A primary source for the Quadrilateral was The Church-Idea, An Essay Towards Unity (1870) by William Reed Huntington (1838-1909), an Episcopal priest. He indicated the Anglican basis for an ecumenical "Church of the Reconciliation" in America should be acceptance of l) the Holy Scriptures as the Word of God; 2) the Nicene Creed as the rule of faith; 3) the two sacraments ordained by Christ himself (baptism and the eucharist); and 4) the episcopate as the keystone of governmental unity in the church. This "foursquare" approach became known as the "Quadrilateral." Huntington was the moving force behind its approval by the House of Bishops in Chicago.
The Chicago version of the Quadrilateral provides an ecumenical statement of purpose and introduction which states that the Episcopal Church is "ready in the spirit of love and humility to forego all preferences of her own" concerning things of human ordering or choice regarding modes of worship, discipline, and traditional customs. However, the statement of purpose warns that Christian unity "can be restored only by the return of all Christian communions to the principles of unity exemplified by the undivided Catholic Church during the first days of its existence."
Source: Episcopalchurch.org - "Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral", glossary entry for episcopalchurch.org
https://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/glossary/chicago-lambeth-quadrilateral
Near-Death Experience (NDE)
Rene hydroplaned on the streets of Sydney, Australia, hit a piling, and "died":
"I arrived in an explosion of glorious light into a room with insubstantial walls, standing before a man … He stood beside me and directed me to look to my left, where I was replaying my life's less complimentary moments; I relived those moments and felt not only what I had done but the hurt I had caused. Some of things I would have never imagined could have caused pain. I was surprised that some things I may have worried about, like shoplifting a chocolate as a child, were not there whilst casual remarks which caused hurt unknown to me at the time were counted."
Source: John Burke - "Imagine Heaven", Ch. 17, p. 245-246
Stone to Flesh School of Prayer
When we learn how to cultivate the Presence in our hearts which is the temple of the Holy Spirit, we can start communal worship practices of Liturgy the of the Hours (Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer), Adoration with silence, singing Lectio Divina (also known as Worship with the Word in a harp and bowl model of prayer), Intercession, contemporary praise and worship with its charismatic/contemplative expressions.
Source: Stone to Flesh Community - School of Prayer page on the Stone to Flesh / MajorChange website
https://stonetoflesh.org/school-of-prayer
George Miley
Both during my years in India and those with the ships Logos and Doulos, I found myself in a different church most Sundays, often as the speaker. As a team, we felt a strong sense of unity with and submission to the churches we visited. There were times with the ships when we had a clear idea of the kind of program we wanted to arrange in a particular port city, but local church leaders asked us to adjust it. We always honored their requests. As long as we were in that city, we were part of the body of Christ there. We would never intentionally do our own thing.
While in a port city, we ministered with our brothers and sisters from the churches there. Local believers translated for us in the conferences and evangelistic events. They greeted the visitors to the ship. They served with us in the kitchen, engine room, and other non-public areas. They were part of our prayer meetings and group devotional times. We experienced God together, moving in and through us.
Sometimes hundreds of them came to the quayside just before the ship's departure to say goodbye. It was not unusual for the tugs to be slowly pulling the ship away from the quay while people on the shore and on the ship waved to each other and wept softly. We had been joined together in the work of the kingdom for only two to three weeks, and yet an incredibly powerful bond had been established between us. Doing ministry together tends to do that. We knew indeed that we were one family, one body.
Source: George Miley - "Loving the Church, Blessing the Nations", Ch. 13 "Apostolic Organizational Structures", pp. 143-144
The Armenian Church & the Council of Nicaea
It was the great religious “confab” of the 4th century: a gathering of Christian bishops from throughout the world, convened by no less an authority than the Roman Emperor Constantine I. In A.D. 325, a town in the Black-Sea province of Bithynia played host to 318 scholars of the church who met to deliberate on the burning theological questions of the day. We remember it today as the Council of Nicaea: the first attempt to forge a truly “ecumenical” Christianity—that is, a Christianity that encompassed all the world’s human habitations—by coming to a consensus on church doctrine.
