I am puzzled by the 'ecumenical' movement that hopes to bring unity to the Body of Christ.
There seems to be lots of inclusive dialogue yet little apology for the extreme evils of the past.
My wife was in France a couple of years ago and visited a stone tower where a protestant believer was imprisoned for 36 years for simply attending a protestant church meeting.
Marie Durand - Wikipedia
Evils were committed on all sides no doubt.
Could an international meeting be called to allow repentance to be expressed and forgiveness to be offered as our faith seems to not have attended to shameful and evil acts in history.
I could be out of touch - has this already been done???
Your input appreciated.
There has been a great deal of this. Most of it, as far as I know, perfectly amicable.
Though there was one incident some years ago in which the present pope undertook to apologise to the Waldensians for the wrongs of the past, such as the massacre of 1655, which was formerly very well-known among Protestants. He apologised, but his apology was (very politely) turned down.
On the other hand, there was in 1909, at Geneva, the building of an “expiatory monument” by Calvinists in order to heal the bitterness, such as it may have been, resulting from Calvin‘s complicity in the death of Michael Servetus. And there are also the 95 examples of reconciliation and apology of Pope John Paul II.
Whether all these apologies, including of course the many others not mentioned, have all be always been wise and well informed and even necessary, is another matter entirely.
In my humble opinion, a great many of them, however well intended, amount to attacks upon questions who what ever the faults, were trying to put the faith they believed in two practical effect.
The fact that the Christians of the past had rather different values from ourselves in the present we live in, tends to be entirely ignored. A good deal of this stuff looks uncommonly like virtue-signalling
in my opinion, it would be much better to let the past look after itself, and to avoid using it as a treasury of things to hate other people for. After all, Christians are supposed to forgive injuries, not to feed on them in their hearts by something very different from faith in Christ.
Equally, if Mennonites and Anglicans and the Reformed and other Christians regard this or that Protestant or group of Protestants as martyrs to the truth, then fair enough. People should be left to follow the results of their doctrines, and not be prevented from doing so by the fear of not being ecumenical enough.
Equally, Catholics have their own figures who are regarded as Martyrs; so Anglicans, true to what they believe is right, should carry on commemorating Cranmer, Latimer, and the others; while Catholics honour those whom they regard as Martyrs. Regarding a Christian or Christian as a martyr or martyrs, does not imply any kind of ill-will or bitterness to the group of people, Christian or otherwise, who put that person or persons to death.
Cranmer and his fellow-sufferers appear in the Anglican calendar of saints, and many of the Catholics put to death under Henry VIII and his non-Catholic successors appear in the Catholic calendar of Saints.
Anglicanism is a very good example of a type of Christianity which honours both Catholics and Protestants, though I don’t think that it goes to the extent of honouring ancient biblical patriarchs, as the Lutherans do.
