Historical Antecedents for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity

What were some of the important historical antecedents to this octave of prayer?

Certainly in the 19th century, the desire for Christians to pray together was part of the spirit of the age among those alarmed by the divisions which weakened the power of Christian witness. In 1846, for instance, the Evangelical Alliance was established in London and had developed both international and inter-church connections. Ruth Rouse noted that it was “the one and only definitely ecumenical organization . . . which arose out of the Evangelical Awakening in the 19th century” (A History of the Ecumenical Movement: 1517-1948). The concept of unity espoused in their constitution was union among Christian individuals of different churches for renewal in the Spirit; they would not deal with the question of the reunion of churches. The Alliance set aside one week beginning on the first Sunday of the year, for united prayer by members of different churches to pray for renewal in the Spirit.

Source: Rev. Thomas Orians, S.A. - "BACKGROUND: Brief History of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2017", by Rev. Thomas Orians, S.A., Associate Director of Graymoor Ecumenical & Interreligious Institute, http://geii.org/week_of_prayer_for_christian_unity/background/brief_history.html

I Forgave Shavod

Quoting Steven McDonald, a NYPD officer shot by a teenager and paralyzed:

I forgave Shavod because I believe the only thing worse than receiving a bullet in my spine would have been to nurture revenge in my heart. Such an attitude would have extended my injury to my soul, hurting my wife, son, and others even more. It's bad enough that the physical effects are permanent, but at least I can choose to prevent spiritual injury.

Source: Johann Christoph Arnold - Why Forgive?, pp.180

To Turn the Hearts of the Fathers to Their Children

Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord ... Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

Source: Bible - Luke 1:13-17

A shorter post than usual ... but also worthwhile!

The Malta Report ended with the recommendation, based on growing theological agreement, that occasional sharing in the Eucharist should be allowed. "Not enough attention and action has been given to this recommendation," said Legrand.

Source: Thomas Ryan - National Catholic Reporter, "Lutherans and Catholics chart path to unity", 16 Nov 2016, https://www.ncronline.org/news/theology/lutherans-and-catholics-chart-path-unity

A longer post than usual ... but worthwhile

For all the good that the sixteenth-century Protestant movements may have brought to the Western Church in the way of doctrinal reforms, there was at least one outcome that wrought inestimable damage—namely, schism. It is not that there were no schisms before the sixteenth century. Neither is it the case that the early Protestants desired schism; in fact, they made a fairly strong case that it was the Roman Church’s doctrinal innovations and resistance to reform that caused and perpetuated the schism. It is also true, however, that Protestants, almost as soon as there were Protestants, exhibited a persistent inability to get along with one another.

From the 1520s on, Protestant history includes stories of disagreements over baptism, the Lord’s Supper, liturgy, free will and predestination, the relationship of the church with civil government, and biblical interpretation, which in many cases was the source of the disagreements. It did not take long for Protestants, as well as Roman Catholics, to draw up new confessions of faith that distinguished their own particular groups. Despite the occasional, lone voices calling for unity, by the end of the sixteenth century, instead of one unified church in the West, there were now Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and a number of Anabaptist and “radical” churches, each with its own confessional standard. Thus began denominations in the West. These initial breaks were only the beginning, though, as the disputes and divisions continued. Once Pandora’s box was opened, once the precedent was set that any doctrinal disagreement could justify starting a new church, the horrific possibility of schism that was realized in the sixteenth century evolved into the accepted habit of schism in the seventeenth and eighteenth. Debates ensued now over the interpretation of the new confessional standards—including what subscription meant and whether it was even necessary—all of which led to further contentions and divisions.

This habit of schism, transferred from the Old World, became compulsive in the New World. In American soil, nourished by autonomous freedom from old traditions and by optimistic visions of finally making the church what it was supposed to be, the seeds of schism proliferated, grew, and flourished.

