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This is the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Xerxes in his latest column questions the value of Christian unity. He says it all seems to be a matter of mouthing scripts designed not to offend anyone. The real Christian unity, he suggests, would be in things like giving money to a food bank.
What, after all, he asks, does he have in common with “the gun-toting far-right evangelical fringe in the U.S. that’s now being called ‘Christian nationalism.’ Just as they have little in common with the Christian minority in India being squeezed out by the strongly pro-Hindu policies of Narendra Modi. And as they in turn have little in common with the robed guardians of priceless art treasures in the Vatican.”
This took me by surprise. The value had always seemed self-evident to me. It is as though someone had suddenly declared themselves in favour of war, as consistent government policy. Had to stop and think.
It is firstly to present a united front to God. We are all children of one divine father; disunity among us must be as troubling to him, as much against his wishes, as disunity among brothers and sisters to the father in a family. (Assuming the parent is not a psychopath. But that is another story.)
It is, second, for the sake of ourselves and one another. Any sincerely religious person is in a sincere quest for the truth. If we disagree on what we believe, it is urgent and mutually beneficial to discuss this, and see to what extent we can find agreement. If we disagree, why? This is how truth is sought, and how it is found.
It is, third, to present a consistent witness to the unchurched, to the non-religious, who need our guidance. To the extent that Christians cannot agree, it leaves the despondent without this clear guidance.
“I have very little in common” Xerxes protests, “… with the gun-toting far-right evangelical fringe in the U.S. that’s now being called ‘Christian nationalism.’”
He does not list the points on which he disagrees; I can only guess that it is on toting guns, voting for the political right, being evangelical, and being “Christian nationalist.”
As to owning a gun or voting for the policies of the right, these are political or cultural considerations, not religious ones. They are not relevant; unless one can make a case that owning a gun or voting for the Republicans is immoral. Perhaps; but that argument must be made.
Evangelical? We are all, as Christians, supposed to evangelize. That is the Great Commission—in other words, our chief duty as Christians. Leonard Cohen has referred to Christianity a “the great missionary branch of Judaism,” and I think that is about right.
I had to look up “Christian nationalism,” a new term. I don’t mean new to me; a new usage in absolute terms. It is usually used as a pejorative, not by the people so described for themselves.
I turn to Wikipedia. While imperfect, it is about as unbiased a source as we can expect to find on such a topic. Wikipedia says “Christian nationalists support the presence of Christian symbols and statuary in the public square, as well as state patronage for the display of religion, such as school prayer and the exhibition of nativity scenes during Christmastide or the Christian Cross on Good Friday.”
On that definition, I am a Christian nationalist. I like nativity scenes. If we are going to celebrate Christmas as a public holiday, why draw the line at trying to conceal what it is all about?
Moreover, if Christian symbols are barred from the public square, this is not neutral. Religion is being suppressed. This is discriminatory.
Most fine art, architecture, and history until recent years is religious in nature. The Sistine Chapel; Da Vinci’s Last Supper; the pyramids; the Elgin marbles; Dante’s Divine Comedy; Milton’s Paradise Lost. Prohibiting it all from the public square, or refusing it public support, would be massively destructive to our culture, our cultural unity, and our quality of life.
Many of the freest and most “progressive” countries in the world have an established church: they are, constitutionally, “Christian nations.” I don’t like established churches, as opposed to support for monotheism in general, but do you really think this is a serious problem in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Malta? Are these problematic “far-right” regimes?
Note too that the idea of “separation of church and state” is alien to the Canadian constitution. (Nor does it appear in the American one.) The preamble to the Constitution Act, 1982, identifies Canada as “founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God.” That makes Canada legally at least a monotheistic state, if not a specifically Christian one. A right to expressly religious schools, Catholic or Protestant, is guaranteed by the constitution at least for the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. That includes school prayer.
So Canada is also a Christian nation, by Wikipedia’s definition. Anyone opposed to Christian nationalism is opposed to Canada.
To be fair, I can guess at a second possible intended meaning to the term: a deification of nation and nationality. This, however, would not be Christian, but an idolatry. The term in this case is misapplied.
Xerxes thinks that the “Christian minority in India … have little in common with the robed guardians of priceless art treasures in the Vatican.”
Actually, thirty-three percent of Indian Christians are in communion with the Vatican. I have rarely attended a Catholic mass anywhere in Canada or the Middle East without at least a few South Asian faces. Apparently there is a unity in Catholic Christianity that does not occur in Xerxes’s old-line Protestantism. I have noticed that in the Middle East: even within one Protestant denomination, they seem to segregate into ethnic congregations.
I see this as unfortunate. One of the great joys of being Catholic is feeling a part of a family that is truly worldwide.
As a Catholic, I also feel close to evangelical Protestants. That was historically not always the case, but it shows our progress towards Christian unity. A Catholic charismatic service is hard to distinguish from a Protestant Pentecostal one. And this is far from people mouthing scripts.
Perhaps old-line mainstream Protestants are the one group that feels alienated from the body, the “one holy, catholic and apostolic church” we all acknowledge in the Nicene Creed. And perhaps it is actually due to the lack of spirit—the disunity is effect, not cause, of the spiritlessness.
“The true unity of the Christian Church – if it exists,” says Xerxes, “lies in its actions.” And he lists several acts of charity.
I see two problems with this position. First, acts of charity are incumbent on all of us, not just Christians. Atheists would be the first to insist that not only Christians are moral or charitable. Second, to Christians, acts are not sufficient. That would be earning salvation by our own merits. So charitable acts are not definitive of Christianity.
Xerxes also scoffs at prayer in general, let alone ecumenical prayers for Christian unity. “I don’t have much faith in what a former boss called ‘Gimme Prayers’: Please God, gimme a red wagon. Cure my cancer. Bring my wife back.”
But this is a serious distortion of what prayer is all about, including, surely, any ecumenical prayers. If you look through the standard prayers of the Catholic Church, “gimmes” are not prominent or that common. “Give us this day our daily bread” and “Lead us not into temptation” in the Our Father. “Pray for us” in the Hail Mary. “Show unto us the most blessed fruit of thy womb” in the “Hail Holy Queen.” “Have mercy on me, a sinner” in the Jesus prayer. No gimmes in the Apostle’s Creed, the Nicene Creed, the Confiteor, and so forth. Jewish prayers, I am advised, are similar.
Not that it is wrong to ask God for things, but it should be obvious that God is giving us what is best for us in any case. So the point of prayer is not to get stuff, but to establish a loving relationship with God.
Generally speaking, we can do that in fraternal unity despite any disagreements over points of theological doctrine.
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