Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

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APPENDIX 5CHARISMATIC GIFTS IN THE CHURCHIn the days of the Apostles, miraculous signs and wonders were unitinginfluences among the early Christians and drew many pagans to faith (Acts5.12-16). Subsequently, the belief in miraculous interventions, especially inhealings, was kept alive throughout most centuries of Christian history.For Eusebius, the first historian of the Early Church, as for Bede writing thehistory of the Anglo-Saxon Church, miracles were part and parcel of theChristian experience. Augustine, in the 5 th Century, changed from doubtingthat miracles still happened after the days of the Apostles to accepting thatthey did occur.The cult of relics kept alive the belief in miracles throughout the Medievalperiod, but the Protestant Reformation, in moving away from superstitions,disregarded the miraculous as a vital element of the Christian faith. Evenbefore the scepticism of the ‘Enlightenment’, mainstream Protestantism ruledthat miraculous healings and gifts of the Spirit had died out with the death ofthe Apostles.In Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536), 207 there are only a fewreferences to what can be termed the apostolic gift of healing (4.19.18-21 and19.6). He sees the Roman Catholic sacrament of extreme unction as originallyintroduced to bring healing to the very ill (James 5.13-16), but concludes thatmiraculous healings passed away after the days of the Apostles. He writes:‘...those miraculous powers and manifest workings, which were dispensedby the laying on of hands, have ceased; and they have rightly lasted onlyfor a time. For it was fitting that the new preaching of the gospel and thenew kingdom of Christ should be illumined and magnified by unheard-ofand extraordinary miracles. When the Lord ceased from these, he did notutterly forsake his church, but declared that the magnificence of thekingdom and the dignity of his word had been excellently enoughdisclosed.’207The Library of Christian Classics Volume XXI, Calvin: The Institutes of the ChristianReligion Books III.XX to IV.XX, ed John T McNeill, translated by Ford Lewis Battles,London, SCM Press Ltd, 1961, 4.19.6.Page 235
Calvin held that the Gospel of Jesus was of a different order after the days ofthe Apostles, but gives no scriptural basis for this view. This cessionist view ofmiraculous gifts was to become the settled view of Reformed Protestantismfrom then on.The Puritans, 208 following Calvin, taught that the charismatic gifts of theApostles were not for the present day. John Owen (1616-1683), the greatPuritan theologian of the Cromwellian period, in a treatise on the Holy Spirit,took the usual line that miraculous gifts in the Church had ceased with thedeath of the Apostles, but suggested that God might one day introduce themagain.The teaching and example of George Fox inspired some of his followers(Quakers) to experience instant illuminations and demonstrations of the powerof the Holy Spirit in their lives.The rationalist Latitudinarians of the 18 th Century, on the whole, rejected anyclaim to an immediate experience of the power of the Holy Spirit, and it wasonly with the Evangelical Revival in Britain in the 18 th Century that healings andmanifestations of the power of the Holy Spirit were experienced in mainstreamProtestantism. 209Some attempt to restore the gifts of the days of the Apostles was made in the19 th Century by the Irvingites, but in the 20 th Century the phenomenon ofPentecostalism, in its various forms, declared that the apostolic gifts hadactually been restored to the Church.Although the question of healing and other charismatic phenomena asinterventions of God can be divisive, it is taken seriously by groups within allthe main denominations and so can be a factor furthering Christian Unity. Thewhole question is probably not so divisive now as it has been in the last fewcenturies.208I use the term ‘Puritan’ not in the strictest sense to refer only to those established clergyof the 16 th Century who opposed the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, but in the wider senseto mean those Protestants, both Anglicans and Dissenters, who held to the main tenets of a‘Calvinist’ theology. Such Puritans flourished up to a little after the Restoration of theMonarchy.209Isolated movements, such as the 1625 Six Mile Water revival in Antrim, excepted.Page 236
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
Page 19 and 20:
(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
Page 35 and 36:
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
Page 45 and 46:
Protestants. He was born in Tagaste
Page 47 and 48:
guide the affairs of men: the Papac
Page 49 and 50:
The distinction between laity and c
Page 51 and 52:
ule. Christians were allowed to be
Page 53 and 54:
fallen corruption and mortality but
Page 55 and 56:
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
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denominational allegiances: confess
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aptism and substituting for it bapt
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Vincent de Lérins’ threefold bas
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Charles de Guise, Cardinal of Lorra
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CHAPTER 5QUOTATIONS ON THE THEME OF
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Dr Charles Malik - 20 th Century:
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Nicholas Zernov - 20 th Century:‘
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The restoration of the universal Ch
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Timothy Ware - 20 th Century:‘It
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Basilea Schlink - 20 th Century:‘
Page 93 and 94:
Cardinal Basil Hume - 20 th Century
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Keith A Fournier - 20 th Century:
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concept of a contract between a rul
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harmoniously ordered society of pea
Page 101 and 102:
interesting to note that the disput
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• In the Eucharist, Komensky main
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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,
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the West, the North and the South.
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‘John Wesley, displeased at not b
Page 121 and 122:
formally, though it may have helped
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In view of all this, Charles Wesley
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Some of the refugees were persuaded
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Isaac Watts (1647-1748), the pionee
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CHAPTER 8VISIONS OF CHRISTIAN UNITY
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hymns and Eastern orthodox spiritua
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eplied with a series of Eirenicons
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positively wrote on grace and love
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hand that pours out sorrow’ and t
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He died in England in 1853 an ‘ec
Page 141 and 142:
assembly, without much hesitation r
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‘Loving all whom Christ loves bec
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says, the Broad Church was ‘a moo
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far greater part for the laity in t
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ehind some of the criticism of the
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came together with the clear purpos
Page 153 and 154:
In subsequent missionary conference
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university formed by a federation o
Page 157 and 158:
credo-baptists to accept the provis
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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 (
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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
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and so I have some golden opportuni
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CHAPTER 10 THESE BRIDGES CAN’T BE
Page 183 and 184:
‘Only he - only Christ - was able
Page 185 and 186:
c) Justification by Faith and Works
Page 187 and 188:
However, in the Credo of the People
Page 189 and 190: f) Purgatory‘Purgatory’ is a na
Page 191 and 192: 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
Page 207 and 208: My Protestant friends say to me tha
Page 209 and 210: Most Christians, in all three tradi
Page 211 and 212: 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 -
Page 229 and 230: 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: What all three traditions have in c
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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