Some time ago, I worked at a facility for troubled teenage boys. Their troubles ranged anywhere from having anger issues to having committed murder; from being raped to being the rapist. Some were just kids who hadn't been given a chance, others were truly disturbed mentally and emotionally. It was a job that wasn't for everyone, and could be extremely stressful on a regular basis as you never knew what was going to happen next, or whether some kid was going to try and severely hurt you or kill you.
Under it all however, they were all crying out, in their own ways, to be cared about and to have positive attention paid towards them. I realized that working there, at least for me, required a kind of spiritual discipline which had to be adhered to. Jesus taught to bless those who curse you. I was called various profane names every five minutes, and often wondered if I was doing something wrong if I wasn't. Jesus taught to good to those who hate you. I was told I was hated, verbally and non-verbally, from the time I started my shift to the time they went to bed at night. Jesus taught to love your enemies. I was seen as their enemy just by virtue of the fact I was staff and followed the guidelines, no matter what I did.
When I later worked at another facility, this one in the girls house, I took that understanding with me. I was fortunate that the girls weren't quite so aggressive, but again it required the same spiritual discipline. In the girl's house I was scratched by nails dug deep into my skin, bitten frequently, punched, and my nose was broken once from a head butt. Jesus taught to love your enemies. He taught to forgive, and you will be forgiven. He taught that God is good even to the ungrateful and to the wicked, and so I was to emulate Him and be as much of a father to those girls as He was to me.
I can't say I exercised that spiritual discipline perfectly. I didn't. I failed. I got stressed out. I did and said things I shouldn't have more frequently than not. But that's the thing about a discipline, it assumes that you aren't finished yet, and it's there to teach you and shape you closer to the end result.
There are a great many spiritual disciplines and spiritual exercises in the Christian tradition. Most of these come from the monastic traditions and involve fasting, chastity, poverty, humility, prayer and meditation; all of which are good and healthy for spiritual growth, but cannot be allowed to become an end of themselves, or else they are self-defeating. The true spiritual discipline is as our brother St. Paul says:
1 Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service [latreia]. (Romans 12:1, WEB, brackets added)
This spiritual service, in the Greek “latreia”, literally means the kind of service which a priest provides at the altar or in the execution of his priestly office.
The spiritual exercises which count are those which we practice from moment to moment and in every decision we make. They occur in our daily routine and how we respond to other people, no matter who it is. Do we put how the other person feels above how we feel? If someone steals from me, do I prosecute him? If someone hits me, or abuses me, do I strike back? Do I put how my wife feels over and above my own physical desires? Do I accept a rebuke without comment? Do I cry out for the Grace of God in my own heart where no one but He and I can see, or do I proudly march forward into waiting temptations only to fail. Am I so afraid of not having enough, or do I only trust in what I can see, so that I hoard money, food, or possessions? Do I give to those who ask, or do I turn them away? These kinds of things are where the rubber meets the road, and these are the tests and exercises which we must face every day and which really matter. The prayers, and liturgies which we recite help in crying out to Him and in activating that ever present Grace, but they can never take the place of the true disciplines which move us forward towards our goal.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Friday, May 20, 2011
A Ramble About Living By Faith
This may be a long ramble, so hang in there. The concept of living by faith seems to be badly misunderstood. It is all too often misinterpreted as something radically ungodly and unchristian, refusing to work and somehow expecting other people to provide for you. For this reason, it seems like people take one of the two extremes; either they do just that, and refuse to work, or they reject the notion altogether and depend heavily on their own jobs and what they can earn with their own hands. Neither is what the Scriptures or Sacred Tradition teach.
The truth is that how we live, and what we depend on for our physical needs is no different from our own Salvation, and is indeed a part and parcel of it. Our salvation comes about through cooperation with the Grace of God, and our physical provision is no less a cooperation with Him.
