Unity

So after numerous posts documenting what I consider to be weaknesses in the state of Evangelicalism at the beginning of the 21st century, and enumerating a number of divisive incidents which have caused me to rethink my association to the evangelical movement, the question could legitimately be asked of me, does any of this rambling contribute at all to unity in the church, and if so how?

And I would suggest as an answer that I am not suggesting any magic fix to disunity in Christianity, but I am seeing a path toward it.

Unity cannot be achieved by the power of the human will. Nor can it be achieved by constantly reinventing Christianity with each generation. It cannot be achieved by blindly and legalistically insisting on the distinctives of a particular denomination or movement. It is not achieved through a particular organizational structure.

Unity begins by listening to a single voice. What is clear and undisputed among Christians of most all stripes and backgrounds?

The Succession of Bishops - Part 5

After wrestling with the question of leadership in the church and examining oft cited quotes from the early fathers, I felt it necessary to gravitate away from the view that the local church is completely autonomous and that leadership is something which merely arises out of personal giftedness and and local church elections. Clearly the early church did not function that way. A few summary thoughts:

1. The key role of the church leader is to defend, teach and preserve apostolic truth. Whatever authority he possesses is for that purpose and that purpose alone. Of course other responsibilities go with that key role, but the teaching of the apostles is the absolute foundation of every ministry, every program, every initiative. To fail on this point is to erode the stability of everything else.

The Succession of Bishops - Part 4

An additional issue related to the “succession of Bishops” is the strongly held belief that there is a unique spiritual continuity that is ceremonially carried forward by the act of consecrating bishops and presbyters. Both Catholics and Orthodox refer often to the “unbroken succession” of bishops from the apostles to the present, sometimes displaying the particular lists which connect a particular bishop to the past. Apostolic authority is, it is believed, granted through the ceremonial “laying on of hands” of one or more bishops consecrating a successor.

The practice of laying on hands is found in numerous places in scripture. In some cases it is not related to a transfer of authority, but rather a transfer of sin. Leviticus 16:21 says of the Hebrew priest Aaron, that on the day of atonement, “He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites—all their sins—and put them on the goat's head. He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed for the task.”

Quote of the day

Quote of the day.

"A tolerance which allows God as a private opinion but which excludes him from public life, from the reality of the world and our lives, is not tolerance but hypocrisy. When man makes himself the only master of the world and master of himself, justice cannot exist. Then, arbitrariness, power and interests rule."
Pope Benedict XVI