OPINION

"While many of our contemporaries are deeply affected by violence, fear of the future or the anguished question about the meaning of life, Christians must be more than ever the ardent and vigorous witnesses to the hope that fills them." 

With hundreds and hundreds of denominations, sometimes Christians are asked why we have so many separate groups. Jesus wanted his followers to be “one,” and at least as far as organizations are concerned, we aren’t.

What would it take for us to be “one”? Could we all join one existing church? No: too many compromises would have to be made. Could we form one new church based only on what we have in common? No: our beliefs differ too widely.

Jesus gave the solution in John 17:21:

 

"That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me,

and I in thee, that they also may be one in us:

that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”

 

We learn three important things in this verse:

 

• Christian unity is a work of God not something we can artificially force.

 

• Evangelism is our priority purpose — Jesus commanded it.

 

• Cooperation in the gospel strengthens witness.

According to Jesus, the epitome of Christian unity is cooperation in the advancement of the kingdom

of God. Since the church is believers in Christ, not an organization, then church unity is not

organizational, but is oneness of heart.

Jesus illustrated this unity by describing his own oneness with the Father. They are one God, and

have one purpose. This is how Christians are to be one: having Christ’s life in common, they are to

pursue the saving purpose of Christ together.

When Southern Baptists talk about cooperation, this is exactly what we mean: working together to

tell the world of the Savior Jesus Christ.

What does it take to work together this way? We must agree about why people need salvation, what

God has done in Christ to provide salvation, and how we must respond in order to have salvation,

so we can cooperate to tell people about salvation. This is why Protestants are Protestants: we believe some important things together.

The source of our agreement is the Bible. We come to know the Living Word through the written word, and Protestants believe the Bible is sufficient to lead us to unity in every truth of God.

What we call “The Cooperative Program” is our way of living out the unity Christ

called for, working together to spread his saving name.

 

Preamle Of The Ecumenical Church Foundation

Jesus Christ calls us to unity. In obedient response to that call and in recognition and affirmation of his prayer, “that they may all be one”

(John 17:20-23), 

those churches whose members proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and who choose to express and bear testimony to such common witness do hereby constitute ourselves into the Ecumenical Church Foundation® 

 In so doing, we seek to enable our members to work together, to engage in dialogue, to overcome divisions and misunderstandings, to engage in prayer and work for unity, and to give, as far as possible, a common Christian witness and service, doing together all things save those which we must in conscience and obedience do separately. 

+Dr Horst-Karl, Xth Bishop Primus Block,DD,LLD - TIFPEC

 

The gift of a cross: symbolism is rich at opening prayer service

The wood of olive trees uprooted near Bethlehem during the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian crisis is transformed into an emblem of hope and reconciliation.

On the shore of the Aegean Sea, a small craft delivered a cross of olive wood from Bethlehem at morning prayer on the first day of the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism (CWME) near Athens. It came as a gift from the Christian churches of Jerusalem, a reminder of the birthplace of Christianity and the contemporary struggles of the people there. An ecumenical delegation from Jerusalem also presented cross-shaped pendants for each participant. The crosses, large and small, had been fashioned from olive trees uprooted in and around the city of Bethlehem, from Palestinian land that was confiscated as barriers were constructed.

As the cross was lifted ashore, a throng of worshippers greeted the delegation from Jerusalem with liturgical chants and litanies, and then processed behind the cross from the seashore to the worship tent, singing a song based on the CWME theme, "Come Holy Spirit, heal and reconcile!"

The Right Rev. Riah Abu Al-Assal, Anglican bishop of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, brought greetings from the Christians of the Holy Land as well as "from all who are working to make peace in the Middle East" .

Bishop Al-Assal presented the cross as "the symbol of our salvation, our redemption. Even among the many different traditions of Christianity, I can find no Christian controversy about it. We agree that through the cross, through pain, through suffering and death, God in Jesus Christ reconciled the world to himself. And God has entrusted us with a wonderful ministry of reconciliation. Our mission and evangelism will never be realized until we achieve reconciliation, with God and among ourselves."

