Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

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In another place, commenting on a Church of England minister who was beingopposed for having an interest in the despised ‘methodists’, he wrote: ‘PoorChurch of England, what will thou come to when the preachers of the Articlesare excluded from serving thee… .’ 90Scotland had its own divisions in this period, not so much on doctrinal lines ason matters of church organisation and the question of patronage overrulingthe desires of a local congregation. When Whitefield went to preach inScotland in July 1741 at the invitation of the Erskines, who had founded aSecession Church, he was dismayed to find that his friends did not want him topreach in the established church. Whitefield had a fine appreciation of theoneness of all believers in the body of Christ and would not confine his ministryto the secessionists in Scotland; his experience of preaching among bothAnglicans and Dissenters in the American Colonies created in him a dread ofdivision and bigotry in the Church.Looking back at those divisions today, it is easy to blame the failure to uniteon pride, personality clashes, or a certain crudeness of Biblical interpretationwhich saw everything in black and white terms and could not handle theparadoxes of theological debate. Perhaps the time was not ripe.Whatever differences the Wesleys and their followers and Whitefield andHarris and their followers had with the Moravians, the Moravian desire forChristian unity could not be doubted. Their patron and protector CountNicholas von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) 91 had a passion for unity.He had become patron of the persecuted Moravian Brethren, spiritualdescendants of the Unitas Fratrum, and offered them a refuge on his lands inSaxony, a settlement the Moravians called ‘Herrnhut’, ‘the Lord watches’. Thehistory of the arrival of these refugees in Herrnhut is a case study in ChristianUnity.90Manuscript Journal of William Seward, 6 Aug 1740, Bangor B Ms 34.91Zinzendorf, Nicholas von, see Lewis, A J, Zinzendorf – the Ecumenical Pioneer; a study ofthe Moravian Contribution to Christian Mission and Unity, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1862,Ch 6. Zinzendorf was a German aristocrat. He can be called the founder of the MoravianBrethren, who settled on his lands at Herrnhut in Saxony when they fled from persecution inGermany. They were the spiritual descendants of the Hussites and the Unitas Fratrum ofKomensky. Ordained by a Moravian bishop. Zinzendorf cannot be fitted into any of the usualsubclasses of Evangelicalism, though many Evangelical leaders were influenced by hispietism. He stressed a religion of the heart in protest against much arid intellectualism of hisday.Page 119
Some of the refugees were persuaded by a malcontent in their midst tobecome critical of Zinzendorf. Zinzendorf left his home in Dresden to settle inBerthelsdorf, a village a mile away from the refugees’ settlement. Among themwere not only Brethren of the unity, but other Protestants, Lutherans andCalvinists and some members of a quasi-Anabaptist group, theSchwenckfelders.Zinzendorf drew up a Brotherly union and Compact to weld these disparategroups together. The Herrnhutters signed it on 4 July 1727. It was then thatZinzendorf came across an old copy of the Brethren’s Discipline whichKomensky had edited, and read it to the Church at Berthelsdorf. On 13 Augustthat year the Pastor of the Berthelsdorf Lutheran Church, with Zinzendorfpresent, conducted a Communion service at which his own congregation andthe Herrnhut refugees took part.Moravian historians record that a sort of Pentecostal experience fell upon thecongregation, a tide of love and unity swept over them. From this eventMoravian missions worldwide were born. It was Moravian missionaries, sailingout to settle in Georgia, the new British colony in America, that awoke theWesleys to their need of assurance of faith. Zinzendorf, after he had himselfbecome an ordained and accredited minister of the Moravian Church in 1737,ordained Peter Bohler, who was influential in the Wesleys’ spiritual journey tofaith.Zinzendorf’s focus for Christian Unity was the adoration of the Lamb. Helonged for all ‘Christed ones’ to be visibly expressing their unity. People whohad ‘heart’ religion all belonged together in the One Church. The unity of these‘Christed ones’ in the entire world already exists, it has to be rediscovered andmade visible. The unity of the Church is a fact to be built on, not an ideal to beachieved.Denominationalism, for Zinzendorf, was not a disaster. He wrote: ‘Eachdenomination is generally possessed of some jewel peculiar to itself.’ 92 Thedivision of Europe into Catholic and Lutheran areas was an act of divineProvidence. The real cause of shame for the denominations was not theirdistinctiveness, but that nominal Christians were allowed to rule in them.Nominal Christians do not ‘adhere to Jesus as the Lamb of God.’ As soon as two92Lewis, A J, Zinzendorf – the Ecumenical Pioneer; a study of the Moravian Contributionto Christian Mission and Unity, SCM Press Ltd, London, 1862, Ch 6, p 80.Page 120
Page 11 and 12:
Can Christian Unity be expressed ac
Page 13 and 14:
‘In the Trinity the three are one
Page 15 and 16:
Protestants, equally, have to be ab
Page 17 and 18:
When John Wesley said that Christia
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(Geneva) Agreed Statement was issue
Page 21 and 22:
While organised Christian endeavour
Page 23 and 24:
Christian Unity consist?’ We shal
Page 25 and 26:
CHAPTER 1CHRISTIAN UNITY IN THE EAR
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Almost all the heresies in the Earl
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interpreted as being against the la
Page 31 and 32:
was raised by the Novatian schism.
