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From: bennet@gymble.UUCP (Tom Bennet)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: the need for correct doctrine (tangent: Christian unity)
Message-ID: <359@gymble.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 29-Sep-85 02:51:38 EDT
Article-I.D.: gymble.359
Posted: Sun Sep 29 02:51:38 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 4-Oct-85 03:52:50 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Maryland, Laboratory for Parallel Computation, C.P., MD
Lines: 35

>From nlt@duke.UUCP (N. L. Tinkham) Thu Sep 26 12:36:20 1985
>Message-ID: <6345@duke.UUCP>
>
>   On the other hand, it would be worthwhile, if it could be achieved, to have
>a council write a creed which expresses a 20th century understanding of the
>issues addressed in the Athanasian creed.  I would insist, however, that the
>council be truly ecumenical:  the Roman Catholic Church, all branches of
>Eastern Orthodoxy, and all branches of Protestantism should be represented.
>This would, of course, be difficult to achieve, but I think it is necessary
>in order for the writings produced by the council to be seen as authoritative
>in the sense of "this is what the 20th century church believed".

Are you sure that such a council could ever reach an agreement on any document
that actually said anything?  Such councils result, at best, in a statement of
the intersection of the beliefs of the various groups, which is often the empty
set.  (Of course, that does not mean that the empty set is not described with
the most possible words; I believe it's called creative ambiguity.)  It is
foolish to think you can have one document that says "what the 20th century
church believed."  It would give a much more real picture of things to collect
creeds from each major denomination.

Inter-denominational councils often write such documents in order to promote
Christian "unity," but I really think that Christian unity has to do with love,
humility, and respect, not pretending that real differences do not exist.  Such
councils are a waste of resources that could be better spent on the second
clause of the previous sentence.
-- 
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"That we have made a hero of Howard Hughes tells us ... that the secret point
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power for power's sake ..., but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy."
						-- Joan Didion
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Tom Bennet @ U of MD Comp Sci Dept    |   ..!ihnp4!seismo!umcp-cs!gymble!bennet
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