(From Page 30 of the old CEC Discussion forum, posted by Rochus and the Dog)
On the Unity and Division of the Church and the Formation of a New Communion
By Bishop Kenneth Myers
November 8, 2006
Christians of the 21st century are met with a dilemma: on the one hand, God’s plan is that the Church be one; on the other hand, we live in a real world context where the church, at least organizationally and visibly, is not one. It is not even two. It is multitudinous. It is “the many”.
Frustrated with this situation, many Christians have come to the conclusion that the only solution is to somehow “join” “the one true church”. Some see this as the Roman Catholic Church, others see it as Orthodoxy. Some go a step further (or a step back, as the case may be) and declare that, while neither of these is the one true church, if they were combined they would somehow constitute such (a fallacious argument), and therefore it is incumbent upon contemporary believers to “join” either the Roman or the Orthodox church in an attempt to move, to the best of their abilities, toward that one true church. There are several problems inherent in such views.
There is No “One True Church”
The first problem is a practical one: the “one true church”, organizationally and visibly, does not exist today. Though the desire is noble and godly and in keeping with our Lord’s prayer in the Gospel of John (chapter 17), such a church does not exist today, nor has it existed for at least 1000 years, and if truth be told it has not existed for much longer than this. Witness the “schisms” of the early medieval churches which have of recent renewed relationships with the Roman Church (an example would be the Chaldean Catholic Church, which renewed union with Rome in 1830) – and yet there is the mutual recognition that these groups did in fact exist as churches before such healing of relationships began.
The Church is not organizationally and visibly one today, and if it ever was, returning to that time is a fantasy. To borrow an axiom from Thomas Wolfe, “you can’t go home again.” To return to a time and situation long past is simply an impossibility. Hans Urs Von Balthasar shows this is true in regard to “doing theology”. His remarks are equally applicable to “doing ecclesiology”:
[The theologian’s] first move will be to return once more to the past. This return will be beneficial, but only on one condition: that he understands well that history, far from dispensing us from creative effort, imposes it on us. Our artists, and in particular our architects, all acknowledge this. A Greek temple, a Romanesque church, a Gothic cathedral all merit our admiration, because they are witnesses to a beauty and truth that are incarnate in time. But to reproduce them now in our present day would constitute an anachronism, all the more appalling to the extent the copies were more minutely exact. The intent to revive them, to adapt them to the needs of the time, would be even worse. Such an effort could only beget horrors. All attempts at “adaptation” to current tastes are doomed to the same fate. No more than architecture does theology escape this universal law. In neo-Greek style, the column of antiquity loses its original qualities of simplicity and becomes an intolerable imitation. And the same may be said of Saint Thomas: “A great and estimable doctor, renowned, authoritative, canonized, and very much dead and buried” (Peguy). We should not imagine that there are other estimable figures who in our eyes are better capable of withstanding such treatment! We have turned our gaze on a more distant past [he is writing here on the theology of Gregory of Nyssa], but we have not done so in the belief that, in order to give life to a languishing system of thought, it would suffice to exhume the “Greek Fathers” and adapt them for better or worse to the needs of the modern soul. We are not ingenuous enough to prefer a “neopatristic” theology to a “neoscholastic” theology! There is never a historical situation that is absolutely similar to any of the ones that preceded it in time. Thus there is no historical situation that can furnish us with its own solutions as a kind of master key capable of resolving all the problems that plague us today [emphasis added].1In short, the historical accidents with which we are faced are unique to our time and space. They have not been faced before, not precisely and exactly, because here and now have not been before. Not until here and now. The problems which face the fragmented Church of the 21st century, though perhaps similar to other times and places, are uniquely ours. And though we may learn from the past, we cannot repeat the past. Von Balthasar concludes by stating, “For a new problem there must be a new solution.”2 This is not to suggest that we can’t learn from the past, or take direction from those who have gone before us. Indeed we must. It means, rather, that “being faithful to tradition most definitely does not consist, therefore, of a literal repetition and transmission of the philosophical and theological theses that one imagines lie hidden in time and in the contingencies of history. Rather, being faithful to tradition consists much more of imitating our Fathers in the faith with respect to their attitude of intimate reflection and their effort of audacious creation, which are the necessary preludes to true spiritual fidelity”.3
There is not, and has not been for quite some time, “one true church”. This is the first fact that must be accepted in order for Christians today to work toward healing and toward the fulfillment of Christ’s High Priestly prayer.