He warned against a naïve peacemaking that fails to recognize the importance of struggling against evil and seeking justice. But "in struggling against the powers of evil," the bishop concluded, "we need always to resort to the weapons of God, never to the weapons of the evil-doers. Otherwise, we will be defeated."

The Rt. Rev. Riah Abu al-Assal (center), Bishop of Jerusalem in the Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East, helps carry a cross at the start of the World Council of Churches' conference on world mission and evangelism, May 12 in Athens, Greece. More than 17 feet tall and constructed of wood from olive trees uprooted near Bethlehem during the Israeli construction of the seperation wall, the cross will eventaully be erected in Greece as a permanent reminder of the conference.

As olive oil was used to illuminate a traditional lamp in the tent, worship leader Ruth Bottoms, an ordained Baptist minister from the United Kingdom and moderator of the conference, recalled the olive branch borne to Noah by a dove, and the oil of anointing that served as a biblical sign of God's power in healing and reconciliation.

The symbolism of the olive tree is rich in Jewish and Christian tradition, yet it is also significant in the pre-Christian culture of Athens. Classical mythology holds that Athena became the patron goddess of the city through the gift of an olive tree, which remains the emblem of Athens to this day. The history of Christian mission preserves many such examples of the transformation of religious imagery.

As the CWME gathers in prayer this week at the foot of the Bethlehem cross, they bear witness to the potential for transformation symbolized in a cross of olive wood: from brutal uprooting to the healing of communities, from suffering to hope, from violent conflict to the possibility of reconciliation.

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"...I must honestly (say) that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.

I felt that the [religious leaders] of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leadership; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anaesthetising security of the stained-glass windows.

...I have watched...church[people] stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: 'Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.' And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely otherworldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinctio between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.

...I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious-education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: 'What kind of people worship here? Who is their God?'

Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity in our church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being your Bishop Primus.

There was a time when the church was very powerful - in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being 'disturbers of the peace' and 'outside agitators.' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were 'a colony of heaven,' called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests.

Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an arch-defender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent - and often even vocal - sanction of things as they are.

But the judgement of God is upon the church as never before. If today’s' church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the future. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.

Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organised religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true 'ecclesia' and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organised religion have broken loose from the paralysing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets... They have gone down the highways on torturous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment."  Is he risen?

The 19th century American Unitarian Theodore Parker once addressed a gathering of Unitarian Sunday School children and their teachers and parents. Parker told the children that if they really wanted to learn from their teachers and parents that they should watch what these adults do. Watch their behaviour. Not merely listen to what people say, but more importantly watch what people do! Parker reminds us of the power of learning by example.  From an impressionable age of 9  to 13 I was immersed in the tradition of Protestant  and roman Catholic Christianity.

“I’ve never found a church that I could join. Although I’ve prayed in churches in my time and listened to all sorts of ministers, they were good men most of them, and yet— The thing behind the words – it’s hard to find. I used to think it wasn’t there at all couldn’t be there. I cannot say that, now. And now I pray to You and You alone. Teach me to know Your will. Teach me to read Your difficult purpose here, which must be plain If I had eyes to see it. Make me just.

I chose to leave the Lutheran Church at the age of 18 because I could not accept their traditional Christian beliefs, but I took with me a powerful sense that the church had a duty to speak out for justice and to act in the world. When I was 29 years old I found the Free Protestant Episcopal Church in Liberia W.A. and one of the reasons I was attracted to our religious movement was because of its heritage and practice of social action – of faith by example.

The Church of St.John in Monrovia, Liberia has a motto, which I like very much. It is on a plaque in the foyer of the church: Think Truly, Speak Bravely, Act Justly.

Is he risen?

On Easter 1967 I was living in Monrovia Africa. I was teaching sociology and anthropology at a black university in Liberia. I had decided to awake early and watch the sun rise, and indeed I did. I got up in the darkness and walked down to the river. I sat there surrounded by a clear starlit night and the African bush. I watched the sun rise over the river.

