Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

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.
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