The Holy Scriptures say this:
19 “Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves don’t break through and steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon. 25 Therefore, I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 See the birds of the sky, that they don’t sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you of much more value than they? 27 “Which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment * to his lifespan? 28 Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin, 29 yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he much more clothe you, you of little faith? 31 “Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient. (Matthew 6:19-34, WEB)
And this:
13 One of the multitude said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, "“Man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you?”" 15 He said to them, "“Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses.”" 16 He spoke a parable to them, saying, "“The ground of a certain rich man brought forth abundantly. 17 He reasoned within himself, saying, ‘What will I do, because I don’t have room to store my crops?’ 18 He said, ‘This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns, and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 “But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?’ 21 So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”" 22 He said to his disciples, "“Therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life, what you will eat, nor yet for your body, what you will wear. 23 Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they don’t sow, they don’t reap, they have no warehouse or barn, and God feeds them. How much more valuable are you than birds! 25 Which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his height? 26 If then you aren’t able to do even the least things, why are you anxious about the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 But if this is how God clothes the grass in the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith? 29 Don’t seek what you will eat or what you will drink; neither be anxious. 30 For the nations of the world seek after all of these things, but your Father knows that you need these things. 31 But seek God’s Kingdom, and all these things will be added to you. 32 Don’t be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. 33 Sell that which you have, and give gifts to the needy. Make for yourselves purses which don’t grow old, a treasure in the heavens that doesn’t fail, where no thief approaches, neither moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Luke 12:13-34, WEB)
What critics of living by faith don't tend to understand is that we live by faith whether we're aware of it or not. What Jesus was pointing out was not whether we are to live by faith, we do that anyway, but what our faith is in. What He was say is that first, if you are putting your faith in your own ability to provide for yourself, you are a fool because you don't know what will happen from one day to the next; and second, He was speaking against avarice, which itself is often born out of the fear that you won't have enough from day to day.
Living by faith means understanding that it is God who provides all of our needs, irregardless of what physical source they come from. Whether your needs are provided through an employer who pays you for the work you do, or if they come from a friend who wants to help, or if they come gift-wrapped in a basket left on your doorstep by some birds who happened your way it is ultimately God who provides the employment, the friend, and the helpful basket weaving birds. This should be more apparent in this economy today as so many people find out that it isn't by their efforts and abilities alone that they have jobs to go to, but by the mercy of God, and having your job today doesn't guarantee that you will have one tomorrow in which to place your trust.
But like having a job which God provides, living by faith requires that you cooperate with God in it. When you have an employer, it requires that you do the work your employer asks you to do. When you aren't deriving a paycheck by that means, it requires that you do the work that God has set up for you to do at the moment. When God provides food for the birds, it is true that they neither so nor reap, but they still have to get down low enough to hunt small animals, or gather seed. If they choose not to do this, they will starve even if surrounded by food.
There are some jobs that God tells people to do that preclude them from drawing a paycheck in the normal fashion because they legitimately can't do both without both suffering. This doesn't mean they don't work, but it does mean that they don't get paid for the work they do. In this case they must rely on their faith that God will provide for their needs by other means. There are some times, like the present day, when jobs are scarce to be had. Does this mean that God abandons His people? Does it mean He causes His rain to stop falling on either the faithful or the wicked? No. Of course not. But it does mean that they are challenged to learn to trust Him and not their own devices, and it also means that they learn what it means to ask Him for “our 'daily' bread.”
Trusting Him also means being satisfied with what He chooses to give. This I think is the hardest thing for most people. God gives what we need in the moment we need it. He generally doesn't give something today we think we might need tomorrow, or six months down the line for that matter. We like to feel secure by the amount of money or possessions we can see and hold, or be told is there for us in a bank account. But all of these things can disappear in minutes, especially in this day and age when everything is electronic, and the value of hard commodities like gold, silver, and oil fluctuates from day to day.
Often what God chooses to give is not what we think we need even if it is what we really do need at the time, and God has more than our physical needs in mind. Poverty is much more healthy spiritually than physical wealth because it forces us to rely on Him more and detach from trusting our own possessions and means.
I've spent years learning what living by faith means the hard way, what it is and what it isn't. Ultimately, it means trusting Him just as much for our physical life and health as it we trust Him for our spiritual life and health. Maybe this is why so many people have such trouble with it, and why it is so hard to learn, because so many people who say they trust in Him spiritually don't. It's a lot harder to put your money where your mouth is when it concerns things you can see and touch.
The truth is that how we live, and what we depend on for our physical needs is no different from our own Salvation, and is indeed a part and parcel of it. Our salvation comes about through cooperation with the Grace of God, and our physical provision is no less a cooperation with Him.
