Dear Christis,

First of all, I want to say congratulations on a fantastic issue. Both the content and the look of Christis are going from strength to strength. The magazine is sparking interesting argument and profound thought. I like the themed issues too.

What I’m also writing to say is how thought provoking I found Pete Thomas’ article, Unity or Truth?. His argument was honest, sensitive and hardhitting. I must admit, I usually take quite a liberal Christian viewpoint, but reading this article made me question my ‘all accepting’ approach. I agree that, today, many Christians put political correctness before the truth that they believe in: the Gospel.

I will certainly think harder before compromising my views or Christian beliefs in future. After all, the message of the Gospel is that we should love the sinner, not the sin; so with issues such as homosexuality, there is no reason why a Christian can’t say if they disagree with it or believe it is a sin. However, we need to remember to treat everyone as human beings and as God’s children, and leave God to make the judgements.

Annette Cooper

Dear Christis,

Pete Thomas’ article, Unity and Truth? was something of a puzzle to me. Most of the article seemed to have little to do with the title and the closing paragraphs, but as that was ostensibly the subject, I’ll respond to that first.

Our aim as Christians must surely be to follow Jesus’ example and obey his commands. In the gospels, Jesus spent his time with the imperfect, the outcasts and the sinners. At no point was his message compromised, but he was taking that message to those who needed it most, and delivering it, not by preaching at them, but demonstrating it by example. If we follow what Jesus said in John 14:15, then we must obey his commands: we must both love God, and love our neighbour, which is much harder to do from a distance. I fear the views which Pete espoused may ultimately lead us to withdrawing from the world to preach at it from a distance, least we get our hands dirty.

With regard to the first part of his article, the service he described sounded very familiar to me at first. In my case it was the Anglican cathedral in New York. I was only a few minutes late for the service in a small side chapel, but I was surprised by how much liturgy had already been said. My hopes faded as the familiar ASB liturgy was rapidly recited, until it suddenly hit me.

Here was liturgy as it should be used — not as an end in itself, but as a means of growing closer to God. Within a few minutes, there were focused opportunities to ask for forgiveness, to hear God’s word, and to praise him. Because the words were so familiar, they could be used without worrying about where you were in the service book — they became secondary to their purpose.

To some extent, the plethora of liturgies today detracts from this — while I am no fan of the Anglican 1662 service, its universal use did mean that people could go into a church far from home and not worry about anything but getting close to God. In that service in New York, I went on to hear possibly the most God inspired sermon of my life, and found the odd looking mixture of people a welcoming fellowship where the love of God really shone through. Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that I was tempted to walk out again as their true nature was hidden from me at first.

Alastair Disley

Dear Christis,

In response to the article Unity or Truth, I was disturbed to read the author’s view of an ecumenical service. The service described took place in an Anglican Cathedral (the Minster), using an Anglican liturgy and communion. The only sign of ecumenicism was that non-Anglicans were welcome to join in the Eucharist. It is my understanding, and I might be wrong, that in most churches, all are welcome to participate in the act of communion and this is fundamental to Christianity.

Having decided to call this an ‘ecumenical’ service, the author then decided that ecumenicism was a bad thing because the priest “intoned the words as he had done a thousand times before.” It is unfortunate that the priest was unable to please the expectations of the author, however, I’m sure that even priests have bad days and get tired! — and its quite probable that he had read the same words a thousand times. It seems unfair that this one service has clouded the reputation of ecumenicism, especially as it does not sound as though it was designed to be ecumenical.

There are many successful ecumenical projects that manage to share both through liturgies and in communion exciting and moving services without damaging the integrity of each denomination present. There are also some churches, which have formed the union of two denominations without losing the aspects that are fundamental to each; admittedly there are fewer of these than there are successful ecumenical services.

Churches Together in England is one of the major organisations to develop ecumenicism in England. It does this by organising an Annual forum in Swanick; during this forum representatives of all denominations and regions come together in an attempt at peaceable reconciliation across the differences which inevitably occur in denominations. It also works at a local level through regional co-ordinators and local ecumenical partnerships. These roles are designed not only to reconcile but also to encourage projects such as ecumenical services.

Clearly these attempts at union can not be seen as a bad thing as they work at uniting the Christian faith without compromising denominations. A union, which encourages each tradition and its values, can only strengthen the Church as a whole by giving it a stronger voice. I see the attempt to communicate with other denominations not as an act which is “Hiding God so that we can all get along” but a celebration of Christ and his inclusiveness!

Hannah Kidd