Implicated in this guilt were, among many others, the Presbyterians, whose Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechism served as confessional standards. Throughout the eighteenth century, a significant number of Presbyterians had various reservations about signing on to these standards, and many simply refused to subscribe at all. Aside from the doctrinal teaching of the Westminster standards, in the wake of the evangelical revivals in England and especially the Second Great Awakening in North America, Presbyterians further divided over their openness to the revivals (so-called “Old Lights” versus “New Lights”).

Source: Keith D. Stanglin - "The Restoration Movement, the Habit of Schism, and a Proposal for Unity", by Dr. Keith D. Stanglin, in Christian Studies, Volume 28, August 2016, http://austingrad.edu/Christian%20Studies/CS%2028/Proposal%20for%20Unity.pdf

"We deeply regret ..."

Lutherans and Catholics often focused on what separated them from each other rather than looking for what united them. They accepted that the Gospel was mixed with the political and economic interests of those in power. Their failures resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. Families were torn apart, people imprisoned and tortured, wars fought and religion and faith misused. Human beings suffered and the credibility of the Gospel was undermined with consequences that still impact us today. We deeply regret the evil things that Catholics and Lutherans have mutually done to each other.

Source: Common Prayer (Lutheran-Catholic) - Common Prayer, p. 14, From Conflict to Communion, Lutheran-Catholic Commemoration of the Reformation in 2017, https://www.lutheranworld.org/content/joint-common-prayer-lutheran-catholic-common-commemoration-reformation-2017

Protestants - Divided Among Themselves

The new religious identities and communities which emerged from these conflicts—Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, and the more radical groupings often lumped together under the name “Anabaptist”—did indeed share some beliefs and attitudes in common. They all prioritized the written Word of God in the Bible over traditional Church teaching and discipline, and they all vehemently rejected the papacy and the allegedly materialistic religious system which the papacy headed. But they were divided among themselves—often lethally—on almost everything else. Within a single generation of Luther’s protest, “Protestants” were excommunicating, fighting, and persecuting each other, as well as the common Catholic enemy, and many were calling for a reform of the Reformation.

Source: Eamon Duffy - First Things, "The End of Christendom" (Book review of Reformations by Carlos Eire), November 2016, https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/11/the-end-of-christendom

Bishop Robert Barron Considers Martin Luther

It is obvious to everyone, Ryrie argues, that Luther was a fighter, taking on not only fellow intellectuals, but the curia, the Pope, and the Emperor himself. And it is equally clear that he bequeathed this feistiness to his followers over these past five centuries: Zwingli, Calvin, Wilberforce, Lloyd Garrison, Billy Sunday, Karl Barth, etc. There is always something protesting about Protestantism. But to see this dimension alone is to miss the heart of the matter. For at the core of Luther’s life and theology was an overwhelming experience of grace. After years of trying in vain to please God through heroic moral and spiritual effort, Luther realized that, despite his unworthiness, he was loved by a God who had died to save him. In the famous Turmerlebnis (Tower Experience) in the Augustinian monastery in Wittenberg, Luther felt justified through the sheer mercy of God. Though many others before him had sensed this amazing grace, Luther’s passion, in Ryrie’s words, “had a reckless extravagance that set it apart and which has echoed down Protestant history.” It is easy enough to see this ecstatic element in any number of prominent Protestant figures, from John Wesley to Friedrich Schleiermacher to John Newton. Luther was an ecstatic, and the religious movement he launched was “a love affair.”

Source: Bishop Robert Barron - "Looking at Luther with Fresh Eyes", Word on Fire, 13 June 2017, https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/article/looking-at-luther-with-fresh-eyes/5491/

Where Are You?

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Source: Bible - Genesis 3: 8-9

Psalm 51 Lyric-Shifted By The Amazing Peter Nevland

Does anybody know what a mess I'm in, running out of excuses for all my sin?
I'm sorry for the miserable fool I've been, can You begin to rain Your mercy?
...
Your kindness is honey to those who ask, and I want to be more than this mask of violence and murder: I need your undeserved love.
...

Source: Peter Nevland - Running out of Excuses - Psalm 51, from Exposing the Psalms, by Peter Nevland & Co.

