I was recently reading through John's gospel, specifically Jesus' lengthy prayer for the believers in the 17th chapter. What struck me was Jesus prayer for unity among the believers... A unity with God and with one another.
With that said, there are many things that I have come to value and affirm in the Protestant setting I find myself in. However, if there is one thing that saddens me most, it is our history of disunity. I am a part of a tradition that, just like a bad marriage, has sought out separation, divorce, splitting away, and breaking off as a way to solve its problems. And just when we think we have arrived to something better, there is a sudden realization that the grass only seemed to be greener... and so we split again. Now, Protestantism could best be described as a mirror that was dropped onto the cement from an airplane. Whatever happened to 'reforming from within?' The Jesuits, Franciscans, and the Desert Fathers may have found themselves in disagreement with Rome from time to time, but the answer was never to form a new denomination or 'brand' of Catholicism. They stuck with their mother church.
We can say that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ regardless of our denominations but let's be honest, we don't live that way, and deep down, I don't think we really believe it. We are quick to debate theology and acknowledge what makes our church/denomination superior to the folks down the road. We are a shattered and divided people.
I find myself frustrated with people like me... I know that something is off, but I am not sure how to fix it. I am not sure where a shattered Church goes from here. One thing I do believe is that we need to take seriously the call to love one another in the midst of disagreement. We must unite under the historical creeds of the Church and learn the art of peaceful dialogue(gasp) when we disagree on secondary issues. May we be a Church who is marked by peace, love, and unity.
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I think there is a few reasons for this. For starters, Protestantism has no "church." The people are the church, and are free to roam about and interpret as we see fit. This can be a good thing and a bad thing. Good in the fact that we are able to seek deeper and grow outside of the walls of a particular "creed" or denomination to find the "truth." Bad in the fact that there is so much disunity, like you said. The Catholics stick with the Catholic church because it is "the Church" that they put their trust in, not the Word of Elohim (unfortunately their unity is not always a good thing).
ReplyDeleteThe other reason I believe that there is so much disunity within Protestantism is because there is so much wrong with Protestantism to begin with. I think that we have "roamed" so far away on our own (without leadership and direction) that "we" have lost so much of the truth. Therefore, every branch and sect of Protestantism has become individualized and independant of the traditions of the forefathers that we have forgotten, or lost, what their original intentions may have been. Unfortunately Protestantism was created 1500 years after the fact and much was lost due to this and due to the fact that the people were so "protestant" against the Catholic Church that they separated themselves maybe "too far" from it; losing a lot of the original. Unfortunately, with this confusion and feeling of "being lost" that so many protestants feel, we do not know where to begin because the starting place (the Catholic Church) has been erased from the Protestant perspective, thus causing disunity as many seek for the truth.