What is it?
It means church unity. It is a broad word that can be a specific as cooperation between denominations or as wide as unity of all faiths into one religion. For this blog post it will not refer to the unity of all religions but the unity of Christianity.
Why is it important?
The church in the New Testament is talked about as something whole made up of many different parts. From the very beginning the church suffered from factions and splitting, something Paul was very adamant in combating. Unity brings authority, it cultivates self sacrifice and accountability, it provides world wide fellowship and love of our brothers and sisters. It is important to face the world and our enemies with a united front.
Most importantly, we stand as one before Christ, as His bride and His body. In Hosea, Israel is described as a wife who is repeatedly unfaithful to her husband, with her husband showing her repeated grace. I believe this metaphor extends to the church as well. While it is important to pursue Truth and to stand for righteousness, we must also be willing to show one another, especially our brothers, grace just as Christ is showing us as a body grace.
Psalm 133
John 17:20–23
Acts 17:26–28
Romans 12
1 Corinthians 12
Galatians 3:27, 29
Ephesians 2:14–22
Ephesians 4:1–16
Colossians 3:10–15
What are the arguments/reservations against it?
Many people are apprehensive of any ecumenical movement. Mostly this comes from the fear that in order to achieve unity, strong doctrinal standards must be laid aside. Truth must be compromised and watered down. This is a valid concern, but in the very least it shouldn’t stop us from trying to find a way to bridge gaps instead of creating them.
Luke 16:13
2 Cor. 6:14-15
Invalid concerns:
A historical rivalry, feud, or grudge (which is at best immature)
The notion that unity ultimately means a path towards the antichrist (which is at best stupid)
How has it been approached historically?
Historically unity has been approached two ways. The first was to hold ecumenical councils in which representatives from the entire known church would come together to work out a particular issue, decide on how it was to be looked at, and declare anyone who held the opposing view to be heretical, or outside of the Christian church. This worked for small disagreements or when the issue seemed pretty clear. In fact this is how we came to our current understanding of the Trinity. But it couldn’t deal with the growing differences between the east and west. Later it wouldn’t work with the protestant reform. In fact, it ended up creating a much wider gap.
The second way it has been approached is trying to find a common ground theologically. This has been done in the past century to varying effects, the most significant moment being Vatican 2. While this method is much better than the first (in how the current church body exists) it is either very limited in how much unity it can reach or how many different denominations it can affect. For example, the Anglican and the Catholic church can achieve a fair amount of unity but when Pentecostals are added in there is very little everyone can agree on theologically.
Why hasn’t this worked?
In my own opinion, it hasn’t worked because most ecumenical movements have focused on theological doctrine which is the very thing that is strengthened by individual interpretation and tradition. In other words, theology is what divides, it is its nature to place boundaries on interpretation and declare singular authority. Theology will never unite. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, it just means that it shouldn’t be used as a uniting method.
What are other options?
Besides Theology there should be much more that defines a church. Things like how fellowship is done, how service is done, and the fact that we are all baptized in Christ’s name. My thesis project for my masters dealt with the unified service efforts of the different campus ministries at UTA. At the very least there should be acknowledgement of a larger body.
What is the ultimate goal?
The end product, as I see it, would be a single body by the acknowledgement and fellowship with one another, with a diverse set of theology just as every church rests in a different community with different traditions and cultures. In my mind there doesn’t need to be an ultimate authority over everybody, as long as individual congregations have some denominational authority and accountability over them. I would trust the Sovereignty of God to hold His church together in the name of His Son through His Spirit. But then again I am already trusting that is happening. I just wish we acted like it more.
January 16, 2008
January 7, 2008
New Year Updates
Laura and I are planning a road trip in mid March (15th through the 22nd) to Ouray, CO to drop off and visit with Brooke and her family. We are hoping to visit Chaco Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, and Mesa Verde NP while we are up there. Anyone who wants to join us is welcome; hopefully we’ll get two or three cars going. 
It is my birthday today and I have reached the quarter century mark. Thanks for all the presents and calls today; makes one feel appreciated.
My friend Josh Stephens is getting married on Saturday, so Brian and Janelle are driving up. Lots of fun to be had with everyone this weekend.
We watched The Namesake this weekend over at Raghu’s apartment. It might just be my favorite movie from the last year (competing with Once and No Country for Old Men). A fairly quiet movie with lots of beautiful moments. It explores the cultural issues that different generations face when immigrating to a new country. The actors who play the mother and father do an especially good job. If you have an Indian friend try to watch this with them so they can point out all the details an American would miss.
