Austria long presented itself as the first victim of the Nazis, a narrative initially supported by the Allies even though large parts of Austrian society celebrated the Anschluss and many took on roles in the Nazi war effort and the Holocaust.
The so-called 'victim myth' only began to crumble in the 1980s when an international scandal unfolded around Kurt Waldheim, who played down his past as an army intelligence lieutenant attached to Germany military units and became United Nations Secretary-General and president of Austria.
The process is still going on. Until 2013, visitors to an Austrian exhibition in Auschwitz, the Nazis' most notorious death camp, could see a display reading "Austria - First Victim of National Socialism". Austria is still updating the exhibit.
Source: YNET News - "Austria's Nazi past encroaches on election campaign", 1 Dec 2016, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4887151,00.html
Jesus' Last Request ... Our Response ...
As members of the Church we have every reason to repent. In many ways we have hardened ourselves agains the Spirit of God. Jesus' last request was that we would be one. Our response was division, hatred and mutual condemnation. True, recent decades have seen improved relations between the major branches of Christianity. Yet how much in-fighting, divisiveness and entrenchment we still see within the Protestant camp.
Source: M. Basilea Schlink - Repentance: The Joy-Filled Life, p. 33
An Even Greater Eucharist Fellowship
[Pope Francis] encouraged Catholics and evangelicals to work “to overcome the existing obstacles” by persevering with “insistent prayer” and “every [other] effort,” including “intensifying the theological dialogue and reinforcing collaboration between us.”
...
He recognized that progress has been made “in the spirit of reconciliation,” adding that the churches are working together “to seek the way forward to an even greater Eucharist fellowship.”
[Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, the chairperson of the Council of the Evangelical Church (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, abbreviated E.K.D.) in Germany] said the issue has been raised in the various dialogues with the Vatican. Cardinal Marx confirmed this effort at a press conference in Rome with the German evangelical leaders that followed the meeting with the pope. He said both sides are working together “to figure out if we can reach a common line.”
Source: Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm - Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, the chairperson of the Council of the Evangelical Church (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, abbreviated E.K.D.) in Germany, as quoted by Gerard O'Connell in "German Evangelical Church issues historic invite to Pope Francis", America : The Jesuit Review, 6 Feb 2017
http://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/02/06/german-evangelical-church-issues-historic-invite-pope-francis
The Unity Pilgrims of Clonard Monastery
One of the most obvious examples of ecumenical tithing here in Ireland are the Unity Pilgrims of Clonard Monastery, who visit various Protestant churches in and around Belfast to share in their Sunday morning services.
...
Unfortunately, such initiatives are few and far between, forcing me to ask why – in a society divided along religious lines – the churches have not implemented, or perhaps even considered, ecumenical tithing?
Source: Gladys Ganiel - From her blog post "Fr Michael Hurley on Ecumenical Tithing", 5 November 2011, http://www.gladysganiel.com/irish-catholic-church/fr-michael-hurley-on-ecumenical-tithing/
Abbot Tryphon
In the Book of Acts we read that with the coming of the Holy Spirit, diverse expressions of languages were being spoken. And in Revelation we see a glimpse of eternity with men and women from every tongue, tribe, and nation making up the choir of eternal praise (Rev. 7:9). That the writers of Scripture took notice of ethnicity, and saw diversity as good, makes it impossible for the Christian to hold to thoughts of racial superiority, or separation of the races.
Source: Abbot Tryphon - "The Evil of Racism", posted on his FB page on 3 June 2020
As We Forgive Those ...
Abbot Gregory Polan of Conception Abbey framed the duty to forgive with his Catholic faith, pointing to the words of the “Our Father” prayer: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
The prayer challenged Polan in 2002 when a gunman killed two of the abbey’s monks and seriously wounded two others. Some of his religious brothers forgave easier than others.
The benefits always go beyond the individual.
“We forgive ourselves and then turn to others we have hurt,” Polan said. “Forgiveness is a one-way street, and reconciliation is a two-way street.”
Source: Abbot Gregory Polan of Conception Abbey, as quoted by Mark Morris in "Forgiveness is Harder in Practice than in Theory," Mark Morris, The Kansas City Star, 1 March 2015, http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/local-columnists/article11877386.html#storylink=cpy
Germany Invites the Pope To Visit the Land of Reformation
For the first time since the Reformation, the Evangelical Church in Germany, which represents the vast majority of Protestants in that country, has invited the pope to visit their homeland, the nation where the Reformation began. An ecumenical delegation from Germany visited Pope Francis in the Vatican on Feb. 6 as part of the commemoration of the 500th anniversary of that event.
Source: Gerard O'Connell - "German Evangelical Church issues historic invite to Pope Francis", America : The Jesuit Review, 6 Feb 2017, http://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/02/06/german-evangelical-church-issues-historic-invite-pope-francis
Most Feared Religious Group in America
About a century ago, millions of Americans feared that members of a religious group was amassing an arsenal of weapons for a secret, preplanned takeover of the United States.
