I was struck by this book. He talks about divisions within the church which destroy it. This has to be the biggest problem of any church. To this problem, Armstrong uses the idea of 'missional-ecumenism '..
'Mission' is a rephrasing of the Latin 'Missio - Dei' (Mission of God). Three persons send out the "son" into the world. They sent out into the world. Jesus was in the world. Now we are.
"E******' is greek for 'the whole world.' So this means 'civilized world.' They are sent into the race of civilized human beings. This counts for anyone. But there is a catch.
Since 'ecumenism' means 'inhabited world,' I asked what 'inhabited' means to J Armstrong. He wrote me:
"Inhabited means the church as spread throughout the whole world, the inhabited planet. It also refers to the movement that arose in response to this reality, thus the "ecumenical movement" fosters unity among churches. The "old" ecumenism, as I try to show, got side-tracked, primarily because it lost the missional part and secondarily because in its place it embrace leftist political ideology."
Unity is key in the church, except, Armstrong writes, when it is hijacked by leftist political ideology. So that makes for an interesting argument, since the left seems to have a claim. I would only say, yes but.. Do leftist churches crumble under the weight of their own religious ideology? Thanks, John, for writing this book.
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I was struck by this book. He talks about divisions within the church which destroy it. This has to be the biggest problem of any church. To this problem, Armstrong uses the idea of 'missional-ecumenism '..
'Mission' is a rephrasing of the Latin 'Missio - Dei' (Mission of God). Three persons send out the "son" into the world. They sent out into the world. Jesus was in the world. Now we are.
"E******' is greek for 'the whole world.' So this means 'civilized world.' They are sent into the race of civilized human beings. This counts for anyone. But there is a catch.
Since 'ecumenism' means 'inhabited world,' I asked what 'inhabited' means to J Armstrong. He wrote me:
"Inhabited means the church as spread throughout the whole world, the inhabited planet. It also refers to the movement that arose in response to this reality, thus the "ecumenical movement" fosters unity among churches. The "old" ecumenism, as I try to show, got side-tracked, primarily because it lost the missional part and secondarily because in its place it embrace leftist political ideology."
Unity is key in the church, except, Armstrong writes, when it is hijacked by leftist political ideology. So that makes for an interesting argument, since the left seems to have a claim. I would only say, yes but.. Do leftist churches crumble under the weight of their own religious ideology? Thanks, John, for writing this book.
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