The Holy Scriptures say this:
19 “Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consume, and where thieves don’t break through and steal; 21 for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. 22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eye is evil, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! 24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can’t serve both God and Mammon. 25 Therefore, I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life: what you will eat, or what you will drink; nor yet for your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 See the birds of the sky, that they don’t sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns. Your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you of much more value than they? 27 “Which of you, by being anxious, can add one moment * to his lifespan? 28 Why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin, 29 yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not dressed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, won’t he much more clothe you, you of little faith? 31 “Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’ 32 For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first God’s Kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient. (Matthew 6:19-34, WEB)
And this:
13 One of the multitude said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 But he said to him, "“Man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you?”" 15 He said to them, "“Beware! Keep yourselves from covetousness, for a man’s life doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things which he possesses.”" 16 He spoke a parable to them, saying, "“The ground of a certain rich man brought forth abundantly. 17 He reasoned within himself, saying, ‘What will I do, because I don’t have room to store my crops?’ 18 He said, ‘This is what I will do. I will pull down my barns, and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 I will tell my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years. Take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.”’ 20 “But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?’ 21 So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”" 22 He said to his disciples, "“Therefore I tell you, don’t be anxious for your life, what you will eat, nor yet for your body, what you will wear. 23 Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothing. 24 Consider the ravens: they don’t sow, they don’t reap, they have no warehouse or barn, and God feeds them. How much more valuable are you than birds! 25 Which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his height? 26 If then you aren’t able to do even the least things, why are you anxious about the rest? 27 Consider the lilies, how they grow. They don’t toil, neither do they spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 28 But if this is how God clothes the grass in the field, which today exists, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith? 29 Don’t seek what you will eat or what you will drink; neither be anxious. 30 For the nations of the world seek after all of these things, but your Father knows that you need these things. 31 But seek God’s Kingdom, and all these things will be added to you. 32 Don’t be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom. 33 Sell that which you have, and give gifts to the needy. Make for yourselves purses which don’t grow old, a treasure in the heavens that doesn’t fail, where no thief approaches, neither moth destroys. 34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (Luke 12:13-34, WEB)
What critics of living by faith don't tend to understand is that we live by faith whether we're aware of it or not. What Jesus was pointing out was not whether we are to live by faith, we do that anyway, but what our faith is in. What He was say is that first, if you are putting your faith in your own ability to provide for yourself, you are a fool because you don't know what will happen from one day to the next; and second, He was speaking against avarice, which itself is often born out of the fear that you won't have enough from day to day.
Living by faith means understanding that it is God who provides all of our needs, irregardless of what physical source they come from. Whether your needs are provided through an employer who pays you for the work you do, or if they come from a friend who wants to help, or if they come gift-wrapped in a basket left on your doorstep by some birds who happened your way it is ultimately God who provides the employment, the friend, and the helpful basket weaving birds. This should be more apparent in this economy today as so many people find out that it isn't by their efforts and abilities alone that they have jobs to go to, but by the mercy of God, and having your job today doesn't guarantee that you will have one tomorrow in which to place your trust.
But like having a job which God provides, living by faith requires that you cooperate with God in it. When you have an employer, it requires that you do the work your employer asks you to do. When you aren't deriving a paycheck by that means, it requires that you do the work that God has set up for you to do at the moment. When God provides food for the birds, it is true that they neither so nor reap, but they still have to get down low enough to hunt small animals, or gather seed. If they choose not to do this, they will starve even if surrounded by food.
There are some jobs that God tells people to do that preclude them from drawing a paycheck in the normal fashion because they legitimately can't do both without both suffering. This doesn't mean they don't work, but it does mean that they don't get paid for the work they do. In this case they must rely on their faith that God will provide for their needs by other means. There are some times, like the present day, when jobs are scarce to be had. Does this mean that God abandons His people? Does it mean He causes His rain to stop falling on either the faithful or the wicked? No. Of course not. But it does mean that they are challenged to learn to trust Him and not their own devices, and it also means that they learn what it means to ask Him for “our 'daily' bread.”
Trusting Him also means being satisfied with what He chooses to give. This I think is the hardest thing for most people. God gives what we need in the moment we need it. He generally doesn't give something today we think we might need tomorrow, or six months down the line for that matter. We like to feel secure by the amount of money or possessions we can see and hold, or be told is there for us in a bank account. But all of these things can disappear in minutes, especially in this day and age when everything is electronic, and the value of hard commodities like gold, silver, and oil fluctuates from day to day.
Often what God chooses to give is not what we think we need even if it is what we really do need at the time, and God has more than our physical needs in mind. Poverty is much more healthy spiritually than physical wealth because it forces us to rely on Him more and detach from trusting our own possessions and means.
