I am willing to ... (but I long for ...)

Because of Christ, I am willing to be part of a body that constantly underestimates the ongoing impact of racism. Because of Jesus, I am willing to associate with believers who outright deny systemic and institutional forms of inequality based on race. Because of our unity in the Spirit, I am willing to fellowship with believers who rebuke me for my honesty, and accuse me of sowing division because I speak of difficult subjects. I am still here. Bear with me if I sometimes long to worship with people who share not only my theology, but my pain as well.

Source: Jemar Tisby  -  "Trump's Election and Feeling 'Safe' in White Evangelical Churches", Reformed African American Network, 18 Nov 2016, https://www.raanetwork.org/trumps-election-feeling-safe-white-evangelical-churches/

An Orthodox Interested in a Roman Catholic

A friend who thinks of the Roman Catholic Church as the oldest form of Protestantism recently asked, “Why should an Orthodox Christian be interested in Dan Berrigan?” He was slightly scandalized that I, a member of the Orthodox Church since 1988, had written a biography of this often-jailed Jesuit priest, At Play in the Lions’ Den.
The core of my answer is that every Christian, no matter what church or communion or sect he belongs to, should interest us to the extent that he or she has lived a Christ-shaped, Christ-revealing life. While no community of Christians has been more attentive to preserving the theology and liturgy of the first millennium as the Orthodox Church, we don’t have a monopoly on sanctity. Christ did not say it was by our excellent theology that his followers would be known, but by their fruits. All sanctity deserves our interest—our divisions should not blind us to holiness on the other side of our ecclesiastical borders. As I recall, it was Metropolitan Platon of Kiev who, in the 19th century, remarked: “The walls we build on earth do not reach to heaven.”

Source: Jim Forest  -  "Father Daniel Berrigan, SJ:  Why Should an Orthodox Christian be Interested in Him?", Orthdoxy In Dialogue, 12 Dec 2017
https://orthodoxyindialogue.com/2017/12/12/father-daniel-berrigan-sj-why-should-an-orthodox-christian-be-interested-in-him-by-jim-forest/

Quite a sight!

A fire engulfed Sts. Mary & James Church in Guthrie, Ky., on February 10, 2015.
...
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/

We Need the Holy Spirit!

Like Thomas Campbell, we are open to and we seek a better way toward Christian unity and maturity. Whatever that way is, it will not succeed if it is simply another method. As long as humans are involved and have their way, even the best way can end in division. Rather, the help of the Holy Spirit is needed to grant knowledge, wisdom, perspective, humility, and love, all of which are necessary if Christians are to be one.

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

Sincere Mistakes

I was never taught to hate Catholics, but to pity them and to fear their errors. I learned a serious concern for truth that to this day I find sadly missing in many Catholic circles. The typical Calvinist anti-Catholic attitude I knew was not so much prejudice, judgment with no concern for evidence, but judgment based on apparent and false evidence: sincere mistakes rather than dishonest rationalizations.

Source: Peter Kreeft  -  Hauled aboard the Ark, http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics/hauled-aboard.htm

Lesson in Unity from Galatians

This is a matter that first came home to me when I was doing my PhD work in the book of Galatians.  In Galatians 2, Paul severely rebukes Peter because Peter's no longer having meals with Gentiles, he's withdrawn from unity with the Gentiles … and I began to think, what would Paul say to the church today, if he came back and saw the fracturing of the church?  And that drove home to me the tragedy of modern Christianity, the disunity of the Church.


Source: Dr. Peter Leithart  -  Preview of his new book, The End of Protestantism, at https://youtu.be/jUYFftPlfyI

A Sad Separation

Teresa Jodar, 58, who lives in Stockholm but is a native of Valencia, Spain, said she had taken the train from Stockholm to Malmo in the morning to bear witness.

“This is a historic event,” she said. “I am a Catholic. We are not celebrating the Reformation. That was a sad separation. But we are celebrating taking a step closer. It is wonderful that we can work together instead of thinking about all of the differences that separate us.”

