The Lord's House was a smorgasbord of Christian faith. Because most of us were coming from varying places outside the faith, we occupied various locations in it there. Which meant that we were a wild bunch of fanatics who agreed on little other than faith in Jesus. The lapsed Catholics brought an ecclesiastical flavor to the House. They were monk like and had reverence for church sacraments and even for Jesus' mother, Mary. The Jewish believers were immersed in the Old Testament and in Jesus as He walked in the role of Messiah. People with no Church training hunkered down with the New Testament and read, trying to figure it out. What does this experience mean?
Two things kept us together: we had all had intense encounters with the Son of God; we thought that we were among the last believers in the world. We believed that we were what was left to weather the end times.
Flavors testify of disunity today, which hamstrings Christian faith. Those believing in immediate, personal grace (evangelicals) chide those who believe in sacramental grace (Catholics) and question their salvation. Liberal denominations are marbled with all sorts of belief systems, which are all summarily condemned by evangelicals without even being evaluated. And the evangelicals are divided by often tiny theological nuances.
Someone saying he believes in and is committed to the Lordship of Christ has the right to be acknowledged, wherever he comes from, whatever his race, or economic situation, in jail or in an office, straight or gay.
When the hammer falls in the West, and faith costs something again, flavors will once again be flavors. When it's uncomfortable being a Christian, the faithful alone will stand up and declare their identity, and all the differences will be complimentary. A bouquet of flowers replacing bunches of ragweed.
When you are isolated in a cell for 5 years, with no contact with anyone else, you don't ask your new neighbor the denomination of the fish he has completed in the little visible space you share.
It won't matter then; it shouldn't matter now.
It didn't matter at the Lord's House; it won't matter when the heat's turned up; it can't be allowed to matter today.
About Me
- Nicholas Park
- My father had World War II. I had the counterculture. I am 60 now, but my life was formed 40 years ago, and the things I went through then go far in defining who I am today. I don't want to be maudlin or foolishly sentimental about those days, but I would like to be a conduit for talking about the things that moved and changed many of us in the late 1960s. Photos will be posted. Please send your photos to me to share. No story will go untold, no comment will be altered, no photo re-touched. I would love to have some old time freaks contribute to this discussion. Wannabe and young-time freaks welcome also.
No comments:
Post a Comment