So That The World May Believe

A Call to Christian Unity

Jesus Prayed Christians “Be Brought to Complete Unity … So That the World May Believe”

Teaching Christians How to Restore the Lost Unity in Diversity of the Undivided Early Church Through Lovingly Seeking to Truly Understand Each Other’s Differences While Celebrating Our Vast Common Saving Christian Faith and Learning from Our Different Strengths, “So That the World May Believe”

Peter William John Baptiste, SFO

Volume I Introduction

(For Understanding Our Great Common Faith)

Rediscovering the Early Church’s Unity in Diversity

Today’s Divided Christians Who Share the Traditional Fundamental Beliefs of Orthodox Christianity Are Already Much Closer to the Undivided First Millennium Church’s Unity in Diversity than We Usually Realize

We Already Enrich Each Other with Our Many Different Areas of Strength in Preserving, Living and Proclaiming Christianity as Did the Undivided Early Church’s United but Different yet Mutually Enriching ‘Sister Churches’

Internet Edition 1.0

Volume I Chapters

Chapter 1: Promoting Christian Unity in Diversity Through Seeking to Truly Understand Our Differences While Celebrating Our Vast Common Faith

Chapter 2: Guidelines for Fruitful Dialogue Which Builds upon Ecumenical Milestones the Holy Spirit Has Already Accomplished Towards Uniting us

Chapter 3: The Testimony of the Bible Concerning the Ideal of Christian Unity in Diversity

Chapter 4: Family Theology: The Family History Recorded in the Bible of God the Father of Love’s Ongoing Adopted Covenant Family since Adam (Gradually Raised Towards Maturity in Love Through a Series of Covenants) Leads up Deliberately and Specifically to the New Covenant Christian Church as it Actually Existed in the Undivided First Millennium Universal (Catholic) Christian Church’s Catholic (Universal) Family Communion of Orthodox Christian ‘Sister Churches’

Chapter 5: Most of the Many Differences Between Today’s Divided (Eastern and Western) Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (Western) Protestant Christians (And “Messianic Jews”) Who Are Already United in Vast Common Faith Are the Same Kinds of Differences Between the Ancient Jewish, Roman, Greek, Egyptian and Syrian “Sister Churches” Which Were No Cause for Division in the Undivided Early Church

Chapter 6: All Divided Christians Have Contributed to the Scandalous Disunity of the Body of Christ the Church (Which Called itself the Catholic Church in the Undivided First Millennium) – Both Today’s Catholic and Non-Catholic Christians must Avoid the Two Ways to Abuse this Book: Catholic Triumphalism among Catholic Christians and Anti-Catholic Bigotry That Attempts to Maintain the Protest Against the Catholic Church at All Costs (Even Basic Christian Orthodoxy) among Non-Catholic Christians

Chapter 7: How the Unity in Diversity of the Undivided Early Church Was Lost in History, and How the 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican Council II) Laid the Groundwork for its Eventual Restoration

Conclusion: What I Am Advocating Is a Church That Is Both Truly Catholic and Truly Reformed – a Catholic Church Genuinely Reformed According to the Undivided Early Catholic Church Model – Meaning (Though it Will Take Much Time to Work out the Details) Both Catholics and Orthodox Non-Catholics including Reformers/Protestants Should Be Comfortable in it – and the Reform I Propose Is Already Called and Prepared for by the Catholic Church’s Highest Authority in its 21st Ecumenical Council (Vatican II) [see Chapter 7]

Works Consulted / The Genesis of This Book

Go To Chapter 1: Promoting Christian Unity in Diversity Through Seeking to Truly Understand Our Differences While Celebrating Our Vast Common Faith

Go To the Beginning of this Book So That The World May Believe Volume I: Rediscovering the Early Church’s Unity in Diversity

Go To the Forward & Introduction to all Three Volumes of So That The World May Believe

Go To the Catalog

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