Why I Was Wrong About Ecumenism

[dzheremi]

One thing I do know, however, is that christians need to treat other christians (and other christian traditions) rather better than we have. The secular world looks on and says, 'you will know they are christians by the way the rip each others arms off'. This is bad for our common witness. None the less I have as no more desire to lose my Anglican Heritage as @dzheremi has to lose his Coptic heritage, and I don't want him to, for I want to learn from him.

While I very much do appreciate the sentiment, and am glad that we can agree that we value our respective heritage, I'm not sure I understand this idea of "common witness" and how the world must judge us according to our divisions. Certainly if there was such unity among non-Orthodox and Orthodox without sacramental communion, by virtue of some nebulous "common witness", then the Presbyterians would not have come to Egypt beginning in the 1850s, nor the Roman Catholics some two centuries or so earlier, seeking to make converts of the native Christians after finding the Muslims too difficult to convince. Yet that is very much what happened. Our Christ isn't good enough, or we're not following Him well enough as some latter-day westerners would have it. What can ya do. I'm sure I've told before the bishop of Asyut's response to the Presbyterians (which, knowing Copts as I do now, I believe more than likely came from a place of genuine curiosity), which was "We've been living with Christ for almost 2,000 years now; how long have your people been living with Him?" Common witness, indeed.

Concerning the second point, in the few historical sources that we have from non-Christians who actually lived in Egypt that mention any differences between the Christians there, we do not get the sense from reading them that any cared to understand the differences between the confessions. Al Maqrizi (15th century), for instance, mentions that the Greeks and the Copts hate each other, are forbidden to marry one another, and often fight one another, and that the Greeks are the rulers over the Copts, even though the Copts are many times more numerous and spread throughout the country, as they are the native people of Egypt. There is nothing as to why this might be the case, only that it is the case. Being that this is the norm in the small number of works that distinguish between this type of Christian and that one, on what basis are we to believe that any non-Christian cares that we are not 'united', or better yet that this is the reason or even a primary motivating reason (rather than, say, theological concerns) why they do not take seriously the Christian message? I think this idea is born of a view from within Western history that places great importance on the intricacies of the conflicts between this church or communion and that one, because of course if your identity as whatever it is that you are is or was largely historically shaped by its opposition to what the other people are, then what the other people are becomes very important. But to the outside world, it seems like this is all unimportant nonsense, and they'd rather think in macro categories of "X or not X". Witness, for instance, that the terrorists who killed worshipers inside of Siadat an-Najat Syriac Catholic Church in Baghdad claimed to have done so in retaliation for the Church-orchestrated 'kidnapping' of a Coptic priest's wife in Egypt following her supposed conversion to Islam (none of which actually happened, but hey...what are 50+ Christians' lives worth to Islamists anyway).

Because of course we all know that the Syriac Catholic Church in Iraq calls the shots for the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt. "Disbelief is one nation", they say.

So I don't really understand. People either want unity for the sake of being one in faith, or want to place whatever it is that they believe and do that is not Orthodox on the same level as Orthodoxy when it just isn't. Everyone is welcome to come to the one faith, but the latter stance is not acceptable at all. That's not to say that everyone must become Coptic or Armenian or whatever (that's emphatically not the point -- or else I certainly wouldn't be here, as it's not like I just love eating Egyptian food and listening to people yell at each other in Arabic all the time -- and besides, the OO are already more organically heterogeneous than the other communions in terms of liturgy and canons, as I'm sure you know), but we have to have some standards by which we can say "this (practice, belief, etc.) is acceptable, and this other thing is not", and we do. And if that makes us unecumenical or mean or fundamentalist or whatever people who do not have such standards might call it, then so be it. From all I've seen from interviews with HG Bishop Angaelos and others in the UK, we seem to get along very well with the traditionally-minded among the Anglicans, as we do with most traditional churches despite our obvious disagreements with them and hence remaining out of communion with them for the good of the faith.

 

[Inkfingers]

In order to belong to this body of which Christ is the head, we must be of one body, believing the same things. For as a head cannot have multiple bodies, so we cannot differ in beliefs yet belong to the same head. It turns a blind eye to differences in fath, belief, doctrine, and practice, as if these things do not matter.