The feared religious group wasn’t Muslims. It was, as Los Angeles Times reporter Matt Pearce wrote in a great piece in 2015, Catholics.
Source: German Lopez - "100 years ago, Americans talked about Catholics the way they talk about Muslims today", Vox, 18 Jan 2017, http://www.vox.com/2017/1/18/14312104/islamophobia-catholics
Rebel or Reformer?
Initially Luther was working to reform the Catholic Church, not trying to start a new church.
Source: Richard Foster - Streams of Living Water, p. 292
A Critic Finds The Right Position
In his book, The Vision and The Vow, Pete Greig tells of how a distinguished art critic was studying an exquisite painting by the Italian Renaissance master Filippino Lippi. He stood in London’s National Gallery gazing at the fifteenth-century depiction of Mary holding the infant Jesus on her lap, with saints Dominic and Jerome kneeling nearby. But the painting troubled him. There could be no doubting Lippi’s skill, his use of colour or composition. But the proportions of the picture seemed slightly wrong. The hills in the background seemed exaggerated, as if they might topple out of the frame at any minute onto the gallery’s polished floor. The two kneeling saints looked awkward and uncomfortable.
Art critic Robert Cumming was not the first to criticise Lippi’s work for its poor perspective, but he may well be the last to do so, because at that moment he had a revelation. It suddenly occurred to him that the problem might be his. The painting he was analysing with clinical objectivity was not just another piece of religious art hanging in a gallery alongside other comparative works. It had never been intended to come anywhere near a gallery. Lippi’s painting had been commissioned to hang in a place of prayer.
Self-consciously, the dignified critic dropped to his knees in the public gallery before the painting. He suddenly saw what generations of art critics had missed. From his new vantage point, Robert Cumming found himself gazing up at a perfectly proportioned piece. The foreground had moved naturally to the background, while the saints seemed settled – their awkwardness, like the painting itself, having turned to grace. Mary now looked intently and kindly directly at him as he knelt at her feet between saints Dominic and Jerome.
It was not the perspective of the painting that had been wrong all these years, it was the perspective of the people looking at it. Robert Cumming, on bended knee, found a beauty that Robert Cumming the proud art critic could not. The painting only came alive to those on their knees in prayer. The right perspective is the position of worship.
Source: Nicky & Pippa Gumbel - As quoted in Bible App, commentary for 29 July 2016
Packer @ 90
Packer recognized that the deep division that had separated Protestants and Catholics since the time of the Reformation had changed in a significant way. The most important fault line today, he argued, was between “conservationists,” who honor the Christ of the Bible and of the historic creeds and confessions, on the one hand, and the theological liberals and radicals who do not, on the other. In this new situation, Packer argued that ECT has a vital role to play:
“ECT … must be viewed as fuel for a fire that is already alight. The grassroots coalition at which the document aims is already growing. It can be argued that, so far from running ahead of God, as some fear, ECT is playing catch-up to the Holy Spirit.”
Source: Timothy George - "Packer at Ninety", First Things, October 2016, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/10/packer-at-ninety
Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan
Paul's description of the restored Corinthian congregation as "chaste", "holy", and "pure" (agnous) evokes her preparation for a renewed relationship with Israel's God modeled on Isaiah's description of Judah's renewed relationship with YHWH after the Exile (2 Cor 7:11; see also 11:2). Ultimately, the Corinthian congregation's marital purity signifies their reconciliation with God and presages the abundance of grace to which that relationship will give birth.
Source: Rabbi Jonathan Kaplan - "Comfort, O Comfort, Corinth: Grief and Comfort in 2 Corinthians 7:5-13a", Harvard Theological Review, 104:4 (2011), p. 443-444
Identificational Repentance in Germany in 1945
Another example of mainline denominational corporate confession comes from the German Lutheran Church. At the end of World War II, in October 1945, the newly formed United Evangelical Lutheran Church, under the influence of one of its leaders, the prominent anti-Nazi theologian and pastor, Rev. Dr. Martin Niemöller, who had resisted the Nazis alongside the famous Christian martyr, Rev. Dr. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, issued the Stuttgart Confession of Guilt (Stuttgarter Schulderklärung). In the Stuttgart Confession, the German Lutheran church identified with and confessed the corporate guilt of the German people for the widespread suffering perpetrated by the former Nazi government with words like the following:
With great pain we say: Through us unending suffering has been brought upon many nations and countries. . . . Now a new beginning should be made in our churches.
Apparently the Lutheran denominational leadership felt such identificational repentance was in keeping with their theological understanding of Christian confession. This kind of corporate confession of national guilt has been articulated and discussed over the past decades by German theologians like Dr. Martin Honecker and Dr. Gerhard Besier, as well as by German New Testament scholars like Dr. Bertold Klappert of the University of Göttingen.
