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December 29, 2013 10:13 pm

8 things ecumenism is not

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Ecumenism, its purposes and its nature, seem sometimes arcane. But deeply, to me, ecumenism is highly important because it is an attempt to reflect the unity of the Body of Christ in the way we conduct worship: with one another. So here are a few things I’ve found ecumenism is not:

ecumenism

Photo: Yyaroshko (Wikimedia, under CC license)

1. Ecumenism is not a watering down of doctrine. It is not about trying to find the essence of Christianity and venturing no further. See, our faith is (or should be) so pervasive as to tint our every action. Therefore, sticking our ecumenical thought to what we deem essential and not saying anything about the rest is tantamount to restricting ecumenism to a tiny part of who we are.

2. Ecumenism is not about pretending we have no differences, or at least no substantial differences. It is not about burying our head in the sand and inviting others to follow our practice; nor is it about blindly following other practices by pretending they’re all the same anyway. Such an attitude is presumptuous at best, and maybe damaging – especially around issues of communion. The Body of Christ is made up of a variety of organs; that diversity should be embraced at least to some extent, rather than glossed over as “something for another day”.

3. Ecumenism is not about glorifying those differences either. The differences are there, but we are all looking towards God. And in ecumenism, we are looking towards Him together.

3. Ecumenism is not inter-faith. It’s not talking with people who are assumed to be radically different. In “doing” ecumenism, we are joining our brothers and sisters in worshiping the same God: it is joint action, and relies on an ultimately common understanding of God.

4. Ecumenism is not an excuse for evangelism. The only attitude that can be had in ecumenical events is one of brotherhood. Yes, teaching can happen, discussions can happen – and it would be a sad thing if they didn’t! After all, it wouldn’t be much of a congregation if people didn’t talk with one another, or rebuked one another. But while such disagreements and ensuing discussions are welcome, they are not the main thrust of ecumenical action.

5. Ecumenism is not about striving for peace. Peace is far more easily achieved through mutual ignorance anyway!

6. Ecumenism is not done for the sake of being nice. Who cares about niceties? We have plenty of other people to be nice to. It’s not for the sake of looking lovey-dovey and politically correct either! No, it is done because we are one body, one church, and we should sometimes start acting like it.

7. Ecumenism is not about dialogue. It’s not a question of “understanding the other” better, or of debating thorny theological points with one another. Imagine this: Calvinists and Arminians belonging to separate bodies, and joining together – and all the event revolving around predestination! There would be a point in that, granted – any discussion on predestination is welcome – but is it really everything Christians talk about? Surely not! Then why make it the main point of a joint event?

8. Ecumenism is not trumping other church activities. I see ecumenism as an outlook, an attitude which, yes, comes through in some specific events. And in an ideal world, this attitude should shine through regular church activities. But in the event it does not, there is little point going towards the outside at the expense of the inside.

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December 22, 2013 5:17 pm

Transitions

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by    in Identity

For about as long as I can remember, I’ve been a student. High school, then undergraduate, and so on and so forth until the PhD. There hasn’t been much of a respite, either: rather than a clean cut-off between my Masters and my PhD; or between my PhD and the start of my teaching life, there was an overlap where I was juggling both at once.

And now it is over. I passed the final piece of examination last Thursday – and now, beyond the graduation ceremony and (probably) some paperwork, it is finished. And I find it oddly weird – to not consider myself as a student any longer.

transitions

I won’t say I miss it. The whole research process is not one I have found particularly enjoyable. By the fourth year of the PhD, I couldn’t wait for it all to be over. But at the same time, it was familiar: not necessarily comfortable, but at least safe and predictable. And so, the closer I got to the Viva (examination) date, the less I was looking forward to it – not out of fear of failing, I knew my stuff; but because I knew about being a PhD student.

Procrastination, not of the task, but of the reward that marks the end of the task. We all do that sometimes: finishing up an essay when you’ve done all the reading, getting a house when you’ve already worked to be able to afford it, etc.

Israel in exile reacted in much the same way – they delayed getting their inheritance. Never mind that they had traveled in the wilderness for many years, and toiled hard towards that inheritance. Never mind that this was a land of plenty, ripe for the taking. No, Israel was procrastinating not the task – that was done – but the reward itself.

I never fully got why. But here’s what I now think: wandering tribes in exile, that’s an identity. That gives us something to moan about (maybe the Hebrews were somewhat British) And it’s one we’re used to. This new freedom and land-ownership, that’s good, yes, but we’re not used to that. So, yeah, we want it, but we’ll only get around to it a bit later.

Silly, eh?

Shift forward to the New Covenant. We know our identities as sinners. We sometimes hide from it, we sure don’t like it. But we’re not always ready to go and claim our inheritance – that of repentance and redemption. We’re slow, not necessarily because we don’t realise that we can claim it, but because we’re not told enough to stop delaying it.

So stop delaying it. And claim what is yours: new life.

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December 8, 2013 10:40 pm

Something about repentance

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by    in Identity

A while back, my friend Ed wrote a post explaining that repenting means more than simply feeling sorry for  sin. It implies turning away from sin – it implies honestly rejecting, in our minds, our actions as ungodly and resolving not to do them again. Of course, we fail again and again, but when we repent, our minds and hearts should be fully intent on turning, once and for all, away from sin and towards God.

repent

Photo: bradleypjohnson, reused under CC license

Or should it?

I have a simple problem with that. It suggests we can reach that state on our own. It suggests that being genuinely sorry (and I’m not talking about acting on that change of heart – I’m talking about being sorry in and of itself) is something we can and should do in our own strength. Only then, only after we have taken the decision to repent, are we then able to welcome Jesus.

