Here's an odd notion that brought a lot of conversation; as of today, it's been expressed to me on three different occasions: God's creative act always involves division, as we see in the Creation story - God separates light from darkness, water above from water below, etc. And, naturally, God Himself is three-in-one. The thrust of this abstract gesture is one in a long line of attempts I've seen try to make 'Emergents' and liturgically-minded Nazarenes feel like everything is still going along swell on their particular side of the lawn party: Hey, the Reformation wasn't necessarily a bad thing! God's unity is expressed in our division, just like in Creation.
Along with the endless heretical theological/philosophical repercussions of such a statement, there are three problems to be briefly mentioned here:
(1) This notion is dubious in light of Jesus' prayer in John 17.
Jesus adamantly and specifically prayed that we 'be one, as [He] and the Father are one.' I know there is a knee-jerk response to this (and will be addressed under the next heading), but this in itself should say something to those among us who are content with the Protestant mange of our day. Do we really think God is happy with the situation we're in, with everyone doing her/his own damn thing? We wander off away from each other as we see fit, supposedly all under one banner...
(2) This notion is a faerytale rendering of the very real reality of the Protestant situation.
...which leads me to the next problem with this notion. It is foolish to speak as though the situation is so simple. 'We are unified, Rick - we're all part of the catholic Church, though not the Catholic Church.' Okay, cool. Well, then: which has authority? which rendering of the Truth is correct? or did Jesus mean 'you'll be taking various and equally valid stabs at it' when He said the Spirit would lead the Church into all Truth? The Calvinist portrait of God and life in general is a far different picture than that of the classical Arminian portrait, and both are acute disorders of the Catholic spectrum; all of these end up being completely contradictory, in fact. I'm not so silly as to think that all Truth is something to be referenced canonically and unequivocally in an 'Encyclopaedia of the Forms', but in this case there is only a 'harmony' or a 'tension' in the make-believe world of the frozen words on the paper. There is only 'tension' so long as we don't let the ideas talk to each other, because then that might lead to interaction, which would in turn show that something somewhere needs to have authority if the full Gospel does speak of a Saviour who supposedly narrates all of human existence.
(3) This notion ignores the very real reality of present-day Catholic harmony.
As usual, Protestantism gets caught up in its own amnesia and locks Catholicism out of the shoe-box council from the very beginning. If someone would like to see the idea of 'division' or 'harmony' or 'tension' in relation to the unity Jesus prayed for, one need look no further than the Catholic Church. Sure, the Latin Rites are the most prominent in the Church, but the Latin Rites comprise several different Rites, and there are also the Eastern Rites and the Alexandrian Rites. The Mozarabic Rite, for instance, breaks the Eucharist bread into seven (or nine) in correlation to the notable mysteries in Jesus' life; the Eastern Rite priests can marry, and many churches of the Eastern Rites use the ancient Confessional that is in front of the church. Yet all of these Rites in their various expressions of the Faith are in complete union (theologically and politically) with the one holy Catholic and apostolic Church, which continues to teach the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
-Rick
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