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| Caravaggio - "Supper at Emmaus" |
In the present Anglican disagreements, we hear much talk of the leadership of the Episcopal Church having left "the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints." Because of what seems to me the unthinking overuse of the phrase and one other phrase, the accusation that the Episcopal Church has "torn the fabric of the Anglican Communion", my reaction to hearing the words is pretty similar to my reaction to the sound of scratches on a chalkboard.
The former phrase, which is my present concern, is from Jude 1:3:
Beloved, while eagerly preparing to write to you about the salvation we share, I find it necessary to write and appeal to you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.I've just begun to read Diarmaid MacCullough's Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years. On page 10 of the introduction to the book, are the following words:
The passions which have gone into the construction of a world faith are if nothing else the catalyst for enormous human creativity in literature, music, architecture and art. To seek an understanding of Christianity is to see Jesus Christ in the mosaics and icons of Byzantium, or in the harshly lit features of the man on the road to Emmaus, as Caravaggio painted him. Looking up at the heavily gilt ceiling of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, one should realize that all its gold was melted down from temples across the Atlantic Ocean, sent as a tribute to the Christian God and to the Catholic Church by the king of Spain, the theft accompanied or justified by the frequent misuse of the name of Christ. The sound of Christian passion is heard in the hymns of John and Charles Wesley, bringing pride, self confidence and divine purpose to the lives of poor and humble people struggling to make sense of a new industrial society in Georgian Britain. It shapes the divine abstractions of the organ music of Johann Sebastian Bach. During the drab and mendacious tyranny of the German Democratic Republic, a Bach organ recital could pack out a church with people seeking something which spoke to them of objectivity, integrity and serene authenticity. All manifestations of Christian consciousness need to be taken seriously; from a craving to understand the ultimate purpose of God, which has produced terrifying visions of the Last Days, to the instinct to comfortable socialbility, which has led to cricket on the Anglican vicarage lawn.
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| Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome - Gilt ceiling |
So then with reference to "the faith...entrusted to the saints", was there a cut-off date when the faith was "once for all" established as given? Surely, the first century was not the end of revealed faith. Was it the second century? The third? The Council of Nicea? A later council? Was the Reformation all a mistake? A departure from the "faith...entrusted to the saints"?
With all the variety in Christianity over the centuries, who is in, and who is out? I'm asking questions only, not answering the questions. Do we see Jesus in the Caravaggio painting? Do we see Jesus in the glorious gilt ceiling in Santa Maria Maggiore, tainted though it is by the history that made its beauty possible? My queries are sparked by the words in the quote above, which seem to me very right. There's room in the Church, the Body of Christ, for great diversity, and it appears to me that we humans are the ones who confine the faith, who set boundaries which are perhaps not of God.
And what of the continuing work of the Holy Spirit in the Church and individuals?
‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:12-15)Who discerns which movement or work is of the Spirit? Testing the fruits over a period of time by a broad swath of the Christian community would seem to me a likely way to move forward to consensus if we do not wish to quench the Spirit. Enlarge the circle.
