LIVE EARTH AND THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS

I watched some of the Live Earth concert this weekend. Overall I think the music was not very good and it was probably more of a waste than anything else since it will probably be forgotten very soon. But what struck me was something Alicia Keys said. I cannot find the exact quote but she said that she that she was excited and pumped up that people from so many different continents were all rallying around one good cause. Here is a link to the closest thing I found to the quote I heard on tv. http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1564250&vid=161346

It made me wonder why could not the church do such a thing? Why could not the church have a Live Church Concert or at least all come together as one church and state the Christ is Lord?

Some would say it is because there are some real differences between the denominations thus we cannot come together as one. While I can see this might be a good point with coming together with very liberal Christians (or very conservative) I do not see how this argument works for the many denominations and groups that are basically conservative and believe in the Lordship of Christ. In the end the only answer that truly works is that the church does not really want to become one. It does not really want to come together to proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord! We are just too busy with our differences and our petty disputes to do what is really important.

I am not arguing that there should just be one denomination or all churches needed to be reunited with Rome or Constaniople. What I am saying is that all Christian churches need to be unified in such a way that we can work together to proclaim in one loud voice that Jesus is Lord.

We need to take some lessons from the Apostolic Fathers and read their writings. I have also been reading the Apostolic Fathers recently. One of their major concerns was the unity of the church. In Ignatius' Letter to the Ephesians he says:

It is therefore befitting that you should in every way glorify Jesus Christ, who hath glorified you, that by a unanimous obedience “ye may be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment, and may all speak the same thing concerning the same thing,”and that, being subject to the bishop and the presbytery, ye may in all respects be sanctified. (Epistle to the Ephesians Chapter 2)

And Clement of Rome arguing against the authors of sedition states:

It is right and holy therefore, men and brethren, rather to obey God than to follow those who, through pride and sedition, have become the leaders of a detestable emulation. For we shall incur no slight injury, but rather great danger, if we rashly yield ourselves to the inclinations of men who aim at exciting strife and tumults, so as to draw us away from what is good. Let us be kind one to another after the pattern of the tender mercy and benignity of our Creator. (Epistle to the Corinthians Chapter 14)

For the Apostolic Fathers one of the greatest sins was disunity of the body of Christ. I think the church needs to relearn this early lesson which Paul and the Church Fathers constantly taught.

Do I see a day when this lesson will be learned? No. Throughout church history there has always been schisms and heresies. From the earliest days of Paul writing to the Church in Galatia and to the Corinthian Church there were schisms and since then it has only become worse.

A Swedish Lutheran friend of mine said he believes that his dream of church unity will be realized before the return of Christ. I believe it will only be realized with the return of Christ but that does not exclude us from trying to live in unity in Christ.

BH