What can be gained by "compromise" WRT doctrinal disagreements? With you I wonder, dearest sister in Christ, how does a Christian "compromise" with a Muslim? It is simply impossible. For the Christian and Islamic views of man in relation to his God [and to the State] are radically different. The former accentuates human liberty. The latter human obedience. What "compromise" is available between these two fundamentally different understandings of human existence under God?
The U.N.'s interest in promoting a single world religion (supposedly in the interest of world peace) simply dissolves all religious differences into a homogenous, meaningless soup. It denatures and devalues religious experience altogether and moreover makes it subject to secular control.
That's the "big picture" overview. On a lesser plane are the constant disputes among Christian co-religionists of different doctrinal persuasions here at FR. To me, they are a disservice to the very idea of the Body of Christ, of which all faithful Christians of whatever doctrine are members. Instead of focusing on what all Christians hold in common, they dwell on, and exacerbate our differences, often in quite uncharitable ways. To the sneering delight of folks who are outside the Christian orbit. It's embarrassing....
In short, we argue about scripture — what the Holy Bible says. Yet the Holy Bible is not God. It is one of four revelations God has given us — the other three being the Incarnation of Christ, the "book of Nature" (i.e., the Creation itself), and the Holy Spirit with us. The Bible is God's Word speaking to us, addressed to us as individual souls, to be understood by us according to whatever Light the Holy Spirit provides. No human understanding can be the measure of God's Holy Word. So to me, all such "disputes" are pretty much a waste of time from the get-go. But they have been known to cause great consternation and hurt to the people who engage in them.
Our "job" as Christians is to do two things: love God with our whole heart and soul and mind and strength, and our neighbor as ourself. It is not at all clear to me that our duty to love our neighbor comes with a charter giving us the authority to "correct" our neighbor when he does not agree with us....
And so, I'm with you, dearest sister in Christ: I'll hold whatever "fire" I have till I can direct it at God's enemies — the atheists out there, and the so-called post-modernists (most of whom are atheists anyway). I won't direct it at my Christian co-religionists, simply because they heard God's Word in a manner slightly different from the way I did. These different ways may all be truthful in a certain sense. That is, if they are truly inspired by the Holy Spirit, they cannot be false, although they may differ on points.
JMHO FWIW Thank you ever so much, dearest sister in Christ, for your most perceptive essay/post!
Dear sister,
How do you arrive at the knowledge that someone is a co-Christian.
Does a profession of belief in a Christ who is our Spirit brother - the spirit brother of Satan, a member of a Godhood containing three distinct and different beings who make a council of Gods, who died on earth to enable you to earn your way to Godhood....would they qualify as a co-believer?
Do you think it inopportune to discuss the differences between these disparate beliefs among so-called Christians?
Yet, I continue to point out, my 2 sisters in Christ, that the issue of unity, crucial to Jesus, is being missed.
Unity of effort and purpose are crucial to Jesus.
I think we sometimes pretend. We learned pretending as children, and we get very good at it. So it is with Christian Unity. We can see that we aren't, but we create justifications and diversions to explain how unity is really there when it isn't, or not necessary when it is, or...look over there....that's more important.
Jesus said that the world, when seeing our unity, would believe that God sent Jesus.
Have you ever asked yourself how that logic worked?
Worldly Man 1: "See those unified Christians over there?"
Worldly Man 2: "Hmmmm....yeah....would you look at that!"
Worldly Man 1: "Convinces me that God really did send Jesus."
Worldly Man 2: "How the heck did you arrive at that???"
Worldly Man 1: "Dunno, really. Just hits me that way."
Worldly Man 2: "...yeah...I sense that, too..."
Does Communist unity convince you that Lenin really had it right? Nope, not really. Just convinces me that followers of a common philosophy work together. It doesn't turn me into a communist at all, nor a supporter of Marx or Lenin.
But Christian Unity convinces the world that God sent Jesus and loves those who believe in Jesus. It is not a logical process, therefore, because logic gets you only to a deniable, part-way point.
Unity, therefore, around our story of a resurrected Messiah, is a conduit through which the power of the Holy Spirit works on those who witness it. Christian Unity is an intersection with the Divine dimension, and the power of that intersection is convincing to all, whether they walk through that Door or not.
THX FOR THE PING
and your wise points.
In my view, most of the doctrinal debates among Christians reduce to different perspectives.