It looks more like one body with multiple heads....hmmm, I wonder where I have seen that imagery before.

 

[Barney2.0]

And Patriarch of Constantinople. He got the boot eventually of course.

I’m sorry, I don’t fully understand what you said.

 

[Vicomte13]

Yeah.................that's where we differ. I see the historic Creeds more as thoughtful and useful theological heuristics rather than as supremely authoritative measures of precise doctrine.

I agree with you here. Which would make me a heretic, according to some. But they're wrong.

Or actually, they're right, but heresy in the right direction is not offensive to God. It matters to the club membership a lot though.

 

[Vicomte13]

Supremely authoritative measures of precise doctrine, as you call them are what keep the Church what it is, strong and unified, unlike many other denominations.

And if I cannot agree on some point of the doctrine, because it contradicts something else I know to be true, then I cannot join you, or if I am joined with you already, I have to leave, or you have to put me out.

I can't join your club because I see where what you believe does not comport with the Truth as I have experienced, and you wouldn't have me in your club for the same reason. It would be a lie for me to try to join, because it would mean denying what I believe to be true and pretending to believe what I know to not be true, all for the sake of staying in the club.

Ok. That's fair. It's like the raquetball club down the road, and I don't play raquetball.

 

[Sanoy]

One of the things that would help us become one in heart again comes from my quiet time today. Romans 12:16, - live in harmony and don't be conceited, or as the NLV puts it Don't think you know everything.

There are a multitude of differences between Catholics and Protestants. Not just doctrinal differences, but things which the other is silent upon. But all of those differences are treated as wrong because our side is right. Individual consideration isn't a factor. My wife is non denominational but grew up Catholic and buys holy water and holy mints. I think it's silly until my stomach hurts and she offers me a mint. Seeing the doubt on my face she says don't take it if you don't believe. So I thought, how should I know if this can be a real thing, so I dropped my doubt, ate it in good faith, and the pain left immediately. Tums et all didn't work. I was humbled in what I knew. This lourdes water is certainly no Miracle vending machine but it has broadened my perspective of what the Lord is doing in the world that I will not see in my protestant church. And I think the reverse is true as well.

Some of these doctrinal tenents rest on knife points, it's just not clear. It would be great if we could accomplish the truth of some of these but I don't think that can happen when we approach our differences as complete sets rather than point by point. Why does accepting Catholic specific X make Protestantism wrong, or visa versa. It doesn't , it just makes x right or wrong, and we get hung up on x for thousands of years because the whole set rides on any individual doctrine or custom. Truly that is why I'm non denominational, I just dont see any doctrinal set out there that is the complete picture, I see the picture more as a mosaic across the whole body. In many cases I think we see the same truths reflected differently.

The faith or works debate is a good example. I have seen this debated so many times. Looking at it without a denominational side, each time I see the debate it sounds like two people entering the same building but from opposite sides. One enters from a blue door and the other a white door, each waiting for that key word to be said, blue or white, before the contents of the room can be confirmed.

 

[Dr Bruce Atkinson]

Ecumenical Movement is an effort to bring Christian Churches back into the union that existed at least prior to the Council of Chalcedon. A noble endeavour, to be sure.

But why attempt to join everyone together into one body, while their minds, their beliefs, and their practices remain dissimilar and contradictory? This is not unity! How can there be one body but different minds? This is impossible! Colossians 1:18 states, "And he is the head of the body, the church." In order to belong to this body of which Christ is the head, we must be of one body, believing the same things. For as a head cannot have multiple bodies, so we cannot differ in beliefs yet belong to the same head. It turns a blind eye to differences in fath, belief, doctrine, and practice, as if these things do not matter. On the contrary, these things are of the utmost importance! These things are the very basis and foundation of our lives; they are the Church. If we cast these things aside, what is left? All that is left is a shallow, hollow shell of what was formerly the fullness of the Church. If we cast these things aside, we are casting aside our own salvation.

Against Ecumenism

Agree.
When the leaders of a church or denomination become heretical and corrupt, we must first try to reform them using the scriptures and rational arguments. When that does not work over a reasonable length of time, we must do what Paul advised about dealing with a church which has lost its faith: “Come out from among them!” (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).

