A friend recently sent me a short YouTube message by the world renown biblical theologian N.T. Wright. Bishop Wright speaks about the “main problem in the Western church.” I cannot, in less than three-minutes, express my view of the present problem in the West better than Tom Wright does in this short, powerfully clear, video. I encourage every person who reads my work, and who supports my mission, to see this amazing video. Share it and watch it several times.
I plan to use this video again and again to make my central point clear to everyone who will listen. Why? Because of its clarity and simplicity in “making the main thing the main thing.” We must begin here and then we can seek the grace of God in our mission together. The scandal of disunity is deep and centuries old. The next generation is openly insisting that this change. I work to build prayerfully focused people movements committed to this great change.
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Excellent John! Will be using that video myself. Thanks for sharing…
I agree unity is a one of the most serious problems the church has. In my opinion the church has a deeper scandal. One that was started when Constantine started when he made Christianity the religion of the empire. It is still to closely associated with empire than it is with Jesus and the least of these. We are good at feeding hungry folk clothing naked people, digging wells in Africa, helping when disasters happen. My favorite theologian, Martin Luther King Jr said a beggar is not a gesture of charity to fling a few coins at but we must be willing to examine the edifice that produced the beggar. Unity is definitely a problem but what are we going to be unified around. Constantine didn’t really produce unity in the church by forcing bishops to come set a creeds then proceed to jail, murder and discredit those who disagreed as heretics. Let’s stop being the church of Constantine and ask ourselves what does it mean to be the church of Jesus.
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Watched and shared on FB this video a couple weeks back or so. I could not agree more with what Wright says here. SPOT ON, in my humble opinion.
amen, now what will we do with this admonition. This is being spoken more and more,,,,,, what will we do?
Yes, what will be do? And Ken Bogan I do not disagree with you so much as I believe this issue will only be addressed by the united church coming into deeper love with Jesus and his real mission as a community, not as Christendom. I feel sure you do agree with that.
Ironically, Christians don’t all agree on the problem, so therefore they are all looking for different solutions. So emphasizing a particular solution may have no effect and might actually serve to amplify the actual problem of disunity.
Perhaps somehow the case of the problem of disunity has to be made in a dramatic way, a sort of magnetic alignment. And if disunity is indeed the main problem of the Western church, then what exactly is the solution?
John, I agree completely. Our disunity comes from losing focus or not having focus on Jesus. We will be distracted by every feint made by the world around us. To be one together we need to be one in Jesus and that only comes from a deepening relationship with Him. John 17 has so much packed into a rather short chapter, but it was the last thing He said to us before being arrested and heading to the cross. That is why your ministry is so important, to keep us looking deeper into Jesus’ eyes and heart and knowing more, through relationship with Him and each other…….. what will I do or attempt to do, everything He commands me. At the end of John 14 Jesus stats that He always does EXACTLY (emphasis mine) what the Father commands. So to be on with each other and one with Him so that the world will come to know him, I will do exactly what He commands….
Rick Landry, precisely my view. If Jesus is the center and we align ourselves around him by the Spirit then we are drawn in toward Him and this grow closer to one another.
AMEN AMEN AMEN!
John, for many, many years I believed the ideal situation just as you say here. I had the picture in my mind that if we all just center around Jesus then we will automatically just grow closer together. But even after 20 years, I wasn’t “closer together” with anyone. When a group of people spend hours and hours together and focus on growing closer to Jesus, we end up with a facade, a whitewashed tomb kind of lifestyle.
I have concluded that such a picture, of believers centered around Jesus is actually a picture of disunity, and a flawed picture of what the Scriptures present to us.
I now have a very different picture of unity of Christ-followers, and I am experiencing that unity in amazing ways. I believe the picture of unity is that of Christ inside each and every believer, not centered on anything but all on a journey together with Christ in the center of each heart. Trying to “center” any group of prople only drives wedges no matter how good or noble our intentions are. I believe this is what we see both from the “right” and the “left”. Each is trying to “be the center” when what God really wants is to be inside us, to fall in love with us.
Danaher’s highly provacative description of the “seed” his in Eyes/Ears book is what sparked this picture. I no longer feel the need to center a group of people around Jesus, but having Jesus inside me, I now seek out the messy, convoluted work of engaging in dialogues and trying to undersand other people.
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Thanks for posting John. I’d like to suggest that the source of Christian unity is connected to the mystery of the incarnation…it is 100% divine in origin and yet mediated 100% through human nature. Like Jesus before the Church, this dual nature is attacked, discredited and misunderstood. I don’t think we can have authentic unity without embracing its incarnational reality.
I certainly agree. Thanks for posting.
RT @JohnA1949: What Is the Main Problem in the Western Church?: A friend recently sent me a short YouTube message by … http://t.co/qZeMwx…
@JohnA1949 want the world to take the church more seriously? Listen carefully to this wise Anglican. #unity #world #Church
Excellent video. I work with Barnabas ministries. It’s a network of support groups for pastors. Nationally we have 63 small support groups and around 264 pastors in our groups. We do not hide our distinctions. We learn from each other, pray, and support one another. We want our groups to be transparent. As the pastors get to know one another their churches start dong things together. It’s not perfect. We have a long ways to go. But it is a positive beginning.
Brian Karcher, you have simply stated what I did not state clearly I am guessing. We only grow closer in unity not by remaining in a circle around Christ the center but by drawing into the center together in all our diversity. We do not surrender diversity at all but rather we pursue unity in our shared love with Christ as our center relationally though through a deeply and truly spiritual way.
Yes John, I am sure that in this regard we are on the same page, though I don’t understand your other pages yet, I think I understand this one 🙂
Thanks, John. I’ve been singing that same tune in my small way for over thirty years. It’s encouraging to have a high-profile thinker condense the message so effectively.