The most significant result of the council was the Nicene Creed: the first uniform expression of Christian doctrine. The Creed would be elaborated upon in subsequent councils, but its essential form, conceived during that historic gathering in Nicaea, remains the fundamental statement of orthodox faith, embraced by churches throughout the world—and repeated during every Armenian badarak as the Havadamk (“We believe”).
The Armenian Church participated in the council, with St. Aristakes, the younger son of St. Gregory the Illuminator, representing his then-ailing father. This Saturday, our church will remember the 318 Fathers of the Holy Council of Nicaea, and the project they began 1,695 years ago.
Source: Christopher H. Zakian - "Getting to 'We Believe'", blog post on The Armenian Church website, 4 Sept 2020
https://armenianchurch.us/2020/09/04/getting-to-we-believe-2
A View from Heaven
As my adult life unfolded before us, my self-centered nature predominated, and this greatly displeased my divine company. I did very little that was not in my own self-interest. Other people's needs were less important than my own desires. This is opposed to the will of God and is the opposite of love ...
Source: Howard Storm - As quoted by John Burke in "Imagine Heaven", Ch. 17, p. 241
Appalachia ➜ Belfast
He told me about his growing up in Tennessee’s rural Appalachia—in a community of (primarily) Catholic and Southern-Baptist. Although he has always been Presbyterian, the predominant duality in the environment gave him an opportunity to develop the question, “if you are so much alike, why are you so far apart?”
Fast-forward to college graduation, and despite having his heart set to travel to Nairobi to do ministry work, he ended up in Belfast—where political divides had given birth to blood feuds, and separations of heart that manifested with physical walls in the city—keeping the Catholic and Protestant communities partitioned and separate.
He shared with me about his experience here—things thrilling, sad, fruitful, and frightening. He also shared about his current ministry—some of the challenges, as well as his hopes and desires for growth. The door was open for me to share my dream and desire to engage with the diversity of humanity, and to help them engage each other under the uniting reality of God’s Spirit.
Source: Israel Chaffin - FB post about a new friend he met in Memphis, 20 Dec 2020
Work Towards Unity In 1888
[The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral is the ]statement of the four Anglican essentials for a reunited Christian Church. It concerns the scriptures, creeds, sacraments, and the historic episcopate. It was approved by the House of Bishops at the 1886 General Convention in Chicago, and subsequently approved with modifications by the bishops of the Anglican Communion at the Lambeth Conference of 1888.
...
The four points of the Quadrilateral were listed by the Chicago statement as "inherent parts" of the sacred deposit of Christian faith and order "committed by Christ and his Apostles to the Church unto the end of the world, and therefore incapable of compromise or surrender. . . ." The Chicago statement lists the Nicene Creed as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith. With respect to baptism and the eucharist, the Chicago statement calls for administration of these sacraments "with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him." The Chicago version expressed the fourth part of the Quadrilateral in terms of "The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the unity of His Church." Although the Quadrilateral was not enacted by the House of Deputies at the 1886 General Convention, it was incorporated in a general plan referred for study and action by the newly created Joint Commission on Christian Reunion.
...
At the 1895 General Convention of the Episcopal Church, the Commission on Christian Unity was continued with the goal of seeking Christian unity on the basis of the "principles enunciated throughout the Declaration of the house of Bishops made at Chicago in 1886, and as reaffirmed by the Lambeth Conference of 1888." Thus for the first time the entire General Convention of the Episcopal Church affirmed the Quadrilateral in its Lambeth form. The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral has continued to serve as the primary Anglican working document and reference point for ecumenical Christian reunion. The Chicago and Lambeth versions of the Quadrilateral are included in the historical documents of the 1979 BCP (pp. 876-878).
Source: Episcopalchurch.org - "Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral", glossary entry for episcopalchurch.org
https://www.episcopalchurch.org/library/glossary/chicago-lambeth-quadrilateral
Be the Bridge
When it launched in 2015, Be the Bridge’s Facebook group had about 69 members. Today, the online community fostering racial reconciliation is more than 21,000-strong, with more than 1,000 groups in 48 states.
