Incredible Christianity: Toward a Post-Liberal Apologetic for the Historical Christ

Abstract

Incredible ChristianityToward a Post-Liberal Apologetic for the Historical Christ Thomas A. Baima My purpose with this essay is modest. I want to apply the central insight which gave birth to the ecumenical movement over one hundred years ago to the present moment in history and to argue that ecumenism is just as vital a project today as one hundred years ago. My thesis will be that the present moment represents an opportunity to engage again the original task of the ecumenical movement, articulated at its beginnings in 1910. The original task of ecumenism was ending the scandal of Christian division. The first ecumenists were drawn together around a single insight, that the evangelizing mission was being frustrated by the division of Christians. That's right: the motive for ecumenism was evangelism. It had become impossible to convert the world because of our sad divisions. Those preaching the Gospel were not credible witnesses. The full import of this insight was captured best, in my opinion, in the Collect for the Unity of the Church in the 1976 Book of Common Prayer (BCP), which reads: O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions.1 This spiritual insight is a unique gift of the Anglican Communion. There is no equivalent prayer in the Roman Missal, either in beauty of prose or [End Page 1079] theological depth. The BCP rightly names division as a spiritual danger, an occasion of peril. To be clear, this is not a personal problem, solved by our warm feelings towards each other. No, it is a global problem, for the world refuses to believe, and they refuse because of us. Christianity, to most people today, is incredible—in the most negative sense of that word—not believable! If I might be allowed to paraphrase the famous communication between Apollo 13 astronaut Jack Swigert and Mission Control in Houston—"Church, we've had a problem."2 We have had a problem for the two thousand years of Christianity's existence, and although the ecumenical movement for the past one hundred years (or fifty for Catholics, who were late to the effort) has worked tirelessly to overcome divisions, the movement itself is divided. It is divided over the place of traditional doctrine in the work of unity and over several contemporary controversies. Each of the several predecessor bodies of the World Council of Churches (WCC) represents a different idea about the purpose and method of ecumenism.3 Among them, the Faith and Order movement, supported strongly from the beginnings by the Anglican Communion, has been the segment of the WCC most attractive to the Catholic Church. This is because we realize that Christian division is, fundamentally, about doctrine. The way forward to unity requires the resolution of doctrinal divisions. Indeed, this is the only way, given the nature of a revealed religion. At the same time, we cannot wait for doctrinal agreement. The agreement we have in the traditional doctrines found in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds provide a sufficient basis for an apologetic to a skeptical world for the Christian faith. Dr. John Armstrong has helpfully called this approach "missional ecumenism."4 Since 1910 we have seen a Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification between the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation.5 [End Page 1080] We have also seen the dialogues with the Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrian Church of the East resolve serious doctrinal divisions between the Alexandrian and Antiochian schools.6 At the same time, new errors have developed which open new divisions between us. These new divisions are as deep as what separated Nestorius and Cyril or Luther and Zwingli—accompanied by the same amount of tension as in the fourth or sixteenth centuries. Fortunately, the skills we have developed working out agreements concerning the ancient heresies could offer us a path to resolve the new errors, if we have the fortitude for the task. I mention fortitude as an ecumenical virtue because the new errors at the root of the contemporary divisions are of...