Christian unity is indeed our ultimate goal and Jesus prayerfully prophesied that it would eventually happen (John 17)—but in terms of the churches, perhaps not until He returns. In the meantime, the Lord and His angels are separating the wheat from the chaff, truth from error, and the sheep from the goats… through the two-edged “sword of the Spirit which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6). Here is a fuller treatment of the biblical truth that sometimes schism is exactly what God wills and enables to happen.:
http://www.virtueonline.org/schism-and-sword-spirit-bruce-atkinson

 

[Barney2.0]

And if I cannot agree on some point of the doctrine, because it contradicts something else I know to be true, then I cannot join you, or if I am joined with you already, I have to leave, or you have to put me out.

I can't join your club because I see where what you believe does not comport with the Truth as I have experienced, and you wouldn't have me in your club for the same reason. It would be a lie for me to try to join, because it would mean denying what I believe to be true and pretending to believe what I know to not be true, all for the sake of staying in the club.

Ok. That's fair. It's like the raquetball club down the road, and I don't play raquetball.

If you believe in heretical doctrines it will obviously contradict.

 

[Vicomte13]

If you believe in heretical doctrines it will obviously contradict.

And since I clearly do, the question then becomes one of ecumenism. Do I try to convince you you're wrong? Do I try to find common ground? Do I ignore the differences and soldier on as if they weren't there? Or do I find myself so fatigued by the endless debates that it dawns on me that both sides are really arguing about literature, and none of it is probably true?

Different people take different approaches, depending on the nature of their spirits.

 

[Barney2.0]

And since I clearly do, the question then becomes one of ecumenism. Do I try to convince you you're wrong? Do I try to find common ground? Do I ignore the differences and soldier on as if they weren't there? Or do I find myself so fatigued by the endless debates that it dawns on me that both sides are really arguing about literature, and none of it is probably true?

Different people take different approaches, depending on the nature of their spirits.

Find what’s still common and remove heretical doctrines, don’t join heretical doctrines with true doctrines though as in ecumenism.

 

[Dr Bruce Atkinson]

While I very much do appreciate the sentiment, and am glad that we can agree that we value our respective heritage, I'm not sure I understand this idea of "common witness" and how the world must judge us according to our divisions. Certainly if there was such unity among non-Orthodox and Orthodox without sacramental communion, by virtue of some nebulous "common witness", then the Presbyterians would not have come to Egypt beginning in the 1850s, nor the Roman Catholics some two centuries or so earlier, seeking to make converts of the native Christians after finding the Muslims too difficult to convince. Yet that is very much what happened. Our Christ isn't good enough, or we're not following Him well enough as some latter-day westerners would have it. What can ya do. I'm sure I've told before the bishop of Asyut's response to the Presbyterians (which, knowing Copts as I do now, I believe more than likely came from a place of genuine curiosity), which was "We've been living with Christ for almost 2,000 years now; how long have your people been living with Him?" Common witness, indeed.

Concerning the second point, in the few historical sources that we have from non-Christians who actually lived in Egypt that mention any differences between the Christians there, we do not get the sense from reading them that any cared to understand the differences between the confessions. Al Maqrizi (15th century), for instance, mentions that the Greeks and the Copts hate each other, are forbidden to marry one another, and often fight one another, and that the Greeks are the rulers over the Copts, even though the Copts are many times more numerous and spread throughout the country, as they are the native people of Egypt. There is nothing as to why this might be the case, only that it is the case. Being that this is the norm in the small number of works that distinguish between this type of Christian and that one, on what basis are we to believe that any non-Christian cares that we are not 'united', or better yet that this is the reason or even a primary motivating reason (rather than, say, theological concerns) why they do not take seriously the Christian message? I think this idea is born of a view from within Western history that places great importance on the intricacies of the conflicts between this church or communion and that one, because of course if your identity as whatever it is that you are is or was largely historically shaped by its opposition to what the other people are, then what the other people are becomes very important. But to the outside world, it seems like this is all unimportant nonsense, and they'd rather think in macro categories of "X or not X". Witness, for instance, that the terrorists who killed worshipers inside of Siadat an-Najat Syriac Catholic Church in Baghdad claimed to have done so in retaliation for the Church-orchestrated 'kidnapping' of a Coptic priest's wife in Egypt following her supposed conversion to Islam (none of which actually happened, but hey...what are 50+ Christians' lives worth to Islamists anyway).