The nonprofit was tapped in September to receive up to $1 million in grants by Facebook’s inaugural Community Leadership Program, which also awarded Morrison and four other global leaders a residency.
...She describes Be the Bridge as a ministry and the organization’s successes as guided by God. Yet, when she presented Be the Bridge at a Facebook summit, Morrison was unsure if she should identify it as a faith-based organization.
“But they (Facebook) really wanted me to name it,” she said. “I thought that was just incredible, that they wanted me to name it.”
She said that the consultant Facebook had her work with at the time encouraged her to bring her “full self” to the table.
“That impacted me, that there’s an organization that doesn’t claim that they’re a Christian organization or anything like that, but they wanted me to bring my full self when there are Christian organizations and churches that I cannot step in and be my full self. I thought that was incredible,” Morrison said.
According to Facebook, Morrison and her fellow residents have “demonstrated the ability to transform the way people support each other through community.”
Source: Nicola A. Menzie - "‘Be the Bridge’ fosters dialogue between black and white Christians", Baptist Standard, March 19, 2019
https://www.baptiststandard.com/news/faith-culture/bridge-fosters-dialogue-black-white-christians/
The Hainburg Synagogue
This year, 2020, marks a significant anniversary in the history of Hainburg, in fact for the whole country of Austria. In the year 1420, an expulsion of the Jewish people began in some communities such as Hainburg; the expulsion ended very tragically on March 12, 1421, with the remaining Jews who had refused baptism were burned at the stake in the present day third district of Vienna. The rich were put into prison, many were forcefully baptized, and those who refused were put onto small rafts and sent down the Danube river towards present day Bratislava. These were very dark days.
To remember this anniversary two small events took place. In July a small group from the TJCII Come and See Course gathered in Hainburg to pray and remember the events of 1420. We prayed that this history would not be forgotten. We realized that the old synagogue next to the Mysterium Christi house (that is about 700 years old) was probably last used as a synagogue 600 years ago. Yet, the building still stands and has surely seen much history. We want to hold it in remembrance. May it be as the stump from Isaiah 11:1!
The second event took place on the afternoon of September 27, right before the eve of Yom Kippur. A small group gathered in the Hainburg parish of Sts. Phillip and James to remember the events, pray together, and ask forgiveness for these events of the past.
Source: Sr. Mary Paul Friemel - Hainburg Report, December 2020 No. 18
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Once a month I also meet with 4 ministers from 4 different denominations. Mark Giesen is a Lutheran and ministers as a “pulpit supply person” from Trinity Lutheran Church in Danville, PA. David Mansfield is a Disciple of Christ and the Pastor at the Benton, PA, Christian Church. Betsy McCormack is a Presbyterian Pastor ministering at the First Presbyterian Church in Bloomsburg, PA. And Nancy Hardy is from the United Church of Christ and is Pastor at the First Reformed UCC Church in Berwick, PA. Each month one of these ministers prepares a “focused theme” for our “day apart” which includes a “check in” to see how everyone is currently doing, followed by a time for private reflection, prayer, and a discussion.We conclude our precious time together as we pray for the expressed needs of each other. We have truly become one in spirit as we accompany each other on the journey as faithful spiritual companions.
Source: Sr. Jean Marie Holup, SSCM - "The Ecumenical Commitment of a Catholic Women’s Religious Community", Paulist.org
http://www.paulist.org/the-conversation/the-ecumenical-commitment-of-a-catholic-womens-religious-order/
William J. Seymour
I admire the persistence and faith of William J. Seymour, the pioneer of the Azusa Street Revival of the early 1900s. Several modern Christian movements spun out of that or were influenced by what happened there. He was blind in one eye, and he was a black man who was the son of former slaves. I learned that he was segregated from his fellow students who were white, while in the Bible school he was a part of in Houston led by Charles Parham. But he stayed and learned.
