Jesus said his prayers. His longest recorded prayer was sent up the night he was betrayed, knowing that his execution would come with the sunrise.
He prayed for unity. He prayed for his followers that “they may be one.” One shepherd and one flock. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God in whom all those made new would no longer be male or female, slave or free, Jew or gentile, but one united church.
So much for answered prayer. This week, as they do annually, Christians continue the plea for unity. Lord, we’re looking for a big-time miracle here.
Animosity runs deep. Some believers could no more worship with other believers than a Leafs fan could cheer for the Wings no matter how badly the Leafs play.
Christianity in particular, religion in general, is marred by the blight of power games and the obsession with correct interpretation. It is a never-ending source of grief and amazement to me that those who profess such faith can possess such hate, to the point than in a world more saturated than every before with religion, there is such an epidemic of acrimony. Catholics and Protestants. Arabs and Jews. Muslims and non-Muslims.
Some time ago the Iranian parliament passed a law reminiscent of the Holocaust which would require the country’s Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them as non-Muslims. Yellow for Jews and red for Christians. This way, a Muslim wouldn’t risk shaking hands with a non-Muslim and be considered unclean.
Every religion has a way to define who’s in and who’s out with categories neatly labeled. We, of course, are the good guys and they are the bad guys and God of course is on our side.
Roman Catholics aren’t real Christians. Protestants aren’t the real church. Pentecostals swing from chandeliers. Baptists are the ones that don’t dance. Uniteds don’t believe in anything.
If someone quotes the Bible a lot they must be a fundamentalist. If someone questions the bible a lot, they must be a liberal. I’ve been labeled everything from bible thumper to pietistic numbskull; from evangelical to liberal, from charismatic to an enemy of the gospel.
No Christian has the corner on Christ. God, by definition, is larger than all the images and icons of all of believers combined. When we recognize the inadequacy of any vision of God, we may find the humility to listen and learn from the vision of others. Roman Catholics have a love of tradition. Anglicans enrich us with their liturgies. Presbyterians point us to a God who is sovereign. Methodists call us to holiness. Pentecostals enjoy their faith. Quakers know how to wait for God in silence.
And the sooner we recognize the sheer arrogance of thinking that God has spoken truth directly to me so that your truth must be wrong, the sooner we might see the unity for which Jesus so earnestly prayed.
Bob Ripley is a retired minister and a syndicated columnist on religion.