I was thinking, how many Christians believe that Jesus bodily rose from the dead on this day. Of course, my schoolkids later asked me if I believed that, and I said no. I told my students that I believed that Jesus had grown up in a society, which was greedy and corrupt, and he had tried to change it. The people who had power in that society did not like Jesus and so he was killed. I told my them that the story of Jesus is an example to follow.

“This is Easter!  Across the land, hymns and anthems are ringing! The cry is rising from a hundred thousand pulpits! ‘He is risen!’ And the multitude listen, and yawn. They have heard it all before, The form without the content, The words without meaning, as they had known they would, and they are satisfied. Unstirred, complacent ( unless suspicion moves them: ‘Did that soprano sing flat? The organist strike a wrong key? We must do something about that.’) And they repeat, unthinking, in the creed, ‘The third day he arose from the dead,’ While, uncared about, their brothers [and sisters] in a hundred thousand towns, The slums and cities and the failing farms, Are slipping, slipping, toward death. These were not old that they should die; They are hungry; they are ill; They are wretched, racked with pain, As was the young man hanging on the cross on far-away Golgotha. From their lips, too, rises a cry: ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ And to them, as to him, there comes no answer. There can be no answer until these others, comfortably steeped in convention, lose their complacency and give it. No voice shall be heard, Nor shall there be any resurrection, Except as life and death, Disease and healing, Indifference and compassion, in their pendulum-like swing, bring new life to live through the age-old tragedy… The lash and the crucifixion, starvation and disease, rejection, indifference and death continually re-enact Gethsemane and the trial, Golgotha and the cross, while in the chaste white walls and the ornate cathedrals, the unctuous voices still cry: ‘He is risen!’ but in vain.

Life is our resurrection, life and love, And only these. Each of us dies a little every day and as we experience love and healing, is reborn, as compassion touches our hearts, When a helping hand is reached… There is resurrection. There, life rises, triumphant once more.”

Is he risen?

The ancient messianic prophecy of Isaiah spoke of one who would come to bring peace to the world - one who would be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

The orthodox Christian tradition has interpreted this prophecy as the foretelling of Jesus of Nazareth, whom they call the Christ. Most Christians celebrate Easter as the miraculous resurrection of a divine being - a divine being who sojourned on this earth for a little more than thirty years and then was killed, and in the act of dying took upon himself the sins of humanity stretching back to the disobedience of Adam. This Christ then bodily arose from the dead, and now stands in eternal judgement of all people. This is the Redeemer of whose resurrection most Christians celebrate on this day - the one, who through vicarious atonement, by sacrificing himself, offers the way to personal salvation with God in heaven.

Protestants, who have roots in the Christian tradition, have never been entirely comfortable with this interpretation of the life of Jesus. I think that it is fair to say that Protestants view Jesus as a human being, who was born, lived and died in the normal biological manner of all humans. Thus, Protestants have been sceptical of the Biblical narrative of Jesus' virgin birth, performance of miracles, and bodily resurrection .

Many Protestants believe that Jesus was special, but that specialness does not come from belief in the supernatural nature of his birth, the supposed miracles he performed during his life, or the manner of his death. For many of us the specialness of Jesus comes through the way he lived his life as a human being; his acts of human love and compassion; his readiness to forgive; his reticence from personal judgement; his absolute support for the poor and the oppressed; his heretical questioning of authority and the status quo; his willingness to take on the powers and principalities of his day; his zeal for righteousness and justice. These are the qualities in which many Protestants have found worth believing.

It is this image of Jesus, which many Christians over the years have followed. It has been said that Christians are followers of Jesus, not worshippers of Christ. An old summation of Christians belief included the phrase, "The Leadership of Jesus." For many Christians, Jesus is the example to follow; the model of a loving, just and compassionate life; a guide and a leader.

It is in this manner that Jesus can be a Redeemer for us. It is through his example of what is humanly possible that salvation is attained - Salvation by Character.