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ArianismArianism was the most impor
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the Person of Christ. This was the
Page 37 and 38:
Nicaea (325 AD), which asserted, ag
Page 39 and 40:
He wrote:‘The ancient doctrines o
Page 41 and 42:
agreement into the terms and ethics
Page 43 and 44:
authority of the local bishop; Cypr
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Protestants. He was born in Tagaste
Page 47 and 48:
guide the affairs of men: the Papac
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The distinction between laity and c
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ule. Christians were allowed to be
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fallen corruption and mortality but
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During the 1917 Communist Revolutio
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his repentance and restoration. The
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just before death, they might recei
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In both the East and the West heres
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The Waldensians were so named after
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CHAPTER 4THE SECOND GREAT SPLIT: WE
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Far more serious criticisms of the
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and the sacraments. He was tried by
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and his discovering that the Script
Page 73 and 74: denominational allegiances: confess
Page 75 and 76: aptism and substituting for it bapt
Page 77 and 78: Vincent de Lérins’ threefold bas
Page 79 and 80: Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorra
Page 81 and 82: CHAPTER 5QUOTATIONS ON THE THEME OF
Page 83 and 84: Dr Charles Malik - 20 th Century:
Page 85 and 86: Nicholas Zernov - 20 th Century:‘
Page 87 and 88: The restoration of the universal Ch
Page 89 and 90: Timothy Ware - 20 th Century:‘It
Page 91 and 92: Basilea Schlink - 20 th Century:‘
Page 93 and 94: Cardinal Basil Hume - 20 th Century
Page 95 and 96: Keith A Fournier - 20 th Century:
Page 97 and 98: concept of a contract between a rul
Page 99 and 100: harmoniously ordered society of pea
Page 101 and 102: interesting to note that the disput
Page 103 and 104: • In the Eucharist, Komensky main
Page 105 and 106: The Conference opened with much pom
Page 107 and 108: a growing unity among Christians at
Page 109 and 110: We cannot leave the 17 th Century w
Page 111 and 112: CHAPTER 7CHRISTIAN UNITY AND THE EV
Page 113 and 114: In Dr Woodward’s account of the r
Page 115 and 116: for Whitefield’s work in America,
Page 117 and 118: the West, the North and the South.
Page 119 and 120: ‘John Wesley, displeased at not b
Page 121 and 122: formally, though it may have helped
Page 123: In view of all this, Charles Wesley
Page 127 and 128: Isaac Watts (1647-1748), the pionee
Page 129 and 130: CHAPTER 8VISIONS OF CHRISTIAN UNITY
Page 131 and 132: hymns and Eastern orthodox spiritua
Page 133 and 134: eplied with a series of Eirenicons
Page 135 and 136: positively wrote on grace and love
Page 137 and 138: hand that pours out sorrow’ and t
Page 139 and 140: He died in England in 1853 an ‘ec
Page 141 and 142: assembly, without much hesitation r
Page 143 and 144: ‘Loving all whom Christ loves bec
Page 145 and 146: says, the Broad Church was ‘a moo
Page 147 and 148: far greater part for the laity in t
Page 149 and 150: ehind some of the criticism of the
Page 151 and 152: came together with the clear purpos
Page 153 and 154: In subsequent missionary conference
Page 155 and 156: university formed by a federation o
Page 157 and 158: credo-baptists to accept the provis
Page 159 and 160: Horton Davies 137 points out in his
Page 161 and 162: However, since New Delhi, the WCC s
Page 163 and 164: (b) The Church of Christ in China (
Page 165 and 166: the Scriptures as the supreme autho
Page 167 and 168: In 1970 a similar scheme to that of
Page 169 and 170: indulgences, were all confirmed str
Page 171 and 172: however, at a lower level, manifest
Page 173 and 174: In her study of the Evolution of th
Page 175 and 176:
Even within the Reformed Protestant
Page 177 and 178:
the publisher’s foreword to Gee
Page 179 and 180:
and so I have some golden opportuni
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CHAPTER 10 THESE BRIDGES CAN’T BE
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‘Only he - only Christ - was able
Page 185 and 186:
c) Justification by Faith and Works
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However, in the Credo of the People
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f) Purgatory‘Purgatory’ is a na
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The Catechism of the Catholic Churc
Page 193 and 194:
who love and trust the Lord Jesus C
Page 195 and 196:
However, there is a growing awarene
Page 197 and 198:
encouraged to receive a blessing al
Page 199 and 200:
c) Traduction Œcumenique de la Bib
Page 201 and 202:
witness. There is one such Sisterho
Page 203 and 204:
Practically all para-church groups
Page 205 and 206:
s) Missions and CampaignsMissions a
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My Protestant friends say to me tha
Page 209 and 210:
Most Christians, in all three tradi
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of God may be complete, equipped fo
Page 213 and 214:
CHAPTER 12NOW WHAT?This book began
Page 215 and 216:
c) For some Protestants ecumenism m
Page 217 and 218:
The church at Corinth was full of C
Page 219 and 220:
) It has become clear that, realist
Page 221 and 222:
Christians who believe a Catholic d
Page 223 and 224:
There are three confessions that ha
Page 225 and 226:
‘The solution to the ecumenical i
Page 227 and 228:
k) Christ has left us an example -
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day’, the Niceno-Constantinopolit
Page 231 and 232:
APPENDIX 2FOUR BIBLICAL TEXTS ON TH
Page 233 and 234:
of the common good, and when one’
Page 235 and 236:
eaten, as idols did not exist anywa
Page 237 and 238:
14. That to continue in any known s
Page 239 and 240:
What all three traditions have in c
Page 241 and 242:
Calvin held that the Gospel of Jesu
Page 243 and 244:
Relations between Protestantism, Ca
Page 245 and 246:
Brandreth, Henry, R T, The Oecumeni
Page 247 and 248:
Hopko, Thomas, All the Fullness of
Page 249 and 250:
Rupp, E G and Drewery, Benjamin, Ma
Page 251 and 252:
INDEXAAct of Uniformity, 114aggiorn
Page 253 and 254:
Frame, John M, 91, 187Francis of As
Page 255 and 256:
Richardson, Paul, 239Roman Catholic
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