1 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Presence and Thought, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, 1995, p. 10.
2 Ibid, p. 11
3 Ibid, p. 12 2
The One and the Many
The second problem is a philosophical one. Strictly speaking, the only “one” that exists is the oneness of God. And even this is not accurately put, for God is beyond number. He is not “one”, he is simpler still. To speak of one is to speak of space and time and these are things which God transcends. God simply is. And he is, simply. Strictly speaking, God is the only one who is pure being (be-ing; He “be”). All other things (creation as a whole and created beings in particular) are in process, in movement, and are either becoming or unbecoming (moving toward God or moving away from him: “further up and further in” is the language of C.S. Lewis, or else the opposite, in which case, Lewis writes, “or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.”4), but only God is the I Am. In the world of ideals, God is THE Ideal. By definition, all created things must be distinguished from their ideal (that which rests in the mind of God). No created thing is precisely the same substance as its own nature. For example, human nature is one, but humans are many (and even in Adam, alone and before Eve, there is the distinction between the individual who is Adam and that nature which he possessed).
What has all this to do with church unity? To insist on a particular group being “the one true church” is to confuse the nature of the thing with the particular manifestation of that thing in the world. Even when the Church lived in and demonstrated something approaching catholic unity, there was the understanding among the Fathers of the Church that each diocese (or each local church, for that matter) possessed the nature of the whole. It could be properly said that wherever the church was, there was the whole church.
While the later Western Church came to see unity in a more hierarchical manner, the early church, and the Eastern Church still, views the unity more ontologically. To be catholic, in the ancient faith, did not mean to be universal (a statement about space, as if the conglomeration of various local churches constituted the catholic Church); it meant to embrace the fullness (kata holis; “from the whole”) of the faith locally. Tertullian wrote,
[The apostles] then in like manner founded churches in every city, from which all the other churches, one after another, derived the tradition of the faith, and the seeds of doctrine, and are every day deriving them, that they may become churches. Indeed, it is on this account only that they will be able to deem themselves apostolic, as being the offspring of apostolic churches. Every sort of thing must necessarily revert to its original sort for its classification. Therefore the churches, although they are so many and so great, comprise but the one primitive church, founded by the apostles,
4 C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1979, p. 14; The full quote: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare.”
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from which they all spring. In this way all are primitive, and all are apostolic…5
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) explained it thus:
In order to grasp the true meaning of the analogical application of the term communion to the particular Churches taken as a whole, one must bear in mind above all that the particular Churches, insofar as they are "part of the one Church of Christ"(38), have a special relationship of "mutual interiority"(39) with the whole, that is, with the universal Church, because in every particular Church "the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church of Christ is truly present and active"(40). For this reason, "the universal Church cannot be conceived as the sum of the particular Churches, or as a federation of particular Churches"(41). It is not the result of the communion of the Churches, but, in its essential mystery, it is a reality ontologically and temporally prior to every individual particular Church.
Indeed, according to the Fathers, ontologically, the Church-mystery, the Church that is one and unique, precedes creation(42), and gives birth to the particular Churches as her daughters. She expresses herself in them; she is the mother and not the product of the particular Churches [emphases in the original].6
To suggest that one human being possesses the fullness of human nature is one thing. To suggest that the fullness of human nature is contained only in one human being is quite another. To suggest that one church possesses the fullness of “ecclesial nature” is one thing. To suggest that the fullness of “ecclesial nature” is contained only in one church is quite another.
God, who is beyond space and time, and consequently beyond number, is very much other than all else, which is bound by space and time, and is consequently bound by number. This includes the Church. Two or twenty thousand or two million: it is still not
5 Tertullian, On Prescription Against Heretics, Chapter XX; The Ante-Nicene Fathers, V. III, p. 252; Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1980.
6 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Some Aspects of the Church Understood as Communion, Vatican City, Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, 1992; paragraph 9; available from the Vatican website at
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congrega...s-notio_en.htmlIt should be noted that in this document, previous to the above quotation, Ratzinger states that ALL baptized believers (without regard to their union with the Bishop of Rome) are members of the invisible communion of the Church: “As an invisible reality, it is the communion of each human being with the Father through Christ in the Holy Spirit, and with the others who are fellow sharers in the divine nature, in the passion of Christ, in the same faith, in the same spirit (paragraph 4).” Likewise, while the cited quotation refers primarily to those “churches” (particular dioceses and bishops) in communion with the Bishop of Rome, Ratzinger further states, in regard to ecumenicism, that the invisible communion of the church exists in other bodies, especially the various bodies of Eastern Orthodoxy, though in the Roman view it is “wounded” (paragraph 17).
