Creed

Jesus’ only explicit command was this: “A new command I give you: Love one another … By this all men will know that you are [Christians], if you love one another” (John 13:34-5). Jesus prayed to His Father “that all [Christians] may be one … so that the world may believe that You have sent me … May [Christians] be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent me and have loved them even as You have loved me.” (John 17:21,23)

The Common Creed of Christianity:

The Vast Common Faith of (Eastern and Western) Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and (Western) Conservative/ Evangelical Protestant Christianity (and “Messianic Judaism” [1]) Which is the Basis for Christian Unity in Our Diversity “So That The World May Believe”

the One God, Creator of the Universe, who is Love, exists as a Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the Incarnation (enfleshment) of God the Son in Jesus Christ through Mary’s Virgin Birth, making Jesus fully God and fully man, able to make Atonement for the sins of all humanity, which He did by dying on the Cross and rising from the dead so that humanity can be forgiven and saved (and find human fulfillment) through Him; we acquire this forgiveness from sin and salvation unto eternal life through, drawn and empowered by God’s Grace, our turning away from sin (anti-love), accepting what Jesus has done for us and coming into loving, saving relationship with Him (and His Father and Holy Spirit) through belief and baptism, as He taught (Mark 16:16), which makes us members of the one Body of Christ the Church; Jesus’ literal Resurrection and Ascension into Heaven; Jesus’ future return in glory and judgement and the bodily resurrection of all the dead; the tenets of traditional Christian morality (described in the 10 Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, among other passages of Scripture) as how to be loving and so how to please the God who is Love; the inspiration and inerrancy[2] of the Holy Scriptures which testify to all these things.

This above “common creed” encapsulates the core of the Gift of Truth God gave to the world for its salvation, it encapsulates the essential or fundamental Christian teaching of all the Ecumenical (worldwide) and other major Councils of the Undivided Early Christian Church, Councils which the Catholic Church (in its Western and Eastern Rites or ‘Sister Churches’) and the Eastern Orthodox Churches consider to have established the irrevocable norms of Christian faith in the early centuries of Christianity, and it also encapsulates all the details of the early 20th Century “Fundamentals” tract series which began the Protestant Fundamentalist movement as well as the details usually included in the many conservative and Evangelical Protestant creedal “statements of faith” (the early 20th Century Protestant Fundamentalist and Evangelical movements were “doctrinally conservative,” orthodox responses to the huge “doctrinally liberal” or unorthodox trend within the earlier Protestant “mainline” churches). Those Protestant “mainline” denominations and congregations which are going increasingly “doctrinally liberal” or unorthodox may or may not still preserve with certainty all of these ancient fundamental beliefs of orthodox Christianity (orthodoxy means “right teaching,” as opposed to unorthodox or heretical teaching). The above common Christian beliefs are the wonderful, life-changing, saving truths of Christianity which “turned the world upside down” in barbaric times and transformed the ancient world with God’s Love, truths which still make Catholic, Orthodox, and Conservative/ Evangelical Protestant Christians brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus and most certainly instruments of God’s salvation in the world (despite our misunderstandings and disagreements over some of our different secondary doctrines, differences which each side sees in the light of the above common fundamentals we are already agreed on).

The “Doctrinally Liberal” Streams of the Protestant “Mainline” Denominations Which Do Not (Or Do Not with Certainty) Hold All of the above “Common Creed” Still Have Basis for Dialogue but Lack the Extremely Profound Basis of Unity of the above Churches

I do not wish to simply write off the huge “doctrinally liberal” portion of historical or “mainline” Protestant Christianity, especially since many self-described “liberal” Christians are not actually unorthodox or heretical but simply not as certain about the Christian fundamentals as they should be. Many “liberals” have genuine saving Christian faith in Jesus and personal loving relationship with Him; many are genuinely in touch with the above orthodox Christian Mysteries with their proven historic power to transform lives and societies for the better, despite the modern confusion of many others within their churches mostly thanks to certain unfortunate 16th to 18th Century ideas of the Protestant Reformation and Enlightenment eras. Nevertheless, the lack of absolute certainty about all the above traditional, essential, fundamental tenets of spiritually powerful, historically world-changing, orthodox Christianity even at the highest denominational level means the “liberal” mainline Protestant churches lack the solid major foundation towards re-building Christian unity which the Catholic, Orthodox, and Conservative/ Evangelical Protestant churches possess, and thus my books and materials which promote the rebuilding of Christian unity in diversity as in the Undivided Early Church are addressed primarily to these churches which are currently formally separated but which are already most profoundly united in the above common saving Christian faith (whereas Protestant “liberals” have no consistency even amongst themselves, as to which bits of historic and powerful Christianity they will accept or reject). It is my hope that as the Catholic, Orthodox, and doctrinally conservative Protestant/ Evangelical Christian churches which are confident about the above traditional Christian orthodoxy gradually unite in ever more beautiful loving expressions of Christian unity in diversity modeled after the Undivided Early Church (even while our formal divisions remain), that the “doctrinally liberal” Protestant churches which question, doubt, or outright deny fundamental aspects of traditional Christian faith will become ‘jealous’ and will consider once again embracing traditional Christian orthodoxy with certainty in order to be part of this beautiful and enriching communion Jesus intended for His Body the Church (and I hope that the many more-or-less “nominal” or “in-name-only” members of all fundamentally orthodox Christian churches, members who have been unduly influenced by the greater culture’s secularist ideas and lifestyles, will similarly become motivated to really practice their church’s orthodox Christian faith).