I've spent years learning what living by faith means the hard way, what it is and what it isn't. Ultimately, it means trusting Him just as much for our physical life and health as it we trust Him for our spiritual life and health. Maybe this is why so many people have such trouble with it, and why it is so hard to learn, because so many people who say they trust in Him spiritually don't. It's a lot harder to put your money where your mouth is when it concerns things you can see and touch.
Friday, May 6, 2011
A Ramble About Unity
“Cursed be that love and unity for whose sake the Word of God must be put to the stake.” I wrote that quote down as my professor said it on one of the title pages of my Bible as I took notes in my Bible School class one day. I thought it was so right, and the Reformer who spoke it divinely inspired. The Reformer in question meant of course that there can be no love and unity with people who either didn't subscribe to his interpretation of Holy Scripture, or who literally put the word of God to the stake by burning every vernacular translation of the Bible they could get their hands on in order to maintain power and control.
“I believe in One Holy, Catholic (Universal), and Apostolic Church...” So says the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed which many if not most churches recite every Sunday. We all of us profess, even if we are unfamiliar with the Creed itself, in one universal Church of Jesus Christ, which is holy to God and a direct descendant of the work and teaching of the Apostles. We generally agree that it consists, at bare minimum, of all those who have been baptized by faith into Jesus Christ. We also generally agree that all those within the Church are in fact brothers and sisters. To a somewhat more strained degree we generally agree that all those saints who came before us are both our spiritual ancestors, and continuous brothers and sisters in Christ. Some of the worst fighting comes between brothers and sisters, doesn't it? No one can hurt you more than members of your own family.
What creates the unity within a family are ties of kinship, and an understanding that those ties are more important than distance, culture, strong differences of opinion or hurt feelings. A girl's brother may tease her relentlessly at home, but heaven help anyone who dares to tease or hurt her at school. We understand and we are brought brought up to understand that we are to care about the members of our family and take care of them even if they are otherwise strangers to us. “Oh, by the way, your cousin Bob from Scotland, you know the one who was married to your second cousin Sally, three times removed on your great grandmother's side? Well he's coming to stay with us for a few days.” Any protest to this is met with, “Well, he's family and he needs a place to stay.” Nothing is more hurtful within a family than that family disowning one of its members. “You are no longer my son, and you are no longer welcome here.”
Within the Family of Jesus Christ there are strong differences of opinion. Mostly about things which we can neither see nor touch, or about things we have only heard about but weren't there for. Internal family squabbles have turned into blood feuds, similar to the Hatfields and the McCoys, that have gone on for so long that very few people even remember what we were feuding about, and then only because they've studied for years in order to learn about it so they could take sides in an educated manner.
I used to think that the reunification of this family, the end of all this infighting, could come. Now, I'm not so sure any more. We're all so concerned about being right, that we've forgotten that we're family. We've forgotten the central tenet of that family, and that's to love and care about one another.
Heresy quite literally means division. And a heretic, in the strictest sense of the word, is one who divides. The Apostles and the clergy who came after them cracked down on heretics because they were people who out of pride, ambition, or desire for money divided the Church breaking people off in order to form their own congregations. This, first and foremost, was the unsound teaching they had to combat. They had to fight, at all costs, the breaking up of the family by selfish people. Somewhere along the line, this translated into an all out war on anyone with a different experience or interpretation, and this sentiment was then passed down through the centuries. Denomination to denomination, church to church, we simply do not tolerate anybody else's interpretation of theology. Except now, instead of the one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic Church being visibly one, holy, catholic, and apostolic; it appears (though in reality One Church) to be many Churches equally condemning each other as heretics.
Our unity will never come from theology. Theology literally means “the study of God”. And while conforming with the larger body of accepted Truth, one's personal study of God will never be the same as the person next to him. God remains the same yesterday, today, and forever; but because we change and are different our experiences of Him will change and be different. Even if He is not in motion, we are. This is why we argue and fight over teachings which if you really look into them are really different facets of the same Truth expressed semantically in different ways.
The only way the Church can be restored to visible unity is when we focus on the person, teaching, and practice of Jesus Christ; when we focus on Jesus Himself, and not teachings about Him; when we follow His teachings to love and care about everyone, including those who would be our enemies. The Scripture plainly says He who does not love, does not know God because God is love. It also says something to the effect of if you cannot love your brother whom you can see, how can you love God whom you cannot see? Jesus taught to love God, one's brother, one's neighbor, and one's enemies. Where then is there room to hate anyone for those of us who profess to follow Him?
Finally, and I am as guilty of this as anyone, as family we must put the interests of that family over and above anything else. Blood is thicker than water, it is said. No matter what happens with the government, or with politics, or with anything else, we can't let those things divide us as more important than our family.
