunes of the Arian party in
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An attempt was made in 482 AD (29 y
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was development in the interpretati
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CYPRIAN AND AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO The
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position would see baptism as not t
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The Eastern Church‟s relationship
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insisted from the second Lateran Co
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There is so much that Orthodoxy sha
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we do not talk to each other. Our t
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The question of heresy does not com
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They were missionary-minded and the
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Lollard ideas lingered in English r
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CHAPTER 4 THE SECOND GREAT SPLIT: W
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unity‟s sake in subsequent centur
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Erasmus wrote he asserts, through o
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attle-cry, is perhaps the most famo
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Regulations for the good ordering o
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Eucharist was not just a commemorat
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CHAPTER 5 QUOTATIONS ON THE THEME O
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How rare then it is to meet a man w
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are often much bigger divisions bet
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St Germanus of Constantinople - 8 t
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manner. He declared that men could
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S L Greenslade - 20 th Century: „
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CHAPTER 6 HOPES FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY
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imminent return of Christ (Komensky
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a concern that merchant adventurers
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also anti-Socinian. Calixtus himsel
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The Eastern Churches were not rent
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everyone - from outward forms to in
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Women were not usually members of t
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work in America, shows him, though
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The aim of the conference was to br
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From 1768 Harris‟s home at Talgar
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twice more to congregations of Whit
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denominations was not their distinc
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It was from the overseas Protestant
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THE OXFORD TRACTARIAN MOVEMENT Anot
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the Church of England‟s doctrinal
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„We pray that… all who desire t
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thereof, in prayer, in the remembra
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honours the Lord and his Word; the
Page 109 and 110: apostolic church enjoyed, and that
Page 111 and 112: episcopate were too radical for mos
Page 113 and 114: Denominations began to form their o
Page 115 and 116: In this Shanghai Conference‟s Rep
Page 117 and 118: With so much talk of unity and coop
Page 119 and 120: „The liturgical movement in weste
Page 121 and 122: • Sharing a corporate life of wit
Page 123 and 124: • Our acknowledgement of the Apos
Page 125 and 126: (h) The Evangelical Church in Germa
Page 127 and 128: It changed nothing in respect of do
Page 129 and 130: Some Evangelical Protestants want t
Page 131 and 132: • It is in continuity with the
Page 133 and 134: But things have changed. Richard Ma
Page 135 and 136: evangelism - (and) state what the r
Page 137 and 138: Repentance and faith are at the hea
Page 139 and 140: outcome of being justified. Agreeme
Page 141 and 142: Virgin‟s salutary influence on me
Page 143 and 144: h) Confession The sacrament of pena
Page 145 and 146: demanding way would be sin. The que
Page 147 and 148: If the opportunity for the Church t
Page 149 and 150: Ministers, priests and laypeople in
Page 151 and 152: West Kirby, near to my home, the Si
Page 153 and 154: n) Shared Study Courses There is a
Page 155 and 156: Even some Protestant churches today
Page 157 and 158: Vincent de Lérins spoke of a „pr
Page 159: It is not likely, in the foreseeabl
Page 163 and 164: upon the name of our Lord Jesus Chr
Page 165 and 166: Perhaps this dying process is now b
Page 167 and 168: economic factors giving rise to suc
Page 169 and 170: deeper ecumenism, one that does not
Page 171 and 172: APPENDIX 1 THE NICENO-CONSTANTINOPO
Page 173 and 174: APPENDIX 2 FOUR BIBLICAL TEXTS ON T
Page 175 and 176: The „apostles and elders‟ of th
Page 177 and 178: „The purpose of the Reformation C
Page 179 and 180: What all three traditions have in c
Page 181 and 182: Cromwellian period, in a treatise o
Page 183 and 184: BIBLIOGRAPHY OF BOOKS AND DOCUMENTS
Page 185 and 186: Cullman, Oscar, The Earliest Christ
Page 187 and 188: McCarthy, Tim, The Catholic Traditi
Page 189 and 190: Letter concerning the civil princip
Page 191 and 192: Coptic Orthodox Church, 10 Council
Page 193 and 194: Parousia, 24, 68, 93 Paul VI, 10, 1
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