In Honor of
those who have Influenced Me
John
Armstrong
One of the interesting questions we
ask in life is “Who am I?” Ultimately
that question from the Christian perspective is probably too complex to
answer. It is too complex, from a
Christian perspective, because we are created in God’s image. So it would seem likely that trying to
understand ourselves reflects the difficulty of trying to fully comprehend God
who is incomprehensible. We know in part
but are known in full is the perspective that so often drives us along in our
journeys of faith. As a writer, even as
a blogger I am learning more and more that part of my obligation as a writer is
to give credit to thoughts taken from someone else. As I write today I am writing with a
realization that if my person were a written book I would need to put footnotes
all over my person like tattoos. One
footnote would say “this is something my dad contributed me”. Then another would cite my mother. Today I am writing an article about how part of my life should have an acknowledgement to John
Armstrong for helping me desire to be connected to more of the diversity among
Christians found within Christ’s church.
I have known John Armstrong for
slightly over thirty years. We had lost
track of one another, but reconnected through Facebook last year. I discovered he was into something called
missional-ecumenism. He had written a
book on it entitled Your Church is too Small. (Recommended reading) I wasn’t sure what to make of
missional-ecumenism. The more I read and
listened to him the more he made sense.
Christ prayed for church unity, that we would be one in Christ. (John
17:11) John believed that this was
something important enough that Christians should be seeking to bring
it about. He is realistic. He knows that we can’t just sweep every issue
that divides Christians under the rug.
But there is a need for us to be looking to grow together in Christ, and
a need to quit easily accepting the multitudes of divisions that exist in the
world of Christendom. I recently read
that there are now more than 10,000 Christian denominations in the world. You don’t need me to list the reasons we have
divisions. You can write your own list. We shouldn’t be so ready to accept them. Jesus prayed for our unity and not our
disunity.
Maybe we can’t solve all our
divisions in one generation. I think
John has ideas on how we can move towards the eventual goal of Christian unity. John has worked with numerous church leaders
from various denominations to encourage a greater sense of solidarity and
shared mission between churches with their share of differences. As a layman, it is my intent to build
relationships with more Christians from a varied and diverse background within
the Christian world. I desire to be
growing in my pursuit of Christian unity alongside my other obligations in
seeking to grow in grace as I grow in age.
Perhaps if we can’t envision church unity among the tens of
thousands of Christian denominations, we can envision reaching out to a
Christian with whom we disagree about something. Perhaps it will mean simply trying to learn
why we disagree. We may be tempted to
think the worst of a person, when it might prove helpful to think better of the
person. A woman on Twitter asked in an insightful Tweet, “Can we believe that
the person who disagrees with us may not be stupid or evil, but has simply
looked at all the same things we have and reached a different conclusion?” If when Christians argued we would begin with
that assumption, instead of believing there must be something wrong with them when they disagree, might that not help us in the way we deal with our differences? If I understand John, he wants to see us
develop healthy responses to our divisions rather than unhelpful responses. We can’t simply get rid of 10,000
denominations overnight, because in virtually all those denominations someone’s
life is being nourished within that expression of Christianity and Jesus is the
one who does not wish to break the bruised reed dependent on the care a young
or old believer has found in the place where he exists. But still we yearn for becoming more
connected to more of Christ’s church and not to less of it.
I can happily express that some of
the most satisfying relationships I have discovered in the last year have been
with people with whom I did not imagine I had much in common. I thought they were too much my opposite in
matters of the Christian faith. But as I
followed them on Twitter, where I have made some friendships with people with
whom I probably differed most, I would find for every tweet where we disagreed
there would be several where we would agree.
Some of these tweets have proved to be genuine blessings that added
something to my life that I would never have known except I was willing to
listen for a change to someone I was tempted to think was too different from me
for me to have any basis of fellowship.
But if another is attracted to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ,
then we share an interest in Jesus Christ which makes discovery of our unity in
Christ worth discovering and building upon.
I close out my honoring of John
Armstrong by linking you to a recent blog of his on the subject of dialogue and
dogma. I hope you will read this
valuable part of his story where he looks from his Protestant perspective with
what we all can learn from Pope Francis about how dialogue and dogma go
together.
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