Source: Teresa Jodar  -  As quoted by Christina Anderson, New York Times, "Pope Francis, in Sweden, Urges Catholic-Lutheran Reconciliation", 31 Oct 2016, http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/world/europe/pope-francis-in-sweden-urges-catholic-lutheran-reconciliation.html

A Welsh reconciler in Rwanda

Story of Rhiannon Lloyd, Welsh reconciler in Rwanda:

Finally Rhiannon tells them a personal story.  "I come from a nation where two tribes have hurt each other," she says.  "One day I was in a prayer meeting when an English Christian knelt at my feet.  'We have often made the Welsh our servants,' she said.  'Please forgive us.' And she proceeded to wash my feet.  A deep healing took place in my heart that day because of the humility of one person who chose to identify with the sins of her people against my people."  Rhiannon's simple story contains a key ... Each believer must take up the cross and apply it to their own identity.  Even now God is looking for people like Rhiannon's humble English friend.  He's looking for those who will express the humility of Christ and bring healing to the nations.


Source: John Dawson  -  What Christians Should Know About Reconciliation, p. 8

Justin Martyr - Just As Relevant Today!

We used to hate and destroy one another and refused to associate with people of another race or country.  Now, because of Christ, we live familiarly with such people and pray for our enemies.

Source: St. Justin Martyr   -  In his letter to the emperor defending the validity of Christianity, as quoted by Lee McLeod and re-posted by Costly Love on Facebook, 17 August 2017

What Unites > What Divides

I am convinced that some Christians, and a growing number of congregations, are experiencing something previously unknown in American church history:  Catholics and Protestants are learning to interact with one another in gracious ways.  They are forming friendships not possible before.  Even within the Eastern Orthodox Church, a church that very few Americans understand, similar relationships are forming, though on a vastly smaller scale.  Thus there are people in all three of the great Christian traditions who are actually learning how to love one another.  They are finding out that what unites them is greater than what divides them.  I believe this has to be the work of God's Spirit.

Source: John Armstrong  -  Your Church is Too Small, p. 23

Huge Changes

We are not denying that significant, even huge, differences remain between Evangelicals and Catholics.   We are simply saying that in the midst of these huge differences, equally huge changes have occurred which have changed the landscape and which have widened the range of strategies available to the Evangelical missionary eager to introduce his message to the Catholic world.

Source: Paul Miller  -  "Evangelicals Cooperatively Evangelising & Discipling with Catholics in Faithfulness to Evangelical Distinctives", by Paul Miller

Where is the Lack of Unity Felt Heaviest?

Briefing reporters at the Vatican, the Rev. Martin Junge, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, said the question of sharing the Eucharistic table — or interfaith communion — is of prime importance.

"I really hope the joint commemoration gives us a strong encouragement to be faster, to be bolder and to be more creative," said Junge, "and with a very strong focus on where people feel lack of unity the heaviest, around the table."

Source: Rev. Martin Junge  -  As quoted on National Public Radio, 28 Oct 2016, "The Pope Commemorates The Reformation That Split Western Christianity", http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/10/28/499587801/pope-francis-reaches-out-to-honor-the-man-who-splintered-christianity

Steps of Humility

The history of conflict and mutual alienation [Catholic-Protestant] has caused a breakdown of trust, so that Catholic initiatives for unity, and particularly papal initiatives, are widely suspected of being cunning devices to restore Roman domination. In this situation the only Catholic initiatives that initially stand a chance of success are steps of humility that demonstrate that the age-old fears no longer have any foundation.

Source: Fr. Peter Hocken  -  Pentecost and Parousia, Peter Hocken - p. 100

Calisi & Engle

The music quieted while the constantly boisterous crowd fell to a noticeable hush as the “men-in-black,” collared Catholic priests and their friends, who were incidentally wearing black, took center-stage. Standing with my right foot about one inch from the stage drop, I looked out on the crowd to see trepidation on faces and looks of curiosity, and even a noticeable pause of breath.

Matteo Calisi, former president of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, was introduced and began to address the crowd in Italian with Dr. Bruno Ierullo translating:

“We are a delegation, a Catholic delegation. … I come from Italy. And, I bring you a salute from 150 million Charismatic Catholics.” As the crowd cheered, Calisi then spoke to the crowd about the influence of the Asuza Street Revival on the Catholic Charismatic Renewal.

Following these remarks, he ceremoniously laid prostrate on the stage and kissed Lou Engle’s feet in an act of reconciliatory love. “We are just in a holy moment right here,” Engle emotionally cried out. Then he continued to call out the other church elders onto the stage while he fell to his knees reciprocally kissing Matteo’s feet.

