Today is the commemoration of Mary Magdalene, who was chosen to be the first witness of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. I've heard it said that this is a good indication of the historicity of the gospels since in that day she would be the last person you would choose as a witness because women were not considered good witnesses. This commemoration is today for all three of the church bodies I "identify" with, Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican :-)
I've been trying for a while now to come to grips with the differences between these three bodies of Christians and understand why they seem to be so angry with each other. I can't seem to sort it out, the differences seem to me minute and unimportant when compared to those things that are truly important, such as we are sinners and are saved by the life death and resurrection of Jesus, who is true man and true God. There is basic agreement on baptism and the Eucharist as well, though they will parse things and define things down to the point where they all declare each other heretics. Today I came across this on Worldview Everlasting, Jonathan Fisk's site:
To my mind, the short of it will revolve around the matter of what we call “fellowship,” or, “how far do you let the heretics go before you kick them out or you leave.” Anglicanism has a greater tolerance for diversity in theology than Lutherans believe is biblically acceptable.
That sounds about right to me, and it turns out that I personally am quite comfortable with lots of diversity as long as the very basic stuff, such as C.S. Lewis wrote about in Mere Christianity, is agreed to. The "extra" detail is nice but shouldn't be allowed to divide us.
Comments
Post a Comment