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one (and consequently, in regard to the nature of the thing, the establishment of or elimination of one more communion or denomination is of no consequence. The consequence of such actions exist in the realm of the unity of the many, and must be judged by the fruit born of that particular action).
The Church, or better said, the Churches, are many, and yet share in one nature. Orthodox priest and scholar Alexander Schmemann writes,
The Orthodox view, as it seems to me, may be expressed as follows: the category of organic unity can properly be applied only to a local Church. I should like to make it quite clear that by “local Church” I mean not one of those ecclesiastical groupings coterminous with nations or states, which we call autocephalous Churches (such as the Greek Church or the Russian Church), but a single community united under the headship of one bishop and possessing, in unity with him, the fullness of sacramental life. Such a local Church can alone be called an “organism” in ecclesiastical language and such a Local Church, as an “organism”, a sacramental body, is not a “part” or a “member” of a wider universal organism. It is the very Church itself.7
The churches, which are many, share in the nature of the Church, which is one. Locally this oneness is shown by unity with the local bishop and concord among the priests. Cyprian wrote, “Whence you ought to know that the bishop is in the Church, and the Church is in the bishop; and if anyone be not with the bishop, that he is not in the Church…the Church, which is Catholic and one, is not cut nor divided, but is indeed connected and bound together by the cement of priests who cohere with one another.”8 Here is declared the locus of “oneness”: unity with the bishop and priestly coherence with one another. Note also the implicit multiplicity of the church: “connected” “bound together by the cement”.
The sad divisions which exists in the church today are not divisions of number (this being natural and unavoidable in space and time), nor divisions of nature (this being a thing shared by all). They are, rather, divisions of practice, theology, ethics and relationship. Reunion, when it occurs, will not be accomplished by simply reducing numbers (even to five, or even to two, or even to one). True spiritual reunion (which even now is occurring and will continue to increase) is accomplished by each particular church embracing more fully the true nature which she shares with others, recognizing that nature in others (however marred in its expression) and working toward a unity of practice, theology, ethics and relationship, rooted in a common heritage and the God-created nature of the Church itself.
7 Alexander Schmemann, “Unity”, “Division” and “Reunion” in Light of Orthodox Ecclesiology; Address given at the Annual Conference of the Fellowship of St. Alban and St Sergius at Abingdon, England in August 1950; Online version:
http://www.myriobiblos.gr/texts/english/schmemann_unity.html8 Cyprian, Epistle to Florentius Pupianus, on Calumniators; Epistle LXVIII, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol V, p. 372; Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1981.
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The Current State of the Church: Shattered
While the nature of the church is one, and the expression of that nature in the churches is many, the Fathers sought to guard that precious unity by fidelity to the faith once delivered, the symbol of the bishop, and the mutual love of the clergy and people. This was the idea and this was the ideal. The reality was far from the ideal. As any good book on church history will show, the story of the church has not been a story of joyous unity, but of constant warfare, some battles legitimate, some not. The end result is a church today that is sorely divided, not just in a natural way of multiplicity, but in an ungodly way of schism, heresy, party spirit – all the things the apostles warned us against. In a word, the church is shattered. The two notable fracturings are the Great Schism between East and West culminating in 1054, and the further fracture of the Western Church in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century.
Desiring to be part of a “pre-shattered” church, many Christians mistakenly assume that the best step toward reunion is to join one or the other of the “big pieces” of the original cracked pot: Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Before embracing this solution, it would be good to take a lesson from the Epistle of Saint James. In James 2.10 the brother of Jesus writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.” Legalists tend to see themselves as basically keeping the law, at least the major parts of it, and therefore the minor infractions are negligible. James’ point is that people can’t have it both ways (a point expanded on repeatedly by St. Paul). If the law is to be the measure of our righteousness, then the whole law must be the measure, and if we have broken even a tiny part of it, we have broken it completely. A beautiful Ming Dynasty vase that falls from the pedestal and has only one tiny chip in it is still broken. Whether a broken thing has two pieces or two million does not change the fact that the thing is broken. James applies this principle to our keeping of the law. Let us apply it now to the unity of the Church.
