Wednesday 6 March 2013

CHURCH UNITY

'...the participants in dialog must accept their responsibility to love, respect and empathize with one another, and not draw back from this as if it were a dangerous heresy. All parties must be ready, at least provisionally, to learn something from Christ through one another and to recognize something of Christ in one another. Evangelicals must admit that many of the values present in the original evangelical movement are still preserved in non-Evangelical sectors of the church, sometimes more fully expressed there than among themselves. We must realize that our opponents are not always rejecting orthodoxy but only our handling of it. We must seek to help others to reach truth rather than passing sentence on those with imperfectly sanctified minds. We must grow to understand the historical forces which have distorted the faith of others and learn enough of the semantic and cultural roadblocks in their minds that we can speak in a tongue which will reach them. All must remember that there is plenty of historical evidence for the worst stereotypes the parties have of one another - and then forget the stereotypes and deal with the present reality.'
Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p.323.