[As I've been going through collecting my notes for publishing my book, I remembered this email I sent to a pastor friend I met in Tennessee. I had hoped to perhaps start something with the other pastors to draw our combined strengths together. Unfortunately, it never materialized.]
Pastor Steve, I apologize I won't be able to be at the prayer meeting tomorrow. I got work substituting at the High School tomorrow morning.
I've been doing a lot of thinking about how we might all work together towards a common goal without our conflicting theologies muddying the issues at hand.
The first thing is that we all share the same goal. For ourselves and to guide our respective flocks to move from our initial profession of faith or conversion experience, let's call that Point A, to the final point of our salvation, let's call that point B. We call this by different terms depending on which tradition or theology one belongs to. In Evangelical Protestant circles it's called Glorification (one of the three "tenses" of salvation: justification, sanctification, and glorification); in Catholic and Orthodox circles it's called variously "beatification, divinization, deification," and theologically "theosis". As I understand the term, it's where we come into full union with God, both losing and maintaining the distinction between Him and ourselves. Various protestant denominations define it with slight variations or understandings but it basically works out to the same effect. So, our purpose is to move or be moved from point A to point B and to help guide others along that same Path. With that in mind, we have to be especially careful that we ourselves walk the Path, know what it is, what it looks like, and how to get to the destination point.
I noticed a long time ago, when I first became Catholic, that the life of a Christian who is sincere in their faith looks pretty much the same from denomination to denomination. That is, while theologies and interpretations differ, we all tend to be moved either internally or externally towards several guideposts along the way.
The first one the newly converted or professed moves towards is Baptism. I know we all tend to disagree on the nature and necessity of Baptism, but in general we all usually agree that someone who has had a real conversion to Jesus Christ will generally at least want to follow Him in Baptism. Further, He told us to do it. We all accept that there are some circumstances where it simply isn't possible (immediate martyrdom, thief on the cross, etc.), and we have our own theological explanations around it, but in general, it's the normal course of action, and it can be reasonably assumed that there is a spiritual problem with the professed person who refuses to commit to Christ in Baptism.
The next one which the Christian moves towards is Holy Communion, or Holy Eucharist. Again, we all tend to disagree on the meaning and necessity of Holy Eucharist. But again, it is something He told us to do at the very least to remember His death until He comes, and like Baptism has been a part of the tradition and practice of the universal Church, however it's practiced, since the Apostles. Again, we consider something to generally be spiritually wrong with the Christian who either refuses Holy Eucharist, or treats it in a profane or dishonorable way.
Of course when we knowingly sin, or sometimes unknowingly, we are convicted and moved towards repentance and confession, either directly to God, or with a member of the clergy. Often, even in Protestant circles, a person who feels particularly convicted about a sin will seek out a Pastor for counsel and to help guide them back. That is a part of our responsibility as guides and shepherds, assistant or otherwise, whether or not one accepts the Apostolic authority to bind and loose.
In the process of this, we also all generally seek out other Christians to fellowship with. And, depending on the denomination, we can seek official adult church membership, Baptism of the Holy Spirit, or in the Catholic/Orthodox faith Confirmation; especially if the profession of faith was made for us by our parents, or at a very young age.
If we get sick, we tend to go to the leadership of the Church and ask them to pray for our healing. Depending on the denomination, oil tends to be involved. We generally call this the Anointing of the Sick, and whether viewed as a Sacrament or not, I haven't seen a church yet that doesn't practice it in some form.
The call to get married, and the call to Ordination, or both, are also practiced in virtually every Church, although not by everyone because not everyone is called to either or both. Ordination is generally practiced exclusively by the laying on of hands by virtually every denomination, as it has for two thousand years.
So, these are the first guideposts along the way. In the Catholic/Orthodox tradition, they are the seven Sacraments, and they tend to be represented, recognized as such or not, in Christian practice regardless of denomination.
We generally tend to recognize too, that there is something spiritually wrong with the Christian, baptized or otherwise, who after knowingly sinning, refuses to turn away from that sin, or admit any wrongdoing. We have all watched as that professed Christian, if he doesn't repent, goes into a downward spiral and his visible spiritual state gets worse and worse until he descends into a kind of living hell of his own. We all have different explanations theologically as to why and how. But the observable phenomenon is the same, and we instinctively mourn the loss of a brother or sister whether or not we accept that their salvation is still secured.
Further, we can all generally agree, willingly or begrudgingly, that to walk the Path of Jesus Christ as He taught it requires some will and visible effort on our part, and that the visible indication of one who is on that Path is love, compassion, and kindness for the brothers, for the stranger, for those who hate us, and especially for God Himself. The one who follows Jesus Christ offers himself or herself as a living sacrifice just as He did. And the pretender tends to be pretty easy to spot, whether or not he or she realizes it at the moment.
Our observable goal is union with God, if possible, in this life as well as the next and our movement must always be towards this. Another piece which I think we can all generally agree on, if we really think about it, is that this doesn't come without the cross. It doesn't come without accepting that there is a fundamental malfunction in the human psyche (and I would argue the continuous recognition of this by the Christian as well as the convert), and that union with Jesus Christ in His death on the Cross is the only solution, and that as we surrender to that union in His death, so also His resurrection and the life of God will become more apparent in us until nothing else remains of us except the distinction between "He and I" and we realize and experience what is truly the absolute center of His infinite Being which is an all consuming, devastating, and blissful love.
These are just some thoughts on truths I think we can all use as anchors to achieve the same ends and avoid unnecessary and useless bickering which only serves to make us look like morons who don't understand the truth ourselves, and drive people away from Christ. And if we can all build on these anchors to direct and guide the people, in this case especially the youth because they are at a point now when they can absorb truth like a new wineskin absorbing new wine, then we can truly fulfill the command of Christ to go and make disciples.
If you think this is a positive step in the right direction, share these thoughts with the other pastors and see what they think and let me know.
In Christ,
Fr. Allen+
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