For the sake of the argument, let us assume there existed before 1054 some kind of unity which could be called “the one church”. Now let us acknowledge that the Great Schism brought an end to that unity. To return, either to Roman Catholicism or to Orthodoxy, is not to return to that unity. In point of fact, the only way to return to that unity is to return chronologically to a date preceding the Schism, an obvious impossibility. Even if the Great Schism were “the only” fracture in the vase, the vase is still fractured. To join the Roman Church or the Orthodox Church is to join a piece of the one church.
Add now the further fracturing (and there have been such in both East and West, and not only the Protestant Reformation and its subsequent shatterings). Each of these two original pieces shattered more, so that now there are something like 25,000 denominations, sects and groups in the world, as well as practically innumerable independent local congregations. But strictly speaking, to belong to any one of them is to belong to a singular piece of the broken vase. To belong to the independent congregation on the street corner formed only a week ago is, again, strictly speaking, as much a belonging to a piece of the vase as is belonging to the Roman Catholic, the Orthodox, the
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Anglican or the Lutheran church (though, granted, those pieces are larger, and their broken edges are older).
This is not to say that “it doesn’t matter” what church, or what kind of church, one belongs to. There is an apostolic faith and an historic pattern to which all should strive to attain, and some churches stand closer on the scale to that ideal than do others. The point is, however, that the “church whole” (the church healed) does not exist in history presently, and to join one or another communion, no matter how ancient or novel, is not tantamount with joining the undivided, healed, one true church. As Ratzinger has pointed out (cf. footnote 6), all baptized faithful are members of the undivided Mystical Body of Christ. But, contra Ratzinger, it does not remain that the baptized faithful of any particular communion are also, by accident of such membership, members of the only fully legitimate whole and undivided expression of that Mystical Communion in the earth today.
The Work of Re-Union
In light of the historic situation in which we find ourselves, having recently experienced the failure of one particular Church whose stated vision was to be fully catholic, fully evangelical and fully charismatic, and having as a result of that failure found ourselves participating in a fracturing rather than a uniting, the question remains as to our particular role in the future as regards the establishment of another Church, and the recapturing of a vision for reunion in the larger Body of Christ. What follows is a proposal for the future.
One: No Longer Protesting
Many in our circles have decried the label “Protestant”, seeing it as something of a pejorative, and as the equivalent of “anti-Catholic”. Historically understood, the term originated among Catholics and not as “opposed” to Catholics. The 1521 Edict of Worms forbade the teachings of Luther from being taught in Roman Catholic churches in the Holy Roman Empire (and, incidentally, called for the death of Luther, by whosoever would, without fear of repercussion). The 1526 First Diet of Spyer suspended the edict, on the grounds that such a universal decision should rest in the hands of an Ecumenical Council. The 1592 Second Diet of Spyer reversed this decision, and the reversal was protested by a group of princes and imperial cities (cities formally responsible to the Emperor alone).9 The term “Protestant”, strictly speaking, refers to those signers who protested the authority of political figures to determine matters of faith outside the context of an Ecumenical Council. Speaking only of this strict definition, I daresay that we would proudly wear the label “Protestant”.
Of course, the term has come to mean, popularly speaking, “any church that isn’t Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox”, or even worse, “Any church that is against the Roman
9 Martin Marty, Martin Luther, New York, Viking, 2004 7
Catholic Church”. While embracing the term as originally constituted is, to me, admirable, to embrace in our own day its later connotations is contrary to the prayer of Christ, to the ecumenical spirit at work in all the churches, and to the vision God has set before us (both formally in our previous affiliation and informally in our new and future relationships). While we are unavoidably children of the Protestant Reformation (with all its good and bad), and ought not be ashamed of being Protestant in the most strict sense, it should also be understood that we are not protesting any part of Christ’s Church. We are not protesting the Roman Church. We are not protesting Orthodoxy. And, this is important, we are not protesting the Protestants. We ought not be defined by what we are against, but by what we are for.
Instead, we ought to be about recognizing and affirming that which is good and strong and godly in every part of Christ’s Church. As St. Paul wrote to the Church in Ephesus (Eph. 4:15-16), “but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”
Two: Living With Certainty and Uncertainty
That unity will occur is a given. Though there is much work to do, and perhaps much time in which to do it, the unity of the Church is the prayer of Christ (John 17.20f) and the promise of Scripture (Eph. 4.11-13). Of this, people of faith may be certain.
