“I am the Good Shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me—I have other
sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to My voice” (John 10:14,16)
The trauma of Christianity is the great number of communities called by the Name of Jesus Christ. We have many elements of faith in common, but we are not a community. Some see it as unfortunate, even a scandal, while others consider it normal and even inevitable. It’s worth mentioning that in the early fourth century, when Christianity was no longer illegal throughout the Roman Empire, when in fact the Emperor Constantine not only gave the Church legitimacy but even a preferred status among religions, he insisted that whatever differences they had among them, they were to assemble in a council and iron out their discrepancies. And when the great majority agreed to the main points of contention, among them being the nature of the Holy Trinity, he insisted that their conclusions be drawn up in a formal statement, the famous Nicene Creed, and that all bishops present affix their names to the document. He allowed for no minority report. There was to be One Church, not a plurality of churches, as we find in our nation and the world today.
What then do we have in common? The World Council of Churches, an organization nearly a century old dedicated to finding ways in which Christian bodies can work towards unity, identifies those bodies as Christian which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Bible and identify God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Christians are initiated into Christ by baptism. It is done by immersion or a simple sprinkling of drops on the head as the sign of new life in Christ. It means that one has a share in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and it implies the confession of sin and conversion of one’s heart. The one baptized is then given the gift of the Holy Spirit, incorporation into Christ’s Body and initiation into the Kingdom of God. However, even baptism separates Christians into two categories: Some feel that the whole family is one, and the sacrament is offered to infants as a means of belonging to Christ from birth, while others feel that an infant is incapable of understanding the meaning of baptism, and therefore it ought to be postponed to the “time of reasoning.”
In general, we have the Holy Scriptures in common, with noteworthy differences as to the canon, or inclusion of the books of the Bible. And we read the same words, yet come to variant conclusions regarding the meaning of the text.
In the matter of what Christians do in their assemblies, many if not most have some way of witnessing to the meal of the Lord, the Last Supper, although some are of the opinion that Eucharist, along with sacraments in general, are irrelevant in comparison to the Word of God as presented in the Bible.
Ministry, or how the churches organize themselves to best meet the demand of the Lord Jesus to “teach, preach and baptize,” to witness to Christ and evangelize in the world, has common features in that all are committed to proclaiming the Good News. The original transmitters of the life and resurrection of Christ were the apostles. They established parishes wherever they went, ordaining by laying on of hands bishops, presbyters or priests, and deacons. The continuity of the Church was marked by apostolic succession; but that also is seen in two ways. One is that a single bishop is understood to be the successor of the apostles, while another tradition is that Christ is the only head of the Church, and His authority is received and promulgated by the assembly of bishops open to the work of the Holy Spirit within the gathered body. And of course many Christians from the Reformation era have a different understanding of the life of the Holy Spirit in the Christian community.