Christian Unity (the book) - The Maranatha Community

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Some asserted that the Holy Spirit was created by the Son and was thussubordinate to the Father and the Son. (In Orthodox Christian theology, God isone in essence but three in Person – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who aredistinct and equal.) Those who accepted the heresy were called Macedonians,but were also and more descriptively known as pneumatomachians, the ‘spiritfighters’.Some sources attribute leadership of the group to Macedonius, a semi-Arianwho was twice bishop of Constantinople (died c.362 AD). Today there are sectsand cults which continue this heresy.PelagianismIn the early 5 th Century, as the Goths began to press on the boundaries of theRoman Empire to the north, another heresy, Pelagianism, appeared, whichthreatened the very basis of salvation as taught in the New Testament. Thequestion raised was, can a person in any way save himself?An ascetic theologian from Britain, Pelagius, living in Rome, was concernedabout the moral standing of Christians. Pelagius wanted to safeguard man’sfree will, with each person responsible for his own actions as the basis forjudgement. But he went further and denied original sin and taught that byright choices and good living a man could justify himself before God. This wasstrongly opposed by Augustine, who saw it as undermining the free grace ofGod in salvation.Pelagian ideas, in some form or other, were to survive right through Christianhistory, probably acting as a corrective to those extreme doctrines of gracewhich deny any free will in man.NestorianismIn the late 4 th Century the divine and human natures of Christ caused muchdebate in the Church. Nestorius, a patriarch of Constantinople, seems to havetaught that there were two separate natures in the incarnate Christ, the onedivine and the other human. This was not a question of denying either thedeity or humanity of Christ, but an attempt to show that they were distinct inPage 29
the Person of Christ. This was the form of Christianity that first reached the FarEast (China) in the 8 th Century, as witnessed by the Sigan-fu Stone. 15Nestorius was challenged to say whether he could call the Virgin Mary‘Theotokos’ (God-bearer) and ‘Mother of God’. He rejected these terms andcould not conceive how the divine logos could be totally one with the humanJesus. Christ was one Person, with two distinct natures. So in Jesus there wasthe Christ born of Mary (so he could use the term ‘Christotokos’), and therewas also the ‘Son of God’.Nestorianism lingered on in the East and only disappeared from Kurdistanduring the First World War.MonophysitismIn the 5 th Century a completely different perspective of the Person of Christwas seen in Monophysitism (from the Greek monos meaning ‘one, alone’ andphysis meaning ‘nature’). Unlike Nestorianism, it saw only one nature in Christ:the human nature was absorbed into the divine at the Incarnation.Both Nestorianism and Monophysitism were attempts to try to define therelationships of these two natures, human and divine, in Christ. Athanasius hadwritten about a ‘natural union’ (henosis phusikos) but he wisely did notattempt to define the mode of that union. Nestorianism held that the union ofthe two natures was a moral union, that is, the more Jesus ‘the man’ acted intune with God, the closer he came to union with ‘the logos’. The heart ofMonophysitism is to be found in the assertion that there is but one nature, thedivine, in Christ.A A Luce, in his work on Monophysitism, 16 points out the serious implicationsof the Monophysite view for Christian theology. He believed it tended toreduce appreciation of Jesus as human; his sufferings and passion are played15The Sigan-fu Stone (North West China). A Nestorian tablet from 781 AD found in the early17 th Century. The inscription on it in Chinese gives evidence of a Nestorian missionary,Olopen (or Alopen) bringing his brand of Christianity to China in the 8 th Century. See Cross,F L and Livingstone, E A, eds, The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, OxfordUniversity Press, 1997.16Luce, A A, Monophysitism, Past and Present, SPCK, 1920.Page 30
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
Page 27 and 28: Almost all the heresies in the Earl
Page 29 and 30: interpreted as being against the la
Page 31 and 32: was raised by the Novatian schism.
Page 33: ArianismArianism was the most impor
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
Page 57 and 58: his repentance and restoration. The
Page 59 and 60: just before death, they might recei
Page 61 and 62: In both the East and the West heres
Page 63 and 64: The Waldensians were so named after
Page 65 and 66: CHAPTER 4THE SECOND GREAT SPLIT: WE
Page 67 and 68: Far more serious criticisms of the
Page 69 and 70: and the sacraments. He was tried by
Page 71 and 72: 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
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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
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harmoniously ordered society of pea
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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
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a growing unity among Christians at
Page 109 and 110:
We cannot leave the 17 th Century w
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CHAPTER 7CHRISTIAN UNITY AND THE EV
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In Dr Woodward’s account of the r
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for Whitefield’s work in America,
Page 117 and 118:
the West, the North and the South.
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‘John Wesley, displeased at not b
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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
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
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‘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
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In subsequent missionary conference
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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 (
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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
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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
Page 181 and 182:
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
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c) Traduction Œcumenique de la Bib
Page 201 and 202:
witness. There is one such Sisterho
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Practically all para-church groups
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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 -
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 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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