He landed in Los Angeles, convinced that there was a baptism in the Holy Spirit experience like what happened in Acts 2 and power that would come with that, both for him and for the greater body of Christ. He doggedly proclaimed the word he read in Acts 2 for a time before he ever saw what he was proclaiming manifest in his life personally and even as others started to experience it before he did.
But when that well broke open, it influenced far more people than he may have ever imagined and certainly has shaped the global Christian picture. The Azusa Street movement was a great miracle of unity for a time as people of different ethnicities gathered together through the outpouring of the Spirit.
Source: Clinton Scroggins - Posted on FB 29 Oct 2017, reposted 3 years later in 2020
Shame & Grief + Love & Gratitude
May this plaque be an expression of our shame and grief over the serious crime that our German people committed against Holland during World War II. May it also be a token of love and gratitude to the Dutch people, who assisted the Jews while they were being persecuted and who responded to the injustices of our German nation by showing goodness to God's chosen people.. God bless Holland!
Source: Marienschwestern - Plaque on the wall of the "Secret Room" in Corrie Ten Boom's house in Haarlem, The Netherlands (made famous in her book, The Hiding Place)
Too Negative?
[Thomas Howard] publisher titled his last Protestant book Evangelical is Not Enough. He told me he’d protested the title, because he did not want to speak negativity of his childhood home. The publisher knew a title that would bring in the buyers, because there were many in that world looking for a way out.
Source: David Mills - "RIP Thomas Howard: 1935-2020", Catholic Herald, 15 October 2020
https://catholicherald.co.uk/ch/rip-thomas-howard-1935-2020/
Rita #2 - Taking Long-shot Chances
Rita’s younger sisters lived in the area. Rita took a long-shot chance and reached out to her for a visit. Her sister took a long-shot chance and said yes. That began a difficult and honest adult process of mutual repentance, forgiveness, and understanding. At that time, little did we know that seven or eight years later we would be moving to Texas, literally twenty minutes from where her sister lived! Thirty years of alienation, erased! A sister and a friend recovered, plus geographic proximity!
Source: Dr. Stephen R. Crosby - "Confessions of a Christian Idiot", Reprinted from Christianity Without the Religion Magazine - February 2019
https://stevecrosby.org/christian-unity/confessions-of-a-christian-idiot
Rita #1 - "My Days of Christian Idiocy"
Rita’s older sister also happened to move to the area. She heard of the renewal of relationship of her younger sisters. So with trepidation she takes a chance and agrees to meet with Rita. In the middle of a series of pleasant, but tentative, rebuilding connections, this sister and her husband had a life-changing encounter with Christ.
Perhaps those reading this are ready to shout hallelujah. But here’s the caveat. It happened through the preaching of Pope Francis and in a Catholic context! In forty-three years of Protestant Evangelicalism I have never seen such a bona-fide, repentance bearing fruit, transformative conversion—new creation human beings. Different family members said: “Who are those people?” We don’t know them.”
Well now, for some this may not compute. In my days of Christian idiocy, it would not have computed for me.
In her joy of conversion, Rita’s sister asked if Rita would attend a mass with her! Now wait, just a minute! That is too much, but not really. Rita accepted. Rita participated fully in the service (other than communion), and observed her sister weeping with joy that she and Rita were being restored and could share a common experience of Christ.
Rita took it a step further. She decided to buy her sister a very expensive and engraved rosary to celebrate her sister’s new birth! That would never have happened in our days of Christian idiocy. I mean after all, how could I encourage someone in a “false religion?” How could we endorse “unbiblical practices?” I will tell you how: when love compels you, and when care for another human being outranks your own need for perceived doctrinal purity. When love is the highest virtue, at the apex of your inner truth hierarchy, it is not only an easy thing to do, but it is the obvious thing to do. Love never fails.