My main message is John 17:20-26 followed by the question: “Will you be the answer to Jesus’ prayer?”
That’s great Jonathan. I like your prayer. At Barnabas we actually call our pastor support groups John 17:23 groups. We tell pastors since Jesus prayed this pray surely the Father will answer his prayer.
Dan, I love it. You made me grateful for people who make unity a priority.
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Wright’s vision of unity is episcopal, top-down, and as such it represents political unity rather than the unity in diversity that is described in the NT. Wright’s examples all involve the expression and use of political unity in order to gain respect (a hearing) in the political economy.
That kind of unity is the unity of monotheism, not the unity of Trinitarianism. We lump Christianity in with the monotheist religions, but that is only half right, and therefore is also half wrong. I write about this a lot.
A better model for unity is the Congregational model prior to 1770, where churches had local jurisdiction with regional cooperation. Here churches can be different without anathematizing one another, and still cooperate for local and regional concerns.
Christian unity is not so much a unified polity, but is more an attitude of harmony, rather than everyone trying to sing melody.
I think it’s telling – and accurate – that the question and topic is specifically about disunity in the *Western* church, and not the global church. Of course I speak in contrast to the Eastern Orthodox church which has remained unified for two millennia.
Given that, I’d have to disagree with a recurring theme expressed in the feedback here, i.e. that the main problem is a loss of focus on Jesus. I’d wager that every branch, denomination, and division within the Western church would passionately contend that they are indeed focused on Jesus (and each may even say that they’re more focused than everyone else). So the problem still remains that all the denominations each believe they’re the ones focused on Jesus the most, but it’s everyone else who isn’t as much. And the problem of disunity remains unresolved, and growing.
So while I believe in working toward a general ecumenical unity as a practical matter, truly the only way to be unified to the degree that Paul calls for throughout the New Testament is, quite simply, through doctrinal unity. Through the unity of the Apostolic succession as, I believed, is expressed and has been maintained in the Eastern Orthodox church.
I don’t say all that to be argumentative or judgmental, far from it. It’s simply an honest opinion based on objective observation.
Jeff, I respect you “honest opinion” and hope others will read it and wrestle with it deeply. I have and though I profoundly disagree I tell you I really have done this hard work. The former chairman of our board, who will speak for ACT 3 in two weeks, became an Orthodox priest for this, and other, reasons. I love this brother so deeply and have journeyed down the road as far as I could go but I could not become Orthodox. Here is not the place to say why but I wanted to say “thanks” for an honest response. Let it be known to readers, this is ‘how” you express disagreement in the right way, a way of love that honors others in the process.
Phillip Ross I am not sure why you say what you do about Tom Wright’s point. He never says what you write, not in the video or in his extensive writing on unity and justification. He does not promote Anglicanism as the way to unity ever. Because he is Anglican does not mean he adopts that view to promote unity so I am very confused by your point brother.
Agape Love =Division and lack of real unity to be able to elect real Christian politicians that reflect his will. Materialism, selfcenter instead of Christ centered Theology.
RT @JohnA1949: What Is the Main Problem in the Western Church?: A friend recently sent me a short YouTube message by … http://t.co/qZeMwx…
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I’m simply saying that Anglican unity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_polity) is quite different from Congregational unity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregational_polity). And that I find that the biblical model is closer to the Congregational version.
His life as a ranking Anglican priest is the promotion of Anglicanism. How could it not be?
I realize you are saying that brother. I also do not think NT Wright is presenting an Anglican view of unity but a Pauline one that fits neither for of ecclesiology as they developed in history. The unity of the Spirit transcends these forms and their cultures. He is a champion for this view as I’ve read him and actually interacted with him personally about it. He “prefers” an Anglican form of church expression but he does not insist we must have this to have unity.
John, I certainly respect whatever your reasons may be and don’t question your salvation or anyone else’s who chooses to not convert to Orthodoxy (indeed, neither does the Orthodox church). I simply make that statement not to evangelize for Orthodoxy but to make the broader point that short of everyone converting to the same doctrine/church (whether it be Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Reformed, Baptist, etc.) we really won’t have the kind of unity Paul calls for in the Scriptures (and that Wright refers to). I don’t say that with any condemnation but simply to make a practical and honest observation.
So, to me, what becomes vitally important is how we define the term “unity”. I’m afraid it has to look like something that falls short of what Paul calls for.
What are the standards and thresholds we expect to be met (and those we don’t require to be met) in order to say we have achieved unity? I’d suggest it has to be different than the simple sentiment to “focus more on Jesus” since every Christian strain believes they truly do. To tell each of them otherwise comes off as condescending and possibly even insulting (even if it’s actually true). Like yourself, so many others have come to their own place (and denomination) out of sincere pursuit, and yet they’ve landed differently than you or I – and to varying degrees of doctrinal conviction.
I’m not saying I have the answers for what unity looks like (outside of mass conversion to one Church that is seen as True, which would take a literal miracle), other than a collective grace to “agree to disagree”. So long as there are denominations there will be divisions, even very serious ones. It’s unavoidable.
Jeff, we agree on several points but we do not agree about what Paul meant about unity in Holy Scripture. I do not think that there was even “one” church of the same liturgy and expression within the first fifty years. How could there have been actually? We simply have very different views of visible unity. This is another reason for why I have not been led to become Orthodox and is, I would guess, a reason that you did. We can agree to continue to love better and seek fuller light as we both grow in grace.
John, excellent piece. I could not agree more. I believe one of the first challenges we face is to realize that our own personal salvation is union with Christ and not a contractual arrangement with him, whereby I get to go to heaven. We are in union with one another in and through Christ, so how can be but love one another and seek opportunity to give expression to this reality toward Christian and unbeliever. I will be using this video. Thanks for posting it.