Alive in God by Timothy Radcliffe

Author:Timothy Radcliffe
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

12

The Ecology of Faith

Now we come to the climax of Jesus’ teaching, as his betrayal and death approach. All that he taught his disciples about serving each other, abiding in the true vine, being his friends, receiving his peace, all his teaching is summed up in a great prayer to the Father, overheard by the disciples. ‘May they be one as we are one!’ (Jn 17.21). He makes this prayer at the last minute, before they go out into the darkness of the night. But as a prayer to his Father, who always hears his Son, it is not a vague wish, but will be fulfilled.

‘May they be one!’ But would it be good if there was only one Church? Some people argue that a competitive market of Christian churches keeps us on our toes. Monopolies make for laziness and inefficiency. It is claimed that the US is religiously vibrant because there is an open market where the Churches must promote their ‘brands’ or sink. If all Christians were indeed gathered into the unity of a single body, as St Paul demands, might not Christianity stagnate and wither?

However, in The Scandal of Christian Disunion Nicholas King SJ shows that virtually every document in the New Testament insists that Christians be one.1 The author of the letter to the Ephesians writes: ‘There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all’ (Eph. 4.1–6).2 In Acts, Luke presents us with the first community in Jerusalem that was ‘one in heart and soul’ (Acts 4.32). It is indisputable that in the New Testament being a Christian means being called into the communion of the one Church. This is not a wishy-washy mutual tolerance but a profound and intimate unity. Christ’s prayer defies the competitive imagination of the consumerist society. To be fully alive is not to thrive through victory over competitors in the market-place but to live for and with each other. To be alive in God is to flourish in our interdependence.

King also demonstrates that almost every document of the New Testament shows Christians fighting each other, splitting and casting out those with whom they disagree. The first communities were divided as to whether the law should still be obeyed, as to how Gentiles and Jews should live together, by divisions of wealth (see 1 Corinthians and the Letter of James), by different understandings of Christ and his relationship to his Father. St Paul is so steaming with rage at those who disagree with him in Galatia that he would be delighted if they were to castrate themselves (Gal. 5.12). Even the idyllic community of Jerusalem that Luke portrays in Acts is divided by deceit and greed. Bodies are carried out!

The letters of John command his hearers to have nothing to do with people who do not believe that the Messiah has come in the person of Jesus.

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