Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

‘By the closing decades of the 20 th century, that century of remarkableecumenical advances, differences in Order would continue to divide, eventhough disagreement in Faith had lost much of its divisive power.’Michael Root writes in the same volume of essays 186 of the dilemmaecumenists are in today because of the different views of what the Church is.Each tradition is separated from the others by its ecclesiology, yet all share themarks of ‘Church’. Now even Orthodox and Catholic theologians have come (orare coming) to accept that Christian groups other than themselves can bethought of as ‘Churches’ in some sense. This points to an acceptance that therecan be some kind of Christian Unity without Churches being united organically.The answer to the dilemma is, first and foremost, to define who and what is aChristian. 187 The highly complex sacramental system which developed in theOrthodox and Catholic Churches would seem to tell us that the unregenerate isbrought to salvation by ceremonies conducted by the Church. The infant isbrought to Christ through baptism. This is the medieval way of salvation, whichbegan to evolve in Church history in the 2 nd Century.Even some Protestant churches today, heirs of the teaching of the MagisterialReformers who held to a medieval concept of the church as co-extensive withsociety, while not subscribing to baptismal regeneration, see infant baptism asbringing a child into God’s covenant with the Church. But these churcheswould insist that, for a child to become a Christian, there must be personalfaith in Jesus as Saviour.In 1990 Keith A Fournier wrote a book with the title Evangelical Catholics. 188 Init he claimed to be such a Christian and held it up as the most natural ofdescriptions for a believer in Jesus. Yet he remained committed to the teachingand discipline of the Roman Catholic Church. He writes of his conversionexperience:‘“Lord, I want to believe,” I cried out, “If you are real, please come to meand save me. I confess my sin, and I ask your forgiveness. I invite you, LordJesus Christ, to be my Saviour.”’186Ed Braaten, Carl E and Jenson, Robert W, The Ecumenical Future, William B EerdmansPublishing Co 2004, pp 106ff.187Coad, F R, A History of the Brethren Movement, The Paternoster Press, 1968, p 277.188Fournier, Keith A, Evangelical Catholics, Thos Nelson Publishers, Nashville, 1990.Page 201