Well, the gift of the rosary pushed things over the top. It is something Rita’s sister will treasure forever. Her sister said it was the kindest thing any human being had ever done for her! Imagine that—the transformative and liberating power of human kindness—agape—charity—given extravagantly with no agenda or “Protestant hook” in love. Love extended for love’s sake, needing no reciprocation or agreement in doctrine. It is becoming all things to all people, to win them. Jesus was willing to go to a manger, a cross, and a grave to win us. How far are we willing to go?
Source: Dr. Stephen R. Crosby - "Confessions of a Christian Idiot", Reprinted from Christianity Without the Religion Magazine - February 2019
https://stevecrosby.org/christian-unity/confessions-of-a-christian-idiot
Fr. Peter H. Davids
As a person I am a devoted Catholic Christian who embraces the richness and wisdom of the roughly 2000 years of the Christian spiritual tradition. In terms of vocation, I enjoyed 34 years as an Episcopal/Anglican priest, building upon previous years as a preacher and chaplain with the Plymouth Brethren, and was and am also happily involved in other Christian traditions as appropriate canonically. I did call myself relatively Anabaptist theologically, but realized that that part of Anabaptism with which I identified came from the Devotio Moderna and the Franciscan Teriaries. I have always been very invested and involved in my local church wherever I was, believing that one cannot be part of the formation of ministers and Christian students without being actively engaged in ministry oneself. I therefore expect that I will eventually be ordained in the Catholic Church.
Source: Fr. Peter H. Davids - General Interests section of his About page for the St. Paul Center website
https://stpaulcenter.com/fr-peter-h-davids-2/
Ed Pichette
3 years ago this month I was given a trip to Wittenberg for the 500 year anniversary of the reformation. In that place where the 95 thesis were nailed to the door and a split came within the church, we all gathered - Protestants, Baptists, Non-denominational, orthodox, Catholics and so many more- to pray, confess, and forgive one another for causing harm to Christ’s Body. We then committed to work for the health and reconciliation within the family of God. Today my prayer is that Christians from all persuasions can see Christ in one another even through all different types of opinions, practices, and even politics. It is Christ who unifies, all else divides. Differences are important, but to truly celebrate differences rather than smooth them over and pretend we are all the same, we need the love of Jesus Christ.
Source: Edouard L. Pichette - Posted on FB 3 Nov 2020
New Orleans Mayor Repents for Historical Lynching of ... Italian-Americans
The largest mass lynching in US history killed 11 Italians in New Orleans in 1891. And now an Italian-American group says [New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell] is set to offer a first-ever apology to Italian-Americans for the city's role in the lawless murders.
…
Mike Santo, who serves as special counsel for the commission, said he'd become aware of the lynching a few years ago, realizing how the 1891 lynching was a "longstanding wound" for the Italian-American community.
He said the commission got in touch with the mayor, who was amenable to the proposal, and his group has been coordinating for weeks with a liaison in the mayor's office to get the proclamation written.
He praised Cantrell, calling her the "right woman at the right time" to step up and acknowledge a darker aspect of her city's history.
"It takes a lot of nerve to do that," Santo said. "People want to see that, especially today."
He said he personally felt the pending proclamation was "refreshing." On behalf of Italian-Americans more broadly, he said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Source: Ryan Prior - "128 years later, New Orleans is apologizing for lynching 11 Italians", CNN, 1 April 2019
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/01/us/new-orleans-mayor-apologizes-italian-americans-trnd/index.html
A Catholic Cardinal Honors The Bruderhof
The Bruderhof is an international Christian community of almost 3,000 people in 23 settlements on four continents. Their goal is radical discipleship in the spirit of the first days of the Church in Jerusalem.
From eight years of friendship with Pastor Arnold, his wonderful wife, Verena, and the hundreds of members centered at Woodcrest in Rifton, I can tell you they are “a light to the world.” I love them, and have learned much from them, and my predecessors claimed the same. As the late Father Benedict Groeschel whispered to me, “They’re better Catholics than I am!”
Source: Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan - "Radical Discipleship Lived in Our Midst", Catholic New York, 27 April 2017, http://www.cny.org/stories/radical-discipleship-lived-in-our-midst,15453