Because of course we all know that the Syriac Catholic Church in Iraq calls the shots for the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt. "Disbelief is one nation", they say.

So I don't really understand. People either want unity for the sake of being one in faith, or want to place whatever it is that they believe and do that is not Orthodox on the same level as Orthodoxy when it just isn't. Everyone is welcome to come to the one faith, but the latter stance is not acceptable at all. That's not to say that everyone must become Coptic or Armenian or whatever (that's emphatically not the point -- or else I certainly wouldn't be here, as it's not like I just love eating Egyptian food and listening to people yell at each other in Arabic all the time -- and besides, the OO are already more organically heterogeneous than the other communions in terms of liturgy and canons, as I'm sure you know), but we have to have some standards by which we can say "this (practice, belief, etc.) is acceptable, and this other thing is not", and we do. And if that makes us unecumenical or mean or fundamentalist or whatever people who do not have such standards might call it, then so be it. From all I've seen from interviews with HG Bishop Angaelos and others in the UK, we seem to get along very well with the traditionally-minded among the Anglicans, as we do with most traditional churches despite our obvious disagreements with them and hence remaining out of communion with them for the good of the faith.

All these conflicts over esoteric details will turn unbelievers away very quickly. Many grow weary of apparently inane theological debates and the seemingly endless wrestling over views on peripheral matters-- "How many angels can dance on the heat of a pin?"

We can, I think agree on the basics of Christianity, those doctrines that virtually all hold to... like the Nicene Creed (don't get me off on the idiotic debate about the filioque clause) and the essentials of salvation faith in Jesus Christ. True positive ecumenism (which is rare) is emphasizing what all Christians have in common (Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord) rather than where we differ (which is mostly about secondary things-- see Romans 14).

"Unity in essentials, liberty in non-essentials, and love in all things" should describe Christians. The problem of course is that we cannot agree in what what is essential and what is not. If we squeeze it down the bottom line-- is about Jesus Christ and the brief summary in John 3:16. Repent and believe! Be baptized.

 

[Dr Bruce Atkinson]

If you believe in heretical doctrines it will obviously contradict.

If you cannot find it clearly in the Bible, then it is only your opinion.
“If you believe what you like in the scriptures, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Word of God you believe, but only yourself.” (attributed to Augustine)
Picking and choosing passages based on what is currently popular in the culture is not faith, it is idolatry.

This is why no resolution can be found between those who submit to the authority of Holy Writ and those who do not. This is because there is no shared foundation of authority you can both turn to for resolution. If you do not believe what the scriptures say (especially where they are clear and consistent) then you are probably not even a real Christian and need to repent and believe ... or just go away. Any attempt at ecumenism would be false... just pretending.

 

[Dr Bruce Atkinson]

And since I clearly do, the question then becomes one of ecumenism. Do I try to convince you you're wrong? Do I try to find common ground? Do I ignore the differences and soldier on as if they weren't there? Or do I find myself so fatigued by the endless debates that it dawns on me that both sides are really arguing about literature, and none of it is probably true?

Different people take different approaches, depending on the nature of their spirits.

No one believes what they believe if they think it is wrong. (Well duh!) If there is no common ground on the essentials (for example, who Jesus is, what the Cross means, and the authority of the scriptures), then you might as well go away.

 

[Christina C]

Those who want to split with the Orthodox Church, may split a million times over, however the Orthodox Church never went and will never go back into communion with heresy.

I am sure you will be familiar with this

http://myocn.net/st-silouan-athonite-talk-heterodox/

 

[Barney2.0]

If you cannot find it clearly in the Bible, then it is only your opinion.
“If you believe what you like in the scriptures, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Word of God you believe, but only yourself.” (attributed to Augustine)
Picking and choosing passages based on what is currently popular in the culture is not faith, it is idolatry.

This is why no resolution can be found between those who submit to the authority of Holy Writ and those who do not. This is because there is no shared foundation of authority you can both turn to for resolution. If you do not believe what the scriptures say (especially where they are clear and consistent) then you are probably not even a real Christian and need to repent and believe ... or just go away. Any attempt at ecumenism would be false... just pretending.