But there is also uncertainty. To say there will be, based on the promises of God, unity and wholeness, is one thing; to say how it will happen is another thing. As the philosopher Karl Popper has so emphasized in his oeuvre, the precise predicting of how a social movement will evolve, will play out, is futile. In his masterpiece, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume One: Plato, although recognizing much foundational value in Plato’s thought, Popper convincingly takes Plato to task for two things: (1) the belief that the ideal existed in a concrete form in the past (in particular he was referring to the mythical past of Greece) and (2) the belief that such an ideal can be achieved in the future by controlled, centralized social engineering. Closed societies (such as Plato’s Athens, Stalin’s Russia and Hitler’s Germany) set forth a past ideal to be recaptured through the total control of all aspects of life and society by the state. Open societies, on the other hand (that is, societies of freedom) while striving toward that which is better, that which is good, have neither an ideal from the past to replicate, nor a blueprint for how to achieve such an ideal in the future. Open societies instead pursue what he calls “piecemeal social engineering”10: changes made here and there (though not universally and not by centralized enforcement) for the betterment life, society and the world. A
10 Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Volume One: Plato; Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1966, p. 158. In The Poverty of Historicism (New York, Routledge, 1957) he writes, “…I have added the word ‘piecemeal’, both to off-set understandable associations and to express my conviction that ‘piecemeal tinkering’ (as it is sometimes called), combined with critical analysis, is the main way to practical results in the social as well as in the natural sciences” (p. 53).
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quick contrast of life in Soviet Russia and life in a free West serves as a contemporary evidence of his argument.11
Applying Popper’s thought to the Church, it would be futile to project precisely what the healed and united Church will look like, and similarly futile to project precisely how that goal will be achieved. History and life throw us curve balls, and must be met as the contingencies arise, with the foundation of the Apostolic Faith and the leading of the Holy Spirit. The one caveat to Popper: the Church, unlike a particular society, has the promise of the Spirit through Holy Scripture that such healing and unity will occur in the future.
To say that the healing and unity of the Church will happen is faith. To say how it will happen is foolishness. Our task is to be responsible for that part of the vineyard which we have been given, and to (in Popperian language) apply piecemeal improvements to our Church, submitting our engineering to Scripture, Holy Tradition, the wisdom of past ages, the wisdom of the present and the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Three: Some Possibilities Of How It Will Happen
While it is impossible to declare precisely how the unity of the Church will occur, it is within the realm of reason to speak of some possibilities. First, I suggest that the healing of the Church will be consistent with how God has worked in the past. In a world of perpetual instability, one thing, one Being, remains the same. He is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13.8). Consequently, the writer adds, “do not be carried away by varied and strange teachings”. The first step toward healing might ought to be the recognition that such healing will not come about through “newfangled” plans or schemes, but instead by considering how God has worked reconciliation in the past, whether that be the personal reconciliation of brothers (Jacob and Esau in Genesis), reconciliation of families (Joseph and his family in Genesis) or any host of other reconciliatory moments both in Scripture and Church history. But we ought to give attention particularly, and most importantly, to the overarching work of reconciliation accomplished in Christ (cf. 2 Co. 5.19, et al). Further study of this subject should prove enlightening.
Secondly, I propose that reconciliation will occur relationally before institutionally. Simply put, clergy and people of various Churches beginning to fellowship, pray
11 In the preface to The Poverty of Historicism (New York, Routledge, 1957, p. xi-xii), Popper sums up his “refutation of historicism” in five points:
1. The course of human history is strongly influenced by the growth of human knowledge.
2. We cannot predict, by rational or scientific methods, the future growth of our scientific knowledge.
3. We cannot, therefore, predict the future course of human history.
4. This means that we must reject the possibility of a theoretical history; that is to say, of a historical social science that would correspond to theoretical physics. There can be no scientific theory of historical development serving as a basis for historical prediction.
5. The fundamental aim of historicist methods is therefore misconceived; and historicism collapses.
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together, study together, and dialogue (attending not only to that which is held in common but also giving due consideration to that which divides) will accomplish a groundwork from which institutional unity may emerge. Grassroots and ground up seems to be the natural (and even supernatural) way of things.
Third, great movements of history (both within and without the church) usually coalesce around particular leadership. A man (or two, or three) usually comes to the forefront. Benedict, Francis, Luther, Wesley. We ought to pray that God raise up such men to lead us, through their particular charisms, toward healing and unity. Obviously in Roman Catholic circles, John Paul II was such a man. I believe in the current state of what God is doing in His Church, that He will raise up leaders from various groups who share a common heart and common vision. We ought to keep our eyes open for such leadership and strive to walk together in a common cause.