December 31, 2007
Friendly Beasts
We had a great Christmas this year with lots of good visiting with our family. We noticed an interesting phenomenon when we were sorting through pictures yesterday: we had taken far more photos of everybody’s pets then we had of family members. This could be a result of our own lack of domesticated companions or could be that the animals were simply more photogenic then our relatives (kidding…mostly). Whichever the case they make for a nice composition:
I have plenty of philosophical thoughts and discussion tangents running through my head but I feel like saving them for next year.
I have plenty of philosophical thoughts and discussion tangents running through my head but I feel like saving them for next year.
December 14, 2007
Destroying the IRS
I have a question for all the hardcore Ron Paulers out there. NPR has been providing a lot of coverage on Huckabee since his recent up rise in popularity. They were specifically addressing his plan to completely dismantle income tax by increasing sales tax to 23%. Basically taxing what we buy instead of what we make. This sounds appealing to someone like me who does spend a lot, even though I know there has to be a catch somewhere in there. Anyway, it sounded to me a lot like something Ron Paul would do, and I am wondering how RP might look at this specific plan raised by Huckabee (would he agree with him, would he do something completely different, would he call Huckabee a moron and challenge him to a duel to the death using nothing but sporks)?
December 1, 2007
Dinosaur Oragami
Last week Laura and I went a bought a cheap as free Christmas tree from Wal-Mart and decided to decorate it with origami animals. We went to the library today and raided the children’s section for some extra design’s and hit the jackpot: a whole book dedicated to dinosaur origami. So here are some of our creations:
Allosaurus
Apatosaurus
Tyrannosaurus
Stegosaurus
Pterodactyl
Brachiosaurus
Horseshoe Crab
Dove (for top of tree) 
Cardinal (folded by Grace)
The Two Mice
Sea Turtle
Humming Bird
November 26, 2007
Image of Christ
(I apologize in advance both for this post being too long and not long enough. Most people won’t have the time to read it, but those who do will find that it barely scratches the surface.)
On Saturday Laura, Raghu, Adam, and I went to the Kimball to see their exhibition on early Christian Art. It was a fantastic exhibit showing great examples and leaving me pondering the status of art in the Christian world today. One issue that has been bugging me lately is the debate on images of Christ, which puts me directly opposite reformed thought. While I might not completely embrace the legacy of Calvin, I usually find my self at least respecting his underlying theology. So I dug a little trying to get to the central issues to find our differences(if anyone feels that I have misinterpreted the Reformed position please feel free to correct me).
The debate starts by asking the question: What is the purpose of the second commandment? Very specifically (in the English language) it seems to be prohibiting Idol making and worship. The argument goes something like this: God being a spiritual entity cannot be worshiped through a physical representation. Such a representation cannot properly convey His divine presence even in the slightest and so our worship would naturally fall upon the object instead. Christ is the pure image of the invisible God, so to make an image of THE image would be to try and make an image of the triune God.
On the surface the logic seems to flow (don’t make an image of God, Jesus is God, so don’t make an image of Jesus) but for better logic we must incorporate why we are not to make an image of God. The reason is tied up in the fact that He can not be contained within physical or mental limits. If we make an image we will start to view God as something with physical limits. But God did become something physical, the ultimate physical representation, with the Incarnation. We should be constantly reminded that the Creator of the universe walked in very specific dirt, actually touched very specific people, and was killed and resurrected at very specific locations. Christ, although God, has a physical presence and can and should be represented by physical images lest we separate ourselves from His Incarnation.
As a supporting argument: Christ’s story is told through narrative, where the mind naturally conjures images and is specifically described by John in Revelation. To try and repel any image of Christ from our minds and hands seems to contradict the very nature of the scriptures.
Why did Calvin (and many others) come to these conclusions? Though I think it was in a large part reactionary, I also think that there is a very real observation that creations of our hands can become idols and misrepresent the truth in their subjects. Take this quote from Lewis out of A Grief Observed:
"It doesn't matter that all photographs of (my wife) are bad. It doesn't matter -not much- if my memory of her is imperfect. Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it not in some ways an advantage that it can't pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me?
I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want (my wife), not something that is like her. A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, and as such an obstacle.
Images, I suppose, have their use or they would have not been so popular. To me however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images-sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins."
Still, I don’t think that the banning of images is the answer. There should be a balance, like having an active teaching on the importance and meaning of images. Otherwise we are suppressing a natural imitation of the creative beauty of our Lord and (more importantly) suppressing the very nature of the Incarnation.