I hope you don’t mean we need to bow down to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura.

 

[Vicomte13]

No one believes what they believe if they think it is wrong. (Well duh!) If there is no common ground on the essentials (for example, who Jesus is, what the Cross means, and the authority of the scriptures), then you might as well go away.

Are those the essentials?
That God exists, how we know it, what God wants us to do, and how we know that - those seem to me to be the only true essentials.

 

[Philip_B]

While I very much do appreciate the sentiment, and am glad that we can agree that we value our respective heritage, I'm not sure I understand this idea of "common witness" and how the world must judge us according to our divisions. Certainly if there was such unity among non-Orthodox and Orthodox without sacramental communion, by virtue of some nebulous "common witness", then the Presbyterians would not have come to Egypt beginning in the 1850s, nor the Roman Catholics some two centuries or so earlier, seeking to make converts of the native Christians after finding the Muslims too difficult to convince. Yet that is very much what happened. Our Christ isn't good enough, or we're not following Him well enough as some latter-day westerners would have it. What can ya do. I'm sure I've told before the bishop of Asyut's response to the Presbyterians (which, knowing Copts as I do now, I believe more than likely came from a place of genuine curiosity), which was "We've been living with Christ for almost 2,000 years now; how long have your people been living with Him?" Common witness, indeed.

I agree that we have wasted endless efforts trying to convert Christians. It is one of the scars of Christianity. I applaud you for your restraint is discussing this matter. When you realise that the greatest conquest of all the Crusades was the sacking of Constantinople, then you start to realise Jesus prayed that we may all be one. We fail ourselves, we fail the purpose of our being, and we fail God in Christ Jesus, when rather than lifting Jesus higher, rather than proclaiming salvation, rather than shining as a light in the world, we turn inwardly upon ourselves like a snake feeding on its tail.

The words of Matthew Ayariga ring loud in my ears, 'Their God is my God'. I believe that Western Christians have been unfortunately militaristic and totally failing in a proper understanding of what the East has to share. I lament this most deeply. We have much to learn, and perhaps little to share, however I firmly believe that the is more to unite us than tear us apart.

Pray that we may learn to value, not only the tradition that has nurtured us, but the traditions also that have nurtured others as brothers and sisters in Christ.

 

[Hazelelponi]

Can I reply here? Tell me if I cannot...

For those who are in Christ Jesus, no matter what church they attend are of one heart and mind..

They might have different ways to express their faith as they are different people, but all are a brick in the building, built upon the foundation that is faith in Christ..

The "unity" already exists, it's just not so apparent I think.

 

[JudyH]

I've been blessed to be part of a Christian interfaith experiment for about 30 years now, belonging to an online Christian group that has people from many different denominations, non-denominations, faith groups, doctrines, etc. We even have fundamental unpleasant disagreements on politics. But somehow our love and respect for each other have triumphed over any differences. And isn't that how a family should work?

There's no reason different church groups can't fiercely hold to their own beliefs as long as the fundamental truths of Christianity bind us together. I think where Jesus would be really upset with us is when we divide and condemn each other over such differences. We seem to be getting a little better about that, but we still have a long way to go. Unity is such a constant theme in Scripture, it must surely be possible to attain it without agreeing on every last detail.

 

[dzheremi]

I agree that we have wasted endless efforts trying to convert Christians. It is one of the scars of Christianity. I applaud you for your restraint is discussing this matter. When you realise that the greatest conquest of all the Crusades was the sacking of Constantinople, then you start to realise Jesus prayed that we may all be one. We fail ourselves, we fail the purpose of our being, and we fail God in Christ Jesus, when rather than lifting Jesus higher, rather than proclaiming salvation, rather than shining as a light in the world, we turn inwardly upon ourselves like a snake feeding on its tail.

The words of Matthew Ayariga ring loud in my ears, 'Their God is my God'. I believe that Western Christians have been unfortunately militaristic and totally failing in a proper understanding of what the East has to share. I lament this most deeply. We have much to learn, and perhaps little to share, however I firmly believe that the is more to unite us than tear us apart.

Pray that we may learn to value, not only the tradition that has nurtured us, but the traditions also that have nurtured others and brothers and sisters in Christ.