Ut Unum Sint

For Catholics it is easy to recognize 1995 as a key moment, being the year of the issue of John Paul II's encyclical letter on ecumenism, Ut Unum Sint. This may be the only papal encyclical that begins with a personal declaration: "I carry out this duty with the profound conviction that I am obeying the Lord, and with a clear sense of my own human frailty."

Source: Fr. Peter Hocken - Pentecost and Parousia, Peter Hocken - p. 63 [Ut Unum Sint 4]

Lutheran - Roman Catholic Commission on Unity

With respect to 2017, [Catholics and Lutherans] should renew their effort with gratitude for what has already been accomplished, with patience and perseverance since the road may be longer than expected, with eagerness that does not allow for being satisfied with the present situation, with love for one another even in times of disagreement and conflict, with faith in the Holy Spirit, with hope that the Spirit will fulfill Jesus' prayer to the Father, and with earnest prayer that this may happen.

Source: Lutheran - Roman Catholic Commission on Unity - Conflict to Communion: Report of the Lutheran - Roman Catholic Commission on Unity, p. 88

BLM As Considered By IHOP-KC

It’s not enough for me to write the words, “Black Lives Matter in the Kingdom of God.” It’s more than likely that, if you’re reading this, you already agreed with that point. Easy. Simple. However, it’s also likely that it’s been awhile since we’ve hosted a black man, a black couple, or a black family for dinner. It’s even less likely that, if we did, we asked hard questions and listened more than we spoke. We tend to love truth, and yearn for it, but often from a safe distance. The implications of scriptural truth, when mixed together with the love of Christ, are that perfected love casts out fear (1 John 4:18). We need more than right truths from the Word of God when it comes to this subject. We need love perfected in us that makes us fearless, so that we can draw near to one another and listen to one another without defensiveness.

Source: David Sliker, IHOPKC - Director, Forerunner School of Ministry, IHOPU, "How Black Lives Matter in the Kingdom of God", blog post in Christian Living, ihopkc.org, http://www.ihopkc.org/resources/blog/black-lives-matter-kingdom-god/

The Pope Receives Protestant Hungarians

The Hungarian government will spend the coming weeks working out the exact duties of the new department, though it will have a primarily humanitarian focus, said Eduard von Habsburg, the Hungarian ambassador to the Holy See.

The decision to launch the new department came after Orban and Balog traveled to Rome in August to meet Pope Francis. Orban and Balog, respectively a Protestant layman and a Calvinist pastor, were the only non-Catholic members of the group whom Pope Francis received in a private audience in August.

Von Habsburg said that government officials’ interactions with leading European churchmen and with the patriarchs of the Middle East contributed to the decision to form the agency.

Part of the reason for going public with the initiative now is to set an example for other European nations.
"Somehow the idea of defending Christians has acquired a bad taste in Europe, as if it means excluding other people," von Habsburg said. The Hungarian initiative is intended to show it doesn’t have to be that way, Catholic news sources reported.

"Our interest not only lies in the Middle East but in forms of discrimination and persecution of Christians all over the world," Balog said. "It is therefore to be expected that we will keep a vigilant eye on the more subtle forms of persecutions within European borders."

Source: Christianity Today - "The First Country to Officially Defend Christians Persecuted by ISIS", Christianity Today, Gleanings, 16 Sept 2016, http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2016/september/first-country-to-officially-defend-christians-persecuted-by.html

Slate

Syrian and Iraqi families bring Pope Francis to tears singing Psalm in Aramaic … The magical performance in this video features the choir of the Georgian Orthodox Church, and took place in the Church of St. Simon the Tanner in Tbilisi, Georgia, when Pope Francis visited Sept. 30. While there, he offered a plea for peace for the persecuted and the victims of war—in Syria, Iraq, and elsewhere.

If the powerful performance moves you to tears, you’re not alone—it had the same effect on the pope. The choir was made up of people from Syrian and Iraqi families and was led by their Friar Seraphim. It’s the well-known Psalm 53, “Our Father,” but sung in Aramaic. Its ancient sound is no doubt one reason the effect is so otherworldly.

