Digging Out the Embedded Church - The Maranatha Community

d) We should encourage informal grass-roots collaboration through ‘para-church
associations.’
It is quite remarkable how the concept of cooperation between Christians of groups who were
formerly hostile to each other has gathered pace. Progress has been made in unity, in the
cooperation of Christians at a local level on social projects to help the community, in joint
prayer meetings and study groups and in open witness to the Gospel. There is no evidence
that involvement in para-church activities lessens a person‟s commitment to his or her own
denomination.
In the book Evangelicals and Catholics Together (1996), J I Packer, a respected Reformed
theologian, urged both sides to engage in „informal grass roots collaboration‟ through „parachurch
associations‟. In general, Evangelicals and Catholics Together holds that the binding
force of the acceptance of the classical Creeds, together with the renewal by the Holy Spirit
which exalts Christ as the only Saviour and Lord, creates a solid basis for united service and
witness.
Hope 2008 was planned for the UK by para-church groups getting Christians to work
together. Katei Kirby of the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliances wrote: „Hope 2008
has the potential to fulfil Jesus‟ prayer in John 17, breaking down barriers between race,
culture and custom.‟
The 20 th Century saw such para-church activity multiply in schemes of evangelism, Christian
witness in universities and colleges, in emergency and development programmes worldwide
and in prayer and worship.
e) We should accept the place of paradox in Christian theology.
A lot of disagreeable and unproductive argument would have been avoided in the past if the
principle of „Both-Neither‟ had been applied where it could be. There is a place of paradox in
Christian theology. Jan Amos Komensky‟s „Both-Neither‟ principle ought to be taken
seriously. It cannot always be applied, of course, but it is most helpful in the areas of
justification by faith and works, on free will and predestination, on the doctrine of the Trinity
as an Undivided Unity and as a Composite Godhead, and on Christ as both truly man and
truly God.
f) We should stand together on the essentials of unity.
Again and again in the history of Christian Unity we hear the cry to make the „essentials‟ the
basis of unity and to leave aside „non-essentials‟. The question is, „What are the essentials?‟,
and great disagreements have resulted from opening up this matter. Sifting through the many
arguments and discussions, however, it becomes clear that Christianity is essentially a
religion of grace, and that what makes a person a Christian is the heart-cry „God be merciful
to me, a sinner‟, expressed on the grounds of what Christ has done for me through his death
and resurrection. To become a Christian the indwelling Christ in one‟s soul is enough.
In the past, animosities grew between Christians as to what were the essentials, even to the
point of doing violence to each other. There were often political, international and even
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