My friend, don't worry yourself so much. Our example in the great martyr Matthew Ayariga (may his prayers and the prayers of the other neo-martyrs be with us) has taught us all rightly, and that you remember him now is a joy that we would prefer to build on rather than rehash the past.

To be sure, it does not go away, and I presented it here so as to show why we are in some sense naturally disinclined towards the western ideal of what Christianity is or was (because we went through it already over 150 years ago, and before that at Florence, and before that with several centuries under the Chalcedonians, and it was not a good experience), but I highly doubt that very many Coptic or other Oriental Orthodox people spend a great amount of time thinking about what the Protestants did in Egypt in 1850, though there are a lot of issues with what some are doing now -- hence my presentation of the wise words of HG Bishop Abanoub at Mokattam.

In the main, we always welcome everyone, and ask only that those who are not baptized into the Orthodox faith and confessing it please not approach for communion (they would be rejected anyhow, but you know...it's courtesy in another's house). We had a family of Lutherans visit us once at St. Bishoy in Albuquerque, and while it was a very strange and tense experience (the wife of the family was somewhat eccentric, and kept talking about experiencing stigmata and other things that to Coptic people just sound really, really odd), it's of course better to have that than no experience. We also had long term Catholic visitors, Eastern Orthodox visitors, etc. Each one of these groups can surely be indicted for something historical (as they would likewise do to us for, e.g., the murder of the Chalcedonian patriarch Proterius, or the murder of the Maronite monks which they place at the feet of HH St. Severus; obviously we disagree with their versions of these things on a historical level, but that's not the point here), but they still show up and they are still welcome. 'Ecumenism' of the come and see variety is always welcome (though I put it in scare quotes because that's not what ecumenism is), even if we do not return the favor for ecclesiastical reasons (as become obvious in the imbalance between the RC view of Orthodox compared to the inverse, for example, wherein they would welcome us to commune with them but that would incur for us an automatic excommunication).

The righteous Abba Bishoy, the beloved of our merciful Savior (which is what I believe the icon below says in Coptic; I can't tell, but that's my guess because that's what we call him in the commemoration of the saints: pimenrit ente Pensotir enagathos), is known for, among other things, carrying Christ upon his back.

The story goes (from memory, as I am away from my books) that the righteous abba was by that time an elder and had many novices who would come to him wanting to see Christ in the flesh, as he was known to have seen Him and spoken with Him in the desert on past occasions (you can find reference to these meetings in many of his sayings). So he told a group of the novices to meet him at a particular hill on a certain day, and there they would meet Christ the Lord.

On the appointed day, the novices met with their father and set out for the hill, eager to meet Christ the Lord as he had promised them they would. In their eagerness, each one had passed an old pilgrim who asked them "Can you take me with you?", and each responded no, because taking the old man along would slow them down. Abba Bishoy, himself an old man by that point, also met the old pilgrim and graciously took the old man upon his own ailing back, knowing that it would slow him down but also knowing that this was the right thing to do. The miracle occurred when it was revealed to St. Bishoy that the One who had appeared before them all as a feeble old man was in fact the Christ Who they had hurried past to meet. The great saint had carried Christ on his own back, and no one had seen it but him to whom He was revealed.

The event teaches many lessons, of course, but for the purposes of our discussion, I sometimes look at ecumenism and missionary work in this way: everyone seems to be so eager to get there that in this haste they/we often do not see Christ in our midst. The holy martyr Saint Matthew Ayariga certainly saw Christ in the faith of those he would willingly face martyrdom with, and for his great faith received the crown of glory from the same God -- the One God Who is -- Who the Coptic martyrs called out to in their last minutes, as captured in that terrible, awesome video. (As one of the brothers of two of the martyrs has said, we must thank the killers that they did not cut the audio, so that the world could hear them call upon the name of Jesus as they received their crowns.)

My hypothetical question to those who would convert us by this way or that way (ecumenism, more direct missionary efforts, etc.) would be drawn from this kind of example, because if they see the One Christ in our confession then they know that we do not lack anything, and if they do not then they are like those who will walk past Him in the desert in their hurry to meet Him.

Let us not end up together on an empty hill. Lord have mercy.