Right Left Whatever

True Ecumenism vs. False

Earl T. Wilson writes this viewpoint, At the Crux of the Matter, God's Truth Wins, at PresbyWeb (thanks to Dunker Journal for the link).

Are Christians listening to the same God when one perceives God's will as ordaining a homosexual bishop and another doesn't? That's either a contradiction or a description of an inconsistent God, an unscriptural description of Him. I don't buy it -- someone is doing what is "right in his own eyes".

Back in October 2001, I was at a special meeting of the Institute for Religion and Democracy to hear Dr. Tom Oden speak on The New Ecumenism. I had just made a decision to follow Jesus -- my commitment was about four months old at the time. For some reason, I found myself drawn to reading about the early Church Fathers, and Dr. Oden is knowledgable of their work. I bring this all up because Dr. Oden's speech was responded to by Dr. Robert P. George, Professor of Jurisprudence and Director, James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. Dr. George recognizes an ecumenism which transcends Catholic-Protestant boundaries but which definitely respects a certain boundary.

From Dr. George's response:

As the Catholic panelist, I suppose that I am expected to say something critical from a Catholic perspective of the work of a Methodist theologian. I’m afraid that I must disappoint this expectation. It is not that I consider the theological issues that continue to divide Catholics and Protestants to be unimportant. I long to share in a common eucharistic meal with my Protestant friends, yet I know that this must await a more perfect communion of faith. But this longing itself is a manifestation of the work of the Spirit towards its object. Indeed, when I think in terms of “them” and “us,” I simply find it impossible to divide the world into Catholics and Protestants or even Catholics and non-Catholics. I am a Catholic; Dr. Oden is a Protestant. But when I think in terms of “us,” I cannot imagine “us” not including Dr. Oden or Diane Knippers, or James Nuechterlein, or Gilbert Meilaender, or Charles Colson, or Bill Bright, or James Dobson or countless other Protestant believers whose fidelity to the ancient creeds and moral principles of Christian faith has been proven on the battlefields of the culture war. There is a profound unity among us, manifested in common effort and common struggle and animated by what is undeniably a common faith—a unity that that is, I believe, precisely the work of the Holy Spirit to which Dr. Oden referred.

So who is the “them”? I wish I could say that there is no “them.” But that isn’t true. The fact is that in the struggles for the sanctity of human life, the dignity of marriage and the family, the integrity of Christian doctrine, many Christians—Catholics as well as Protestants—are on the other side. Though I may find myself approaching the Lord’s table at mass alongside Catholics who support abortion, or reject the Biblical and natural law understanding of marriage as a one-flesh union of a man and a woman, or deny Christ’s incarnation, bodily resurrection, and ascension, there is between us a fundamental moral and spiritual divide. Ours is not the same faith. Nor is the object of our worship the same. The scandal of the affectation of unity among those who believe the doctrines of Christian faith and those who do not believe them is as deep and damaging as the scandal of division among Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox believers.

In the great struggles over life and death, marriage and the family, right and wrong, there is, I’m afraid, an “us” and a “them.” Of course, we are strictly enjoined by Christ himself to love our enemies—and we must not fail in this duty. At the same time, we must not pretend that we have no enemies. In the midst of a conflict in which lives and souls are at stake, love of God and neighbor forbids our indulging such pretense.

Posted by joelfuhrmann at August 19, 2003 10:09 PM