"Giotto and Fra Angelico would have at once admitted theologically that God was too good to be painted; but they would always try and paint Him. And they felt (very rightly) that representing Him as a rather quaint old man with a gold crown and a white beard, like a king of the elves, was less profane than resisting the sacred impulse to express him in some way. That is why the Christian world is full of gaudy pictures and twisted statues which seem, to many refined persons, more blasphemous than the secret volumes of an atheist. The trend of good is always toward Incarnation. But on the other hand, those refined thinkers who worship the devil, whether in the swamps of Jamaica or the salons of Paris, always insist upon shapelessness, the wordlessness, the unutterable character of the abomination"
G.K. Chesterton "The Mystagogue"
Futher reading:
A collection of anti-image quotes and verses.
An applicable modern situation for this discussion on The Passion of the Christ
On Saturday Laura, Raghu, Adam, and I went to the Kimball to see their exhibition on early Christian Art. It was a fantastic exhibit showing great examples and leaving me pondering the status of art in the Christian world today. One issue that has been bugging me lately is the debate on images of Christ, which puts me directly opposite reformed thought. While I might not completely embrace the legacy of Calvin, I usually find my self at least respecting his underlying theology. So I dug a little trying to get to the central issues to find our differences(if anyone feels that I have misinterpreted the Reformed position please feel free to correct me).
The debate starts by asking the question: What is the purpose of the second commandment? Very specifically (in the English language) it seems to be prohibiting Idol making and worship. The argument goes something like this: God being a spiritual entity cannot be worshiped through a physical representation. Such a representation cannot properly convey His divine presence even in the slightest and so our worship would naturally fall upon the object instead. Christ is the pure image of the invisible God, so to make an image of THE image would be to try and make an image of the triune God.
On the surface the logic seems to flow (don’t make an image of God, Jesus is God, so don’t make an image of Jesus) but for better logic we must incorporate why we are not to make an image of God. The reason is tied up in the fact that He can not be contained within physical or mental limits. If we make an image we will start to view God as something with physical limits. But God did become something physical, the ultimate physical representation, with the Incarnation. We should be constantly reminded that the Creator of the universe walked in very specific dirt, actually touched very specific people, and was killed and resurrected at very specific locations. Christ, although God, has a physical presence and can and should be represented by physical images lest we separate ourselves from His Incarnation.
As a supporting argument: Christ’s story is told through narrative, where the mind naturally conjures images and is specifically described by John in Revelation. To try and repel any image of Christ from our minds and hands seems to contradict the very nature of the scriptures.
Why did Calvin (and many others) come to these conclusions? Though I think it was in a large part reactionary, I also think that there is a very real observation that creations of our hands can become idols and misrepresent the truth in their subjects. Take this quote from Lewis out of A Grief Observed:
"It doesn't matter that all photographs of (my wife) are bad. It doesn't matter -not much- if my memory of her is imperfect. Images, whether on paper or in the mind, are not important for themselves. Merely links. Take a parallel from an infinitely higher sphere. Tomorrow morning a priest will give me a little round, thin, cold, tasteless wafer. Is it not in some ways an advantage that it can't pretend the least resemblance to that with which it unites me?
I need Christ, not something that resembles Him. I want (my wife), not something that is like her. A really good photograph might become in the end a snare, a horror, and as such an obstacle.
Images, I suppose, have their use or they would have not been so popular. To me however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images-sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? The Incarnation is the supreme example; it leaves all previous ideas of the Messiah in ruins."
Still, I don’t think that the banning of images is the answer. There should be a balance, like having an active teaching on the importance and meaning of images. Otherwise we are suppressing a natural imitation of the creative beauty of our Lord and (more importantly) suppressing the very nature of the Incarnation.
"Giotto and Fra Angelico would have at once admitted theologically that God was too good to be painted; but they would always try and paint Him. And they felt (very rightly) that representing Him as a rather quaint old man with a gold crown and a white beard, like a king of the elves, was less profane than resisting the sacred impulse to express him in some way. That is why the Christian world is full of gaudy pictures and twisted statues which seem, to many refined persons, more blasphemous than the secret volumes of an atheist. The trend of good is always toward Incarnation. But on the other hand, those refined thinkers who worship the devil, whether in the swamps of Jamaica or the salons of Paris, always insist upon shapelessness, the wordlessness, the unutterable character of the abomination"
G.K. Chesterton "The Mystagogue"
Futher reading:
A collection of anti-image quotes and verses.