Reversing Satan’s Victory Against the Church’s Unity

(adapted from the Forward to So That The World May Believe)

Jesus prayed “that all [Christians] may be one. . .so that the world may believe” (John 17:21)

In His prayer in John 17:21-23, Our Lord Jesus linked the world’s belief in Him to the unity of Christians, and indeed, the most phenomenal Christian missionary successes ever occurred in the First Millennium of the Undivided Early Church, wherein the brutal ancient pagan world was “turned upside down” and whole societies were transformed by the Love of Jesus Christ, the portions of the ancient cultures which embraced Jesus becoming the different but mutually enriching ‘Sister Churches’ which together made up the one Universal Church of Jesus Christ which thus collectively called itself the Catholic Church, Catholic being Greek for Universal (this early Catholic/ Universal Church initially was made up of members of the Jewish, Syrian, Egyptian, Roman and Greek cultures) .

Satan’s most victorious counter-attack against this one Bride and Body of Jesus Christ, the Church, was to get most Christians from all of the currently divided sides to forget that for a thousand years the Undivided Early Church was one Universal (Catholic) Communion of different orthodox Christian ‘Sister Churches,’ united in the fundamental tenets of traditional, orthodox, personally-saving and world-transforming Christian faith which the different Sister Churches had precisely clarified and defined together (against many heretical challenges to it), at the Early Ecumenical (worldwide) Councils of all the different Sister Churches which each theologized about and celebrated their common Christian faith in different ways.

The greatest monument to Satan’s greatest victory against the Christian Church is the very notion, still rampant among today’s divided Christian Churches, that other Christians’ differences in theology (the study of what God has revealed, not Divine Revelation itself) and differences in practice are “automatically” inferior or wrong, even when those other Christians still share the Undivided Early Universal (Catholic) Church’s clearly articulated fundamentals of faith in just what God has revealed in the Living Word of God, Jesus Christ, the fully Divine yet also fully human Second Person of the Holy Trinity who is Love, who lives in our hearts, and in the Written Word of God, the Bible. The vicious wound Satan has inflicted upon the Christian Church today is seen in a Christian Church which is profusely divided mostly over the kinds of things which did not divide, but mutually enriched, the Undivided Early Church’s Universal (Catholic) Communion of different orthodox Christian ‘Sister Churches.’ Today Christians typically cannot even see that the very few actually substantial misunderstandings and disagreements between most of today’s divided churches are relatively small, since most of the different sides see their distinct lesser doctrines in the light of their vast common, saving Christian faith – that essential, fundamental faith of the Undivided Early Church (listed above), which gives us an exceptionally strong basis for real, loving dialogue towards eventually finding mutually agreed-on resolutions to our current disputes, and towards the long-term reunification Jesus wishes for His Body the Church “so that the world may believe.”

Ask yourself these questions: Do I usually assume other Christian churches/ denominations/ movements/ groups than mine are inferior or wrong wherever they differ from mine, usually without bothering to find out if they affirm the same traditional essentials of saving Christian faith that I do, and usually without bothering to really try to understand their different secondary doctrines and practices and just how those other Christians see their differences as consistent with the same fundamentals of Christian faith that I hold? Do I ever consider that other Christian churches than mine might better preserve at least certain aspects or characteristics of the Undivided Early Church than mine does, such that we can learn from and enrich each other as did the Undivided Early Church’s different Sister Churches? Do I actively seek and pray for the loving Christian unity Jesus prayed for “so that the world may believe”? If the answer is “yes” to the first question and “no” to the last two, as is very common, then your attitude is part of Satan’s victory in keeping the Body of Christ divided and thus much less effective than it should be against the Kingdom of Darkness Jesus Christ our Head came to conquer with His Love.

