life on planet earth on Theological Division

I read in a book recently about a young pastor who was fired from his church over a theological controversy. When he went to share the news with his wife, he said, “I’ve got good news and bad news, wh...

In this wonderful interaction with a neighbor-turned-friend, the widow Miss Maudie Atikinson, Scout Finch tries to understand why some Baptists, called “foot washers” in the book, seem to shun most of...

A theology which asserts that only the organized Church should be involved in mission, that theology has a very serious quarrel with history.

What is the greatest threat to the church of Jesus Christ today? There are so many threats to choose from. Some Christians would identify hazards like postmodern relativism working to unravel notions ...

O God, whose will it is that all your children should be one in Christ; we pray for the unity of your Church. Pardon all our pride and our lack of faith, of understanding and of charity, which are the...

O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace to take to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudice...

There is no mere world or matters of fact for covenant theology; there is always the wonder and duty to the concrete moment at hand, where God’s illimitable gift of life is given into our hands – to h...

Gracious God, you have called us to be a unified body, working together that which you have willed for the world. In our apathy, we fail to participate in the work you have called us to do. In our div...

Ever since I became a Christian, I’ve met countless believers who treated their lives like the US government treats its various departments. In the US government, there is the Department of Education,...

Creator God, you created us in your image. You are three in one. From before time began, you existed in perfect communion. Yet day by day, we choose not to live into your image. We choose division, po...

Jesus is a reconciler of people, not a divider. He wants to bring people together, not finalize separations.

Leader: What do you believe concerning “the Holy Spirit”? People: First, that the Spirit, with the Father and the Son, is eternal God. Leader: Second, that the Spirit is given also to me, so that,...

In a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred, we have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.

…the body is not only biological. Since we’re made in the image of God as male and female, the body…is also theological. It tells an astounding divine story. And it does so precisely through the myste...

If the phrase “theology of the body” seems odd, perhaps it’s because we haven’t taken the reality of the incarnation as seriously as Scripture does. There’s nothing surprising about looking to the hum...

Lord of all the universe, Lord of all the world, Lord of all nations, peoples and tongues, Lord of all the Church—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We come to You who alone are adequate in all things, at a...

O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of peace, give us grace seriously to lay to heart the great dangers we are in by our divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudi...

We structure our churches and maintain them so as to shield us from God and to protect us from genuine religious experience…The adult members of churches today rarely raise serious religious questions...

In his excellent little book, A Testament of Devotion , written almost a hundred years ago, Thomas Kelly describes the tension that all ministries must live in; the focus on this world or the wor...

God of mercy, in your gracious presence we confess our sin and the sin of this world. Although Christ is among us as our peace, we are a people divided against ourselves as we cling to the values of a...

Some of us who have preached the Word for years, and have been the means of working faith in others and of establishing them in the knowledge of the fundamental doctrines of the Bible, have neverthele...

Lord, you whose Son did pray that all your children might be one, we come with repentance for the sin of useless division and for the secret vice of pride. We beg forgiveness for harsh judgment, for p...

One of the gifts John Wesley left the church is the Quadrilateral. The Wesleyan Quadrilateral refers to the four ways we come to know something as true: Scripture (what the Bible teaches), tradition (...

Almighty God, we have fractured your church, we have wasted the resources of this earth, we have corrupted our culture, Forgive us, we pray, renew us by the power of your Spirit, and draw us to y...

Everything in the universe is all jumbled together. So God begins to do some creative separating: he separates light from darkness, day from night, water from land, the sea creatures from the land cru...

And having a high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pur...

God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit–You know what it’s like to be many and one at the same time. In You, we too are many ... yet one. You’ve made us one body—a single family unified for one purpose; with ...

Christ, the One who was, and is, and is to come, welcomes you to this place. As one body, with one voice, we honor and glorify the giver of wisdom, counsel, knowledge, and joy. Amen. So be it.

We must never underestimate our power to be wrong when talking about God, when thinking about God, when imagining God, whether in prose or in poetry. A generous orthodoxy, in contrast to the tense, na...

In their excellent book, Invitation to a Journey , M. Robert Mulholland and Ruth Haley Barton describe the foundation of life as being spiritual in nature. This means we are constantly be “form...