An applicable modern situation for this discussion on The Passion of the Christ
November 23, 2007
Thanksgiving Stories
Laura, Grace, and I ventured north of the Texas border to celebrate Thanksgiving with some of my great uncles and aunts in Oklahoma. Besides the tremendous amount of food and beautiful countryside, the best thing about the trip was the stories. I love listening to the assorted tales of my family, so I will try and retale a couple of the more memorable ones.
The Truck Stop
My Uncle Buck and Aunt Sut (whose house we went to) have been in the horse business (among many others) for as long as I can remember. One night they were delivering a horse to someone on the other side of Oklahoma and were headed back home rather late at night. Aunt Sut was in the back seat asleep and Buck decided to stop at a truck stop about an hour from their house to fill up. As he is filling up, Sut wakes up and walks in to use the restroom. After she is done, she walks out to the truck to discover that there is no truck. She walks completely around the store thinking that he might be maneuvering the trailer but there is no Buck and no truck. Keep in mind that it is about 2:00 in the morning. So she walks back in and asks the two Indians behind the counter if the man in the truck paid. They said he did and that he left. Sut takes a seat and waits for Buck to realize that he had forgotten his wife but he doesn’t ever come back. She approaches the clerks again and asks if they can call her husband. After reassuring them that it probably won’t be long distance, they call Buck’s cell phone (not allowing Sut to touch their phone). The resulting conversation:
Buck: Hello?
Clerk: Sir, you forgot your wife at the Flying J truck stop.
Buck: I think you have the wrong number, my wife is asleep in the back seat. (not even checking behind him)
Clerk (to Sut): What’s your name?
Sut: Carra McAdams
Clerk: She says her name is Carra McAdams.
Buck: (slowly turning around) Oh…
The Deer Hunter
This story stars out with Uncle Bubba (Sut’s brother) arriving early one morning on a visit to Buck and Sut’s house. In the early morning twilight he is walking to the door when Sut bust out in a nightgown with a deer rifle. After Bubba quickly starts to apologize for every thing he ever did, Sut explains that the gun isn’t intended for him but a lame deer they saw in their pasture. Bubba takes the gun and kills the deer and asks Sut for her deer tags. Well she hadn’t got them. Bubba after raising a fit about $6000 fines sends her to the local feed store to go and get some tags. So here is Sut at the counter:
Sut: I need some tags quick!
Clerk: Why are you in such a hurry? You think you’ll get a deer today?
Sut: I do believe I’m going to get a buck.
I thought I’d close with some hay bay jumping and other random country activities. Hope everybody else enjoyed their holiday.
The Truck Stop
My Uncle Buck and Aunt Sut (whose house we went to) have been in the horse business (among many others) for as long as I can remember. One night they were delivering a horse to someone on the other side of Oklahoma and were headed back home rather late at night. Aunt Sut was in the back seat asleep and Buck decided to stop at a truck stop about an hour from their house to fill up. As he is filling up, Sut wakes up and walks in to use the restroom. After she is done, she walks out to the truck to discover that there is no truck. She walks completely around the store thinking that he might be maneuvering the trailer but there is no Buck and no truck. Keep in mind that it is about 2:00 in the morning. So she walks back in and asks the two Indians behind the counter if the man in the truck paid. They said he did and that he left. Sut takes a seat and waits for Buck to realize that he had forgotten his wife but he doesn’t ever come back. She approaches the clerks again and asks if they can call her husband. After reassuring them that it probably won’t be long distance, they call Buck’s cell phone (not allowing Sut to touch their phone). The resulting conversation:
Buck: Hello?
Clerk: Sir, you forgot your wife at the Flying J truck stop.
Buck: I think you have the wrong number, my wife is asleep in the back seat. (not even checking behind him)
Clerk (to Sut): What’s your name?
Sut: Carra McAdams
Clerk: She says her name is Carra McAdams.
Buck: (slowly turning around) Oh…
The Deer Hunter
This story stars out with Uncle Bubba (Sut’s brother) arriving early one morning on a visit to Buck and Sut’s house. In the early morning twilight he is walking to the door when Sut bust out in a nightgown with a deer rifle. After Bubba quickly starts to apologize for every thing he ever did, Sut explains that the gun isn’t intended for him but a lame deer they saw in their pasture. Bubba takes the gun and kills the deer and asks Sut for her deer tags. Well she hadn’t got them. Bubba after raising a fit about $6000 fines sends her to the local feed store to go and get some tags. So here is Sut at the counter:
Sut: I need some tags quick!
Clerk: Why are you in such a hurry? You think you’ll get a deer today?
Sut: I do believe I’m going to get a buck.
I thought I’d close with some hay bay jumping and other random country activities. Hope everybody else enjoyed their holiday.
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