I found the quote I was after, god bless the computer :)
"Last week I was rereading Loren Meadâs classic The Once and Future Church. I was struck again by something he said about the failing, fading church of the Christendom Paradigm: âA major difficulty of the Christendom paradigm was its assumption that there was one answer, one way. Unfortunately, although the paradigm demanded uniformity, no lasting way was found to achieve it. âthe one way was perpetually defeated by differences of opinion and conviction, and no way was found to enforce uniformity.â A little later in his book he went on say, âWithin what eventually became the United States, the shattered Christendom Paradigm produced denominational shards, each of which perpetuated something of the paradigm within its own boundaries. There was a make-believe quality in each shardâs assumption that its world was a microcosm of the whole world of which it was the remnant, as of nothing else exists.â
One answer, one way, our way: the illusion of Christendom, turned to farce in the delusions of denominationalism.
And it struck me again, just how remarkably foresighted were those who wrote the Basis of Union. In paragraph 2 thereâs that extraordinary affirmation, âThe Uniting Church in Australia lives and works within the faith and unity of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church [and] recognises that it is related to other Churches in ways which give expression, however partially, to that unity in faith and mission.â That is, by itself the Uniting Church isnât church at all, but only in relationship to that wider fellowship of friends and enemies in Christ. Here thereâs none of that âmake-believe qualityâ that Mead saw as characteristic of denominations in the Christendom paradigm. Rather the Basis of Union was affirming an interim way of being church, being a Uniting Church, that anticipated the end of denominationalism as a whole."
-- Darren Wright Fool Youth and Family Worker
UCA NSW Synod Presbytery of Canberra Region GPO Box 221. Canberra. ACT. 2601.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
02 6248 9311 (office)
"The Gospel must be constantly forwarded to a new address, because the recipient is repeatedly changing place of residence." - Helmut Thielicke
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