Fourth, I see three possibilities for the dynamic of how reunion occurs on a grand scale. The first possibility is the rejoining of “larger pieces” first, then smaller pieces being added to the whole. Much like the reassembling of a precious broken heirloom, the first task is to put together again the larger pieces with obvious lines of “fitting together”. Subsequently smaller pieces are added in their proper place in the puzzle. It may be that the first truly significant institutional reunion will occur between some of the larger pieces and more ancient breaks, for example, between Rome and Constantinople. And only then will other pieces find their places, for example Lutherans and Methodists and Baptists and Charismatics. This obviously is not a quick process, rather one which takes the patience of the Master Craftsman working to make the heirloom “good as new”.
The second possibility is different. It may be that while larger pieces are being glued or welded together again, and that being a longer process, some of the smaller pieces may find themselves reunited at obvious lines of connection. Perhaps various splintered Anglican groups will come together; perhaps, in an atmosphere of openness and understanding, Evangelicals will continue to discover the richness of the ancient faith, and though not fully embracing all aspects, might move toward that faith in a piecemeal fashion, coming gradually to share a common worship, theology and value system. The current works of Robert Webber (both his writings, and his formal attempts at calling Evangelicals to a deeper appreciation of historic values) serves as a case in point.
The third possibility is the least desirable (though some would say the most likely), and that is the smelting of all the pieces and the repouring of a new piece. In times past, Christians who saw other Christians as enemies were suddenly thrown into unity by the threat of a new common enemy. Cataclysm changes the face of the landscape. Outside threats may go far in pushing Christians to greater unity. The thread of radical Islam is a case in point. In the past, God has raised up pagan nations to bring about his purposes in his chosen people. It may be the same in the future. I pray not, but it is certainly one of the possibilities.
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Four: Our Particular Role
We have departed from a dysfunctional Church which appears to have inadvertently abandoned its original vision. It is questionable whether it ever truly held to its stated vision. Where do we go from here? In light of all that is written beforehand, here are my convictions:
1. Joining the Roman Church or the Orthodox Church is not what God is calling us to as a group.
2. Being a “solo” diocese is not what God is calling us to as a group (such would be simply replacing a particular one-man-rule for another of the same).
3. Our vision should be to embrace the fullness of the faith, including
a. all which was held in common in the first millennium of the Church’s story, not only the dogmatic statements of the Ecumenical Councils, but also those things which were believed by the whole, never having been addressed by the Councils because never heretically threatened,
b. an evangelical commitment to the centrality of Holy Scripture and the work of evangelism, bringing people not only sacramentally into the Church, but also into a personal and life changing encounter with Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit,
c. an embracing of the charismatic activity of the Holy Spirit, not only in theory but in intentional practice,
d. a commitment to the historic offices of the church, including an episcopacy that is not monarchial, each bishop given the care of a particular diocese without interference of another singular bishop, rather under the accountability of a company of bishops,
e. a commitment to an openness of society in the life of the Church, including the involvement of all clergy in the government of the Church, and true accountability at every level, including personal,
f. a commitment to dying to the acts of the flesh and bearing the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Ga. 5.19-24) not only in personal and individual lives, but also corporately.
4. We should commit ourselves to walk in unity with other bishops and dioceses, seeking full communion with those who hold to our faith, convictions, values, and vision, seeing at the same time that we as a diocese share in the fullness of catholicity, without the legitimizing recognition of others (by that I mean that recognition from other Churches which share the Catholic faith is important, but such recognition is not the basis for our legitimacy).
5. As part of that larger communion, we should not define ourselves by what we are against (by what we protest), but should define ourselves positively, clearly stating what God is calling us to, not what He is calling us from.
6. As part of that larger communion, we should strive toward unity with other bodies of Christians, pursuing practical ways of working toward the reconciliation of God’s People, through fellowship, prayer, study, dialogue, and other official and non-official means. This includes, as far as possible, working for intentional unity
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with other denominations and communions, whether Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant or Non-denominational.
This paper serves to communicate my vision and values as a bishop in Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. It is written primarily for myself, secondarily for those clergy whom I serve, and finally as a piece for dialogue with other bishops and clergy. It is simply a first word for discussion and by no means a final word.
I am open to correction and refining. This piece serves simply as a setting forth of the values to which I am committed. May God prosper all that is of Him.
Bishop Kenneth Myers
bishopkenneth@sbcglobal.net
561 S. Sharp, Denison, TX 75021
903 815 5151