Ecumenicals: Christian Unity Not About Mere Friendliness

Churches around the world kicked off on Tuesday The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

And ecumenical leaders are emphasizing that the week is "not just a nice occasion for friends to gather."

Rather, "it is a time to give thanks to God for the gift and promise of unity, to be renewed in our ecumenical resolve by the assurance of God’s leading, and to recommit ourselves to participate in what God is doing to overcome the barriers between God’s children," said the Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches.

Churches will be praying and celebrating under the theme "One in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer," which comes from the New Testament book of Acts. It was chosen by a group of Christian leaders from Jerusalem.

Participants in the northern hemisphere are being called to not only return to the essentials of faith but to also remember the time when the church was still one.

"We do not get discouraged, even when division seems rampant, because we trust that God’s reconciling love is at work in the world, calling us, as I Corinthians puts it, to be ambassadors of that reconciliation," said Kinnamon.

The Rev. Bob Fyffe, general secretary of the ecumenical organization Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, celebrated the achievements of the ecumenical movement so far, refusing to downplay the significance of Christian unity.

And the Christian unity movement is "not about ecclesiastical coziness," he stressed.

"It is not merely that churches have become more friendly with other churches on a superficial level," he stated. "It is this movement that has helped to overcome some deep rooted enmities that have scared communities, transforming churches to be more open to each other.

"And this has not only changed them, but changed the society around them, making the lives of individuals and families more peaceful, settled, at ease with their community."

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity is observed annually in January by churches in the northern hemisphere and at Pentecost for churches in the southern hemisphere.

No one is saved "in unity". We are saved individually by Grace. Our "community" is only in Christ, not is some phony political definition that can be used to bludgeon those who seek God's Truth and not simply unity with others.

Schools nowadays teach that everything must be in unity. That is why they emphasize the group and not the individual. Students are formed into "units" of 4 to 6 children and are taught that they can only accomplish important tasks as a group.

This springs from the teachings of John Dewey who was a dedicated Marxist. Cultural Marxism has invaded the mainline churches where attendees are taught the exact same thing except that the Marxists who do the teaching are cynically and sinfully misrepresenting unity in social action as unity in Christ.

The entire American system of government and culture is based on the rights of the individual, not the desires of the group regardless of what people like Gene Roddenberry ("the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few... or the one.") and Michael Moore may think.

Unity among Christians is an existential fact. Our "unity" is Christ, as Paul clearly spelled out in his letter "to the saints who are at Ephesus.

I refer the reader specifically to that chapter called Ephesians 4. (NASB)

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