Christian Unity
I recently attended an education in-service about Socratic
Seminars. The instructor impressed on us
that the goal was to promote dialog, not debate. All positions were equally valid, there were
to be no judgments made, and there were no right answers to the questions being
asked.
Now, this was about analyzing literature, identifying
figurative language, tone, etc.
Depending on the piece, the technique could be rather benign, but it
certainly could promote poor habits of mind, and immerse students in a culture
of relativism.
It reminded me, in fact, of a statement I once heard a young
man make: “I don’t really like apologetics; I prefer ecumenism.”
I bring that up because this is the week of prayer for
Christian unity. That is certainly a
time for ecumenism, but what the young man I spoke to didn’t understand is that
apologetics and ecumenism go hand-in-hand.
Ecumenism refers to dialog between members of different Christian
communities: Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church, and the
Orthodox. The key to understanding
ecumenism is understanding the goal: unity.
This means reunion – one Church giving one witness.
Praying together, standing up together in the culture wars,
and supporting each other are all important things. They all help build a sense of
brotherhood. But in the end, our goal
is, as Jesus Himself prayed, “That they all may be one.”
To achieve this goal, many things are necessary. We need patience, a historical understanding,
forgiving hearts, and we need apologetics.
The only way for the many Christian communities to really
reunite is for all of us to recognize that there is an objective religious
Truth. Some believe baptism is
regenerative, others believe it is merely symbolic. Well, it is either one or the other. Someone is objectively wrong. Some believe authority can only be found in
the Bible, others believe Jesus has given authority to the Church as well. He either did or He didn’t. Someone is wrong.
There are many issues like that. We should get along, we should support each
other, we should work together, but we should also admit that on many issues of
objective truth, we disagree.
This is why dialog is so important. We need to discuss these things. And this is why debate (and apologetics) is
so important. If we can all come to
understand what we all believe, and why, we can arrive at the truth. Then there must be humility enough to act on
that truth.
As Catholics, we are very confident that the Church has the
fullness of the Truth. And she
does. But our Protestant brethren are
quite sure that she does not. We must,
as a Church, be willing and able to explain and defend the Faith, if we are
going to inspire many of our separated brethren to come home.
And we need our own humility.
We may be on solid theological ground, but there are many things we need
to be able to see through others’ eyes. There
are many historical events, for example, about which we must acknowledge our
wrongdoings. A perfect example is the
sack of Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade. It is true that the Church did not order or
approve the attack, and that in fact the pope strongly disciplined the guilty. But that does not change the fact that
Catholic knights sacked the Orthodox capital, and the impregnable Constantinople
soon fell as a result.
We need apologetics if we are ever to have unity, and we need
humility. And most of all, we need
prayer. So let us remember, during this
week of prayer for Christian unity, to join sincere hearts across Christianity
and beg our Lord to grant us the graces to fulfill his prayer for unity.