I speak unashamedly of salvation, because there is much to be saved from in our world. I am not talking about some inherited blight of the distant past. I am referring to much more immediate and pressing concerns. We need salvation from superstition and ignorance and fear. We need to be saved from greed and envy, prejudice and bigotry, racism and hatred. We need salvation from injustice and oppression; poverty and filth; loneliness, desperation, helplessness, hopelessness, and that ragged edge of our lives when we feel our control and our sanity slipping away into confusion and darkness.

These are our Hell, and they are not found in an eternal torture chamber in the great beyond, but they are found in the yearning emptiness of our own hearts, and in the real human sufferings of our own neighbours.

Hell is found in the millions of unemployed and underemployed that suffer in our land. Hell is found in the ridiculous and obscene game of musical chairs played by the leaders of government over who will be king of the hill.

While the leaders of government have fiddled, the soul of our nation has burned. Recently, I went to the local shopping area to get some groceries. When I returned to the car after shopping I looked into the vehicle parked along side. I don't even recall the make of car. It was ten years old, or more and battered. I looked into the car and saw that there was only a driver's seat, no passenger's seat, no back seat. There was a pad and a thin, rumpled blanket and pieces of rubbish, and a few books strewn about the compartment. I stared at the interior of that car and realised that a human being had been living in this vehicle; that a fellow human being had been so degraded as to be reduced to living in a car. The words of the Bible rang in my ears "...there was no place for them in the inn."

I looked into that car and realised that it was a manger, that if Jesus was born today he could very well be born of a poor unwed mother, alone in the hollowed out shell of an old automobile.

We still need the leadership of Jesus. Salvation by character is a continuing struggle. Those who are suffering; the poor and the oppressed need more than a charitable hand-out. They need hope. We need more than cliches and rhetoric. We need rational thought. We need moral direction. We need action.

Easter can be a difficult religious holiday for real Christians. We do not believe in the hocus-pocus of bodies rising from the grave. However, perhaps we can accept Easter as a reminder of sacrifice and commitment – an example of a life well lived – an example to follow.

Has Jesus risen in us? That is the question at Easter morning. Are we ready to follow his example? Are we prepared to walk his path?

In his life he said that the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head. Even now we shut him out of our lives. We will not give him a home within us.

We are too busy piling up treasures to be eaten by moth and rust. We are too busy seeking power and the chief seats at the banquet table. We are too busy treasuring our prides, our hatreds, our fears. We are too busy stockpiling guns and planes and bombs; we have no time to stockpile love and forgiveness in our hearts. We are too busy building around ourselves fences of steel and suspicion; the walls are too thick to hear the cry of our fellow humans. We are too busy making our pacts of power and fear, dividing the house of humanity against itself.

In every war-torn land Jesus lies dead. In every slum the young Jesus wanders amid poverty, refuse, delinquency, neglect and in a faint voice we hear:

"I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you welcomed me; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and in prison and you came to me, and inasmuch as you have not done it unto the least of my sisters and brothers, you have not done it unto me."

In every home of anger and violence, where adults abuse one another and beat their children, Jesus lies dead. In the cold, indifferent corridors of power, Jesus cries for help.

Has Jesus risen in us? He has if we are makers of peace. He has if we love our enemies; if we forgive and labour to make things right between our brothers and sisters. He has risen in us if we love truth and goodness with all our thoughts and actions. He is risen in us if we follow his courage. He is risen if we speak out and act against the degradation of human dignity that inflicts our land. He is if we stand with the least of our fellow humans. He is born if people look at us and are reminded of Jesus by the way we live. That is what Christians have meant by the leadership of Jesus, and now more than ever, we need it.

If we dedicate our lives to such a life then we will be instruments of Wonderful Counsel in the world, a Mighty Power will be present to all, the Everlasting Parent will sustain us, and Peace will reign on Earth.

Has Jesus risen in us? That is the question. Look at the world around you, and then make an answer. Look into your own heart, search your own life, then answer this question for yourself.  Is he risen?