The issue of Church
unity is a bit of a sticky one. Everyone has his own idea as to what it should
or shouldn’t look like. I too have many ideas of how I think things should be
(even though it’s ultimately up to Christ and I really have no say in the
matter). Being that I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian, I have my own opinions
and biases. However, I do not intend for this blog to necessarily reflect my
own convictions as much as to encourage active and constructive engagement
between the faithful disciples of Christ. I hope that my words may serve as a
challenge to cast aside pride and confrontation and to meet each other in the
spirit of Truth and humility.
So, a little bit about
myself and how I have been impacted by this issue:
I was raised in a
charismatic-evangelical setting (Interestingly enough, by some twist of
Providence, the very church I've been attending this summer) Thus, most of my
family as well as my friends come from (and continue to be from) various denominationally
nondescript evangelical contexts. While in my second year at university, I was
introduced to Eastern Orthodoxy and was received into the Orthodox faith a year
later. Being that my new-found faith was somewhat of a minority in the larger context
of my relationships, I found that many “elephants” began to creep into my life.
There are certain topics that just don’t come up in conversations because we
have agreed to ignore them. At the same time it is rather funny that though
many of my friends knew me before I became Orthodox, few actually remember that
I haven’t always been so. I often get fed up with the unspoken differences and wish they weren't there at the corner of my consciousness. I often wonder if some people would be shocked if I told them some of the things I believe... Thus the elephants.
In the spring of this
last year, I was very blessed to participate in a class called “Issues in
Ecumenical Dialogue” that made me much more aware of the discussion. It was a
unique opportunity to really see the process of theological discussion and
inter-denominational conversation at work. The class was lead by two Professors,
one Catholic and the other Protestant, and encouraged the students to engage
with each other on the various topics discussed in class. It was during this
class that I truly began to hope and pray for unity in a very physical sense.
By the time the semester was finished we were really not anywhere nearer to a
tangible unity per se and no one, to the best of my knowledge, converted to
another “side,” however, we did come away with tools for engaging each other
having been made much more aware of the challenges to such discussion. This class left me with a hope and a renewed desire to see the reunion of Christ's Body into a whole that truly is not divided in any way.
Since then, I have had
many meaningful conversations and have thought a great deal about the “unity of
the faithful.” I'm not really sure why I was “lead” to become Orthodox, but
sometimes I wonder if there is some higher purpose to all this... it is often
very difficult for me to be an Orthodox Christian in a completely Evangelical
community, however, the conversation might be better served if we concentrated
more on being Christians than on being Orthodox or Evangelical. Then again,
even that means something slightly different depending on who you are...
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