This website hopes, by God’s Grace, to be the antidote to such attitudes. This website (particularly in its 3-Volume ‘textbook’ on Ecumenism entitled So That The World May Believe) offers real hope for the long-term resolution of the current misunderstandings and disputes between the various Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant (and even “Messianic Jewish”) churches which already share a vast treasure of the Undivided Early Church’s saving Christian faith and which already resemble the Undivided Early Church’s different but united ‘Sister Churches,’ as will be easily seen once the habits of uncharitable and divisive thinking Satan has successfully sown in the Church are finally abandoned. This website and the free books herein contain many prayerful conclusions of my scholarly research of the history of God’s People from Adam, lovingly made by the God who is Love, to Jesus Christ the “New Adam,” to His Body the Church since, from the Undivided First Millennium through to the Protestant Reformation and on to today’s Ecumenical Movement (and Vatican Council II’s exceptional but largely unknown contributions to it). Particularly in the three-volume book So That The World May Believe I offer many suggestions of how to best understand that long family history of God’s People from Adam to today, and I offer several practical suggestions towards re-instituting the lost unity in diversity of the Undivided Early Church “so that the world may believe.”

If some readers afterwards still disagree with my suggestions of just how the Christian unity Jesus prayed for might one day actually be accomplished, I will have succeeded in my main purpose if they at least have been motivated to pray for the unity Jesus prayed for and motivated to lovingly dialogue with other Christians than “their group.” I will have succeeded in my main purpose if readers are motivated to think about unity in diversity like the Undivided Early Church lived it, motivated to regularly think about re-establishing unity and motivated to talk about it with their Christian brothers and sisters in different churches, different denominations, different movements and other different groups, “so that the world may believe” according to Jesus’ prayer for us. The loving brotherly attitudes towards each other on the basis of our vast common faith are more important than immediate agreement as to just how we should proceed towards practically reuniting the Church, because full reunification will certainly take very many years however it proceeds, but living Jesus’ command to “love one another” so that the world may know we are really Christians (John 13:34-35) is something that we can start doing NOW, so that RIGHT NOW we can really start to display Jesus’ Love in the world through our unity in love as Christians, His Body. We must first master unity in love even while our formal divisions remain, before any serious attempt at formal reunification can begin, “so that the world may believe” as Jesus prayed.

^[1]This is a significant and important movement of Jewish Christianity, Jews who accept Jesus as Israel’s promised Messiah, which combines the Jewish and Protestant Christian traditions, including all the common Christian fundamentals, in an attempt to restore the lost Jewish cultural expression of Christianity which was practiced by all the first Christians, who were Jews. Within the Catholic Church there is a similar Association of Hebrew Catholics. Although the original “Jewish Rite” of Christianity died out after the destruction of Jerusalem and the scattering of the Jews by the Pagan Romans, it was not at all (as many Gentile Christian readers mistakenly assume) ended earlier by the Acts 15 Council of Jerusalem which simply stated that Gentiles did not need to become Jews in order to be Christians. Acts 16:1-5 and Acts 21:17-26 prove that Jewish Christians remained culturally Jewish Christians after the Acts 15 Council just as Gentile Christians started developing their own distinct legitimate cultural expressions of Christianity (which became the Roman, Greek, Syrian, and Egyptian Gentile Christian culturally-based ‘Sister’ Churches which together with the Jerusalem Church were known as the “Pentarchy” of Early Church Patriarchates or Provinces which together (at the Early Ecumenical Councils) clearly articulated and established the common fundamentals of traditional orthodox Christianity amid the turmoil of the early Christian controversies with heretics. Much more on the place of the Jewish Rite Christianity which is being newly re-established in our time will be found in various books published on this website (notably in The Bible’s ‘Big Picture’ and So That The World May Believe Volume I: Rediscovering the Early Church’s Unity in Diversity).

^[2]Liberal Protestant Christianity questioned whether the Bible was wholly inspired by God and incapable of error (or inerrant), as traditionally affirmed, on the basis of some seeming contradictions between the Bible and science or history. Some late 19th Century Catholic “modernist” scholars took up these Liberal Protestant objections to the Bible’s inerrancy and so Biblical inerrancy was soundly reaffirmed for all Catholic Christians by Pope Leo XIII in 1893. A helpful ancient Christian principle is that Scripture is without error in all it intentionally affirms. Some critics of the Bible accuse the Bible of making errors in science. Though Scripture may occasionally incidentally use “scientific” terms common to the period in which it was written which were necessary for the original readers’ comprehension, in such cases the Scripture, a religious text, no more intends to affirm a scientific truth than a newspaper which declares what time the sunrise will be intends to affirm that the sun moves around the Earth and is therefore said to “rise.” The pre-Copernican terms of sunrise and sunset remain in common usage because they usefully describe the appearance of things relative to our Earth-bound position, even though they do not describe the now well-known scientific reality that the Earth moves around the sun and the sun is technically not “rising” at all. Making use of common terms is not an error. Other seeming problems with the Bible’s inerrancy disappear once one recognizes the literary form or genre a particular Bible passage was written in, and in many instances, later historical or archeological finds have proven the Bible historically accurate in places where critics had previously accused the Bible of being historically inaccurate.

Christian Unity in Diversity Central