Source: Slate - "Heavenly Song", 11 October 2016, http://www.slate.com/articles/video/video/2016/10/a_georgian_choir_sings_a_psalm_in_aramaic_for_pope_francis_on_his_visit.html

Generational Blessing

(5) I remember your sincere faith—a faith that first lived in your mother Eunice and your grandmother Lois (see Acts 16:1-3) and I am convinced now lives in you. (6) Because of your faith, I encourage you to fan into flame the gift of God, which was imparted to you through the laying on of my hands. (7) For God did not give us a spirit of fear but the Holy Spirit of power, love, and self-discipline.

Source: The Apostle Paul - 2 Timothy 1:5-7

Bonhoeffer in a Catholic Community

Until these matters could be clarified, Bonhoeffer needed a place of shelter, a haven from the ever-watchful eye of the Gestapo. His “nomadic existence” was becoming less tenable. “[I need] to plant myself somewhere a little more permanently,” he wrote to his parents. Ettal was first suggested by Paula Bonhoeffer, Dietrich’s mother, who was familiar with the area from vacations she and her husband had spent in the nearby village of Oberammergau. In this way, the Protestant theologian found himself living in a Catholic community.
...
Bonhoeffer found spiritual nourishment at Ettal in the daily rhythms of Scripture, prayer, silence, and song. This pattern resembled, in some respects, Bonhoeffer’s organization of community life at Finkenwalde, with its antiphonal reading of the Psalms, stated hours of prayer, hymn singing, and silence. This form of spiritual life was dubbed by some of his critics as “a new kind of monasticism.” Now ensconced in a rather “old” form of monasticism based on the Rule of St. Benedict, Bonhoeffer reflected on the inherent value of monastic life for the entire church: “It would certainly be a loss (and was indeed a loss in the Reformation!) if this form of communal life preserved for 1500 years were destroyed, something those here consider entirely possible.”

Source: Timothy George - "Bonhoeffer at Ettal: Advent", First Things, 12 Dec 2016, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/12/bonhoeffer-at-ettal-advent-1940

No Peace Without My Brother There

(12) After leaving Ephesus, I traveled to the city of Troas to proclaim the gospel (good news) of Christ. When I arrived, I discovered that the Lord had opened a wide door for my ministry, (13) but I still had no peace in my spirit because I did not find my brother Titus there, as he had not yet come from Corinth. So I said goodbye to the Troas church and took a boat across the Aegean Sea to the Roman province of Macedonia (see Acts 20:1).

Source: The Apostle Paul - 2 Corinthians 2:12-13 (IEB)

Thomas Campbell

After laying out his plan for achieving unity through restoration cited above—that we should do and say as the first century church did and said—Campbell immediately writes: “But if after all, our brethren can point out a better way to regain and preserve that christian unity and charity expressly enjoined upon the church of God, we shall thank them for the discovery, and cheerfully embrace it.”

This comment indicates, first, the humility of Campbell in defining his vision for unity. ....

Second, Campbell’s remark shows explicitly which value he considers as the end and which value is the means. Unity is the conditio sine qua non, “expressly enjoined upon the church of God.” Restoration of first century practices is the means to that unity.

Third, and most noteworthy, Campbell regards the means, which in this case is patternistic restoration, to be potentially dispensable. By “dispensable,” I do not mean unimportant. Restoration is, to Campbell’s mind, the most effective way, “the only possible way, that [he] can perceive,” to achieve unity. He leaves the door open, however, in case there is, in his words, “a better way.”

Source: Thomas Campbell - Thomas Campbell, Declaration and Address, in The Quest for Christian Unity, Peace, and Purity in Thomas Campbell’s Declaration and Address, ed. Thomas H. Olbricht and
Hans Rollmann (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2000), 37, as quoted in "The Restoration Movement, the Habit of Schism, and a Proposal for Unity", by Dr. Keith D. Stanglin, in Christian Studies, Volume 28, August 2016, http://austingrad.edu/Christian%20Studies/CS%2028/Proposal%20for%20Unity.pdf