{"id":2154,"date":"2009-01-28T14:40:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-28T14:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2009\/01\/us-and-them-ecumenism\/"},"modified":"2009-01-28T14:40:00","modified_gmt":"2009-01-28T14:40:00","slug":"us-and-them-ecumenism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2009\/01\/us-and-them-ecumenism.html","title":{"rendered":"Us and Them Ecumenism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

An Anglo Catholic priest in England makes observations about ecumenism here<\/a>, and they got me thinking.<\/p>\n

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While we must work for the final goal that we may all be one in Christ, it seems obvious that before we can do much fruitful work in ecumenism, that we need further work on ecclesiology. In other words, how can we have a united church if we are not sure what the church actually is?<\/div>\n
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As a convert from Evangelical Christianity, and then Anglicanism I can affirm that one of the biggest differences in becoming Catholic is to deal with the Catholic understanding of the Church.<\/div>\n
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There are two concepts of church which both Catholics and Protestants accept, but they accept them in a totally different way. The two concepts are Catholic and Congregational. They might also be called Universal and Local or \u2018Us\u2019 and \u2018Them.\u00a0<\/div>\n
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Protestants focus on the Congregational, the Local and the \u2018Us\u2019 while Catholics put the Catholic, Universal and \u2018Them\u2019 first. Protestants look first to their local church, their local congregation and fellowship and think that is most important. They acknowledge that the whole Body of Christ is bigger than their local church (at least most of them do) They accept that there is a Catholic, Universal \u2018Them Out There\u2019 aspect to the Church, but they think it is invisible. The Universal Church is composed of \u2018all those who have faith in Jesus Christ known to God alone.\u2019<\/div>\n
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Because the universal church is \u2018invisible\u2019 and known to God alone, most Protestants don\u2019t care a button about visible church unity. Their own local congregation is what matters, and they honestly don\u2019t see a problem with the fact that there are tens of thousands of Protestant denominations. For them all the denominations are simply necessary evils. \u201cYou have to worship somewhere, so join the local church you like best.\u201d They think it is an incredible claim that anyone would suggest that one church is \u2018better\u2019 or \u2018more true\u2019 than another, because what really matters is \u2018how much you love Jesus\u2019. The Church you go to is really an irrelevance. Consequently, Protestants are also not much concerned about ecumenism.<\/div>\n
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This is why when I lived in England after one of the tiresome weeks for prayer for Christian unity I was having lunch with the parish priest and he said in an exasperated way, \u201cThe problem with the Protestants is they think the ecumenical movement has been a great success because now we talk to one another and are nice to one another. They never wanted visible unity in the first place, and don\u2019t think it matters. They think we\u2019ve completed the journey and I think we\u2019ve only just made a very tentative start.\u201d<\/div>\n
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Catholics really do believe that the ideal of visible, historical unity is not only desirable, but possible, and not only possible, but necessary, and if it takes a very long time, well, we\u2019ve been here a long time, and we\u2019ll be here for a lot longer, and it is worth working on. We believe visible unity is possible because, while we focus on the Catholic, the Universal and the \u2018Them\u2019, we don\u2019t think it is invisible. We think this Universal Church is real and historical and identifiable and that it consists in the Catholic Church, and you can find one in your local town. It is St Agatha\u2019s or St Agnes or St Anne\u2019s in Anytown. You can go there and kneel down and pray and light a candle, or go to confession or Mass and you are not only in touch with the Universal Church. You\u2019re in one.\u00a0<\/div>\n
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Catholics have a \u2018both\/and\u2019 ecclesiology. The Church is a local congregation, but it is \u00a0Catholic first, and that is what gives validity to the local congregation. The Universal Church is Local too, and Fr Hoolihan is there every Sunday preaching long homilies and celebrating the sacraments. The \u2018Us\u2019 of the local church and the \u2018Them\u2019 of the universal church are combined, and what Fr Hoolihan teaches in St Agatha\u2019s, Anytown is the same that the Holy Father teaches in Rome (or at least it should be)<\/div>\n
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I have to admit that if I were making up an ecclesiology I would probably have come up with the Protestant version. It is more rational and sensible. It may be more rational, but it is far less like a Church.<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Anglo Catholic priest in England makes observations about ecumenism here, and they got me thinking. While we must work for the final goal that we may all be one in Christ, it seems obvious that before we can do much fruitful work in ecumenism, that we need further work on ecclesiology. In other words, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":557,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nUs and Them Ecumenism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"An Anglo Catholic priest in England makes observations about ecumenism here, and they got me thinking.While we must work for the final goal that we may\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2009\/01\/us-and-them-ecumenism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Us and Them Ecumenism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"An Anglo Catholic priest in England makes observations about ecumenism here, and they got me thinking.While we must work for the final goal that we may\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2009\/01\/us-and-them-ecumenism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fr. 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