Our road to unity is through remembering that we are all family. It was because we forgot that one central fact that we became divided and disowned one another. The Word of God teaches that love and unity is more important than whether I'm right and you're wrong. It is that interpretation of the Word of God which is cursed which teaches otherwise.
“I believe in One Holy, Catholic (Universal), and Apostolic Church...” So says the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed which many if not most churches recite every Sunday. We all of us profess, even if we are unfamiliar with the Creed itself, in one universal Church of Jesus Christ, which is holy to God and a direct descendant of the work and teaching of the Apostles. We generally agree that it consists, at bare minimum, of all those who have been baptized by faith into Jesus Christ. We also generally agree that all those within the Church are in fact brothers and sisters. To a somewhat more strained degree we generally agree that all those saints who came before us are both our spiritual ancestors, and continuous brothers and sisters in Christ. Some of the worst fighting comes between brothers and sisters, doesn't it? No one can hurt you more than members of your own family.
What creates the unity within a family are ties of kinship, and an understanding that those ties are more important than distance, culture, strong differences of opinion or hurt feelings. A girl's brother may tease her relentlessly at home, but heaven help anyone who dares to tease or hurt her at school. We understand and we are brought brought up to understand that we are to care about the members of our family and take care of them even if they are otherwise strangers to us. “Oh, by the way, your cousin Bob from Scotland, you know the one who was married to your second cousin Sally, three times removed on your great grandmother's side? Well he's coming to stay with us for a few days.” Any protest to this is met with, “Well, he's family and he needs a place to stay.” Nothing is more hurtful within a family than that family disowning one of its members. “You are no longer my son, and you are no longer welcome here.”
Within the Family of Jesus Christ there are strong differences of opinion. Mostly about things which we can neither see nor touch, or about things we have only heard about but weren't there for. Internal family squabbles have turned into blood feuds, similar to the Hatfields and the McCoys, that have gone on for so long that very few people even remember what we were feuding about, and then only because they've studied for years in order to learn about it so they could take sides in an educated manner.
I used to think that the reunification of this family, the end of all this infighting, could come. Now, I'm not so sure any more. We're all so concerned about being right, that we've forgotten that we're family. We've forgotten the central tenet of that family, and that's to love and care about one another.
Heresy quite literally means division. And a heretic, in the strictest sense of the word, is one who divides. The Apostles and the clergy who came after them cracked down on heretics because they were people who out of pride, ambition, or desire for money divided the Church breaking people off in order to form their own congregations. This, first and foremost, was the unsound teaching they had to combat. They had to fight, at all costs, the breaking up of the family by selfish people. Somewhere along the line, this translated into an all out war on anyone with a different experience or interpretation, and this sentiment was then passed down through the centuries. Denomination to denomination, church to church, we simply do not tolerate anybody else's interpretation of theology. Except now, instead of the one, holy, catholic, and Apostolic Church being visibly one, holy, catholic, and apostolic; it appears (though in reality One Church) to be many Churches equally condemning each other as heretics.
Our unity will never come from theology. Theology literally means “the study of God”. And while conforming with the larger body of accepted Truth, one's personal study of God will never be the same as the person next to him. God remains the same yesterday, today, and forever; but because we change and are different our experiences of Him will change and be different. Even if He is not in motion, we are. This is why we argue and fight over teachings which if you really look into them are really different facets of the same Truth expressed semantically in different ways.
The only way the Church can be restored to visible unity is when we focus on the person, teaching, and practice of Jesus Christ; when we focus on Jesus Himself, and not teachings about Him; when we follow His teachings to love and care about everyone, including those who would be our enemies. The Scripture plainly says He who does not love, does not know God because God is love. It also says something to the effect of if you cannot love your brother whom you can see, how can you love God whom you cannot see? Jesus taught to love God, one's brother, one's neighbor, and one's enemies. Where then is there room to hate anyone for those of us who profess to follow Him?
Finally, and I am as guilty of this as anyone, as family we must put the interests of that family over and above anything else. Blood is thicker than water, it is said. No matter what happens with the government, or with politics, or with anything else, we can't let those things divide us as more important than our family.
Our road to unity is through remembering that we are all family. It was because we forgot that one central fact that we became divided and disowned one another. The Word of God teaches that love and unity is more important than whether I'm right and you're wrong. It is that interpretation of the Word of God which is cursed which teaches otherwise.
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