Source: Stuttgart Confession of Guilt - As quoted by Dr. Gary S. Greig, The Biblical Foundations of Identificational Repentance as One Prayer Pattern Useful to Advance God's Kingdom and Evangelism, April 2001
I See A People ...
I see it happening, this great new gathering of the people of God. I see an obedient, disciplined, freely gathered people who know in our day the life and powers of the kingdom of God.
I see a people of cross and crown, of courageous action and sacrificial love.
I see a people who are combining evangelism with social action, the transcendent Lordship of Jesus with the suffering servant Messiah.
I see a people who are buoyed up by the vision of Christ's everlasting rule, not only imminent on the horizon, but already bursting forth in our midst.
I see a people ... I see a people ... even though it feels as if I am peering through a glass darkly.
Source: Richard Foster - Streams of Living Water, p. 274
After the Fire
A fire engulfed Sts. Mary & James Church in Guthrie, Ky., on February 10, 2015.
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The Catholic community would have been “homeless,” but when the church burned down, the congregation was able to lean on longstanding relationships of goodwill with other churches—which Father Frank Ruff, and other Glenmarians before him, helped nurture.
“(Protestant) ministers and Amish people came running during the fire,” explained Anita, a Catholic parishioner. “Before the roof collapsed, everyone from town rescued everything ... It was a sight to see a Baptist minister carrying out a statue of the Blessed Mother.”
Source: Frank Lesko - "After the Fire", Posted 3 Jan 2017 on Glenmary Home Missioners, http://www.glenmary.org/after-the-fire/
A Rare Public Reconciliation for a Lynching
The words echoed through LaGrange's Warren Temple United Methodist Church Thursday night, where more than 200 people crammed into pews and folding chairs to remember Callaway.
It was a rare public reconciliation for a lynching, attended by black and white people, police, civilians and clergy, sitting and standing side by side. Programs ran out as attendance exceeded expectations, forcing people into an overflow room in a building next door.
Source: Emanuella Grinberg, CNN - "'Justice failed Austin Callaway': Town attempts to atone for 1940 lynching", Emanuella Grinberg, CNN, 28 Jan 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/us/lagrange-georgia-callaway-1940-lynching/index.html
"Equally Touched by the Same Unexpected Grace"
But it was with the dramatic outbreak of [the charismatic] movement in the Roman Catholic Church in early 1967 that its unprecedented range became unmistakable. Never before since the division that rent Western Christendom in the sixteenth century had Protestants and Catholics been brought into the same movement of revival and renewal. This was not like getting Catholics and Protestants to have a common service for peace or some other cause of mutual concern. Both were being equally touched by the same unexpected grace. Peopel from both sides were being so grasped by teh Spirit of God that they were all able to worship God together in a way that neither could before.
Source: Fr. Peter Hocken - One Lord One Spirit One Body, pp.38
The Future Of Protestantism
The living God has reached into the post-Reformation Church and has begun tearing apart the sagging fences that have mapped our territories and discarding the badges that have named us. This is happening to the entire Church, and for that reason we should not be talking about the future of Protestantism but about the Church of the future. If we focus on the future of our particular enterprise, we perpetuate the tribalism we should renounce. If we rebuild what God is destroying, are we not transgressors?
Source: Peter Leithart - First Things, "The Future of Protestantism: The Churches Must Die to be Raised Anew", August 2014, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/08/the-future-of-protestantism
Hamilton
There are moments that the words don't reach
There's a grace too powerful to name
We push away what we can never understand
We push away the unimaginable
They are standing in the garden
Alexander by Eliza's side
She takes his hand
It's quiet uptown
Forgiveness, can you imagine?
Forgiveness, can you imagine?
If you see him in the street
Walking by her side, talking by her side, have pity
They are going through the unimaginable
- Lin-manuel Miranda, “It’s Quiet Uptown”, from the musical Hamilton, listen to the whole song at https://youtu.be/vjEoOeXId1k
Fr. Symonds
“It was during this time that the then-Bishop (Cahal) Daly, now Cardinal Daly, introduced me to a diocesan priest, Father Martin McGill, saying ‘You two should have something in common,’ because of our joint interest in ecumenism. Martin and I immediately clicked – we shared a common vision – and after the synod we continued to meet and pray for peace and reconciliation,” he said.
“I became convinced that God was calling me to work in Northern Ireland, but it took two years to convince everyone else – they say that the test of a true vocation is opposition and patience,” added Father Symonds.
In 1999, Father Symonds moved to Belfast and joined the Columbanus Community of Reconciliation, where three Protestants and three Catholics lived together in an interchurch community.
Source: Fr. Paul Symonds - As quoted by the Catholic Review in "English priest receives awards for work in Northern Ireland", 5 Jan 2008, http://www.catholicreview.org/article/faith/vocations/english-priest-receives-award-for-work-in-northern-ireland