“Jesus, I thank you!” cried out Calisi while Engle kneeled before his feet, “because you are breaking the spirit of division! You are preparing a great revival in the event of this call, like you did 100 years ago. Do it again! Do it again! Holy Spirit let your Spirit come again for a billion Catholics.”

Source: Jennifer Wing Atencio  -  "Christians pack Coliseum for revival: Catholics join thousands of  believers to mark 110th anniversary of Pentecostal Azuza revival", Angelus News, 13 April 2016
https://angelusnews.com/news/christians-pack-coliseum-for-revival-catholics-join-thousands-of-believers-to-mark-110th-anniversary-of-pentecostal-azuza-revival

"The Catholics are wrong, aren't they?"

We lived in New Jersey, and we went to New York City a lot as tourists — I'm an only child — with my parents, and we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, just to see it, and I'd never seen anything like that before.  I was stunned.  It was just like the gate of heaven.  It was a different kind of beauty.  I said to myself, this is the most beautiful piece of architecture I've ever seen in my life.  And I turned to my father and I said, "Dad, this is a Catholic church, isn't it?"  And he said, "Yes."  And I said, "The Catholics are wrong, aren't they?" And he said, "Oh, yes, of course;  they're very, very wrong."  And then I said, "Then how can their churches be so beautiful?"  And it was the first time in my life that my father didn't have any answer to a question at all;  he was just stumped.  I saw the confusion on his face.  I think I was at the time much more scandalized by the fact that my hitherto-infallible father didn't have the answer to a very simple question than my doubts that the Catholic Church was as bad as I had thought it.  Well, sermons in stone: You can argue with thoughts;  you can't argue with beauty.

Source: Peter Kreeft  -  Conversion to Catholicism, Catholic Education Resource Center, http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/religion-and-philosophy/apologetics/dr-peter-kreeft-s-conversion-to-catholicism-part-1.html

The Only Answer for The Amish

[Referring to the 2006 Pennsylvania slaughter of Amish schoolgirls]

But as far as open anger or hostility goes, the Amish hold, as they have for centuries, that it is destructive - a waste of energy that will hold them hostage and ultimately kill them, just as their daughters were held hostage and killed by someone else's anger.  To these devout followers of Jesus, the only answer is the one he offered on the Cross:  "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."


Source: Johann Christoph Arnold  -  Why Forgive?, pp.210

In the New Mexico state capitol building

Vince Torres, Executive Pastor at the Blaze Christian Fellowship, explains it this way, "What happened Sunday was nothing short of historic. Watching Catholics and Protestants come together in worship and prayer to our God was so powerful and unlike anything I have ever witnessed at our state capitol. The gathering served as proof that the gospel message of Jesus Christ has the power to transcend denominations and even politics. It was such an honor to be part of it. To God be all the glory." 

Source: Vince Torres  -  Vince Torres, Executive Pastor at the Blaze Christian Fellowship, quoted by Brian Alarid in "Christians Make History With Worship Event at New Mexico State Capitol", Charisma News, 7 March 2017, http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/63470-is-this-historic-worship-gathering-part-of-james-goll-s-prophesied-west-coast-rumble

Identificational Repentance in Ezra

Similarly, Ezra's identificational repentance in Ezra 9:6-15 on behalf of the fifth century B.C. Jewish community of Jerusalem led, in Ezra 10:1-4, to the people being moved more freely to repent of their sins. Nehemiah's confessing his people's sins before God and asking God to forgive them on a corporate level in Neh. 1:6 along with Ezra's identificational repentance in Ezra 9:6-15 also seems to have released God's grace on a corporate level to move the community to weep openly and repent of their sins in Neh. 8:9-11 and 9:1-2, when Ezra read the Law.

Source: Dr. Gary S. Greig  -  The Biblical Foundations of Identificational Repentance as One Prayer Pattern Useful to Advance God's Kingdom and Evangelism, April 2001

CatholicMom.com

As we endeavor to move forward in the wake of the election, my personal desire will be to continue to live out the sparks that were lit in my heart during this year of mercy. The call for me to personally carry out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy is not impacted by who holds an elective office.

Source: Lisa Henley  -  Lisa Henley, founder of CatholicMom.com and co-editor of The Catholic Mom’s Prayer Companion: A Book of Daily Reflections, As quoted by Kathryn Jean Lopez, Crux, 13 Nov 2016, https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-usa/2016/11/13/mercy-can-help-america-heal-bitter-political-season/