But that’s not the pattern we see, on multiple occasions, in the Bible. The paralytic wanted to get healed, not to repent of his sins. Zacchaeus wanted to see Jesus, that’s why he ran ahead of the crowd – not because he had had a change of heart. Again and again, you don’t see people going ahead to Jesus after they’ve had a change of heart; rather, it is after they’ve come into Jesus’s presence that they do.

I’m sure you can start to see the problem. We’ve managed to understand that we don’t have to be squeaky clean in our actions before we can turn to Jesus, yes, but we still believe that we have to be squeaky clean in our intentions. It’s right there, in the baptismal promises. And that is a barrier to our true repentance – because just like we can’t be squeaky clean in our actions on our own, we can’t be squeaky clean in our intentions on our own.

Oh, for the casual, little sins, we’re okay thinking “oh, well, I won’t do that again.” For the big sins, too, the first time we see them for what they are. But after failing after failing after failing to act righteously for that particular sin, it gets difficult to even face it. It gets impossible to even want to change it. Because we haven’t realised even our intentions we have surrendered to Jesus.

What if, when John the Baptist said “Repent, for the kingdom is near“, he didn’t mean to warn us of impending doom, but of a new possibility? “Repent: now you can, see, the kingdom is near.”

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October 13, 2013 5:05 pm

A life lost for a life gained

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by    in Bible,Identity

Some passages in the Bible are downright obscure. Some others are understood readily enough, but stop making sense when you start poking them around. But generally, that poking around is worth it because those verses point to deeper truths relevant to larger swathes of our identity. In Luke 17, we find such a passage:

Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.

Luke 17:33 (NIV)

newlife

Photo: Pepsiline, under CC License

Once you’ve got your head around the apparent contradiction that keeping implies not keeping and conversely, it seems easy enough – especially in the context of the story of Lot: it is impossible to hold on to our earthly selves, we do not have the strength to do so ourselves, etc.

All this is true, but it only covers the first part of that verse. If we try to keep our life, we will lose it, probably by chasing after too many idols. But what about the second part?

Whoever  loses their life will preserve it.

The easy answer is to say that in dying to our old selves, we are new creations and gain eternal life. This spiritual death and rebirth, surely, is what Jesus is talking about. It is true that we are new creations, dead to our previous selves. But here, Jesus makes a bolder claim. He doesn’t say that “Whoever loses their life will have eternal life” or that “Whoever loses their life will gain a new life”, he says that the same life that we had will remain ours.

How can that be so? How can we be new creations and preserve our life? The  story told earlier in the chapter illustrates this. Jesus is at the border between Samaria and Galilee and sees ten lepers – that’s the only way in which they are described. Leprosy is uncleanness; sinfulness even. Then Jesus heals them, and only one of them comes back and we hear at that stage only that he was a Samaritan.

Rid of the uncleanness, rid of the sinfulness, the Samaritan’s true identity can live and breathe. The other ones who did not come back to thank Jesus are probably considered simply ex-lepers, seen as what they are not. Their identity is defined by their sin, albeit negatively.

Let us grasp this: the new creation that we become when we stop trying to grasp our identity is the continuity of our identity. Rid of the uncleanness, but still deeply and fundamentally us. The difference between Greek and Jew, or between any other identities we had before turning to Christ, is worth nothing because we are in Christ: we have lost our drive to grasp it; but those identities are still part of us. Only sin is gone.

This means that the new creations that we are should not discard or reject the old selves, because they are part of who we are. On the contrary, we should accept them as part of our identities, rejecting only the leprosy. Born again, yes, but the new  life is in the continuity of the old life.

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September 22, 2013 9:13 pm

A New Chapter

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by    in Identity

In many British universities, this week sees the arrival of young impressionable students. For them, sixth form is over and a new life is about to start. International students are about to live a whole lot of new experiences, meet new people. For some of them, it’s just a bracket – an exchange year which is intercalated within their normal degree. A pause of sorts.

Less than a month ago, it was my life that saw what many could term the beginning of a new chapter. I moved from England to the Parisian suburbs, stopped being a student and started teaching. Well, technically, I’m still a student until my final exams, and I only just finished writing the thesis, but let’s not nitpick.

chapter

Photo: Brian0918, under CC liicense

Such changes happen all the time. You might be getting a mortgage for a new house, and close the chapter of your tenant years. You might be expecting a child, or getting married, or moving to a new job. It feels like the old you dies and a new you is ready to take his place. And when you like the old you, you don’t want to let go. I didn’t want to let go.

But here’s the thing: if you’re a Christian, you should not see it as the end of an era. It is not the death of the old you. Here’s why:

  • your identity is not in what you were doing in the old chapter. Your identity is in Christ, and everything else is rubbish compared to that. Are you so insecure in your Christian identity that you think it can die?
  • while we’re on the subject of death to your old self: this is true. You died to your old self, and are now living as a new creation. Are you willing to compare your change of circumstances to your coming to faith?
  • don’t you understand you have everlasting life? If you think of that merely in biological terms, you are missing the point. It is you – it is I – who live forever. Your likes and dislikes. My personality. All turned towards Christ.
  • and even if you feel you can’t hold on to that identity, well, you’re right. You can’t. But God does, and He has called you by name. That identity can never die.

And on top of that, you are taking with you all your experience from the chapter you thought was over. It’s not. Right now, is its continuation. Sure, there are friends you’ll slowly get out of touch with, and your circumstances have changed. But your actions build on your experience. If you think you are turning over a completely new leaf, you are forgetting yourself… and you are paving the way for doing the same thing with your current circumstances: making them useless and unattached to you.

Just don’t. And remember: seasons follow each other, they don’t happen in random order; and there is a season for everything.

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