Three Big Lessons From My Trip to Romania - Lesson Two

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                                   Three Big Lessons From My Trip to Romania
                                                       Lesson Two

 

 

 

 

 

“that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one:  I in them and you in me. May
they 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 (NIV)

Lesson Two

In December of 1989 Romania was freed from Communist oppression.   Since that time 25 years have passed.

My impression of the Christian Church under Communism is that it was strong and fairly unified, at least that appears to have been the case among the uncompromised believers.   As always oppression, persecution and stress strengthens the faith. 

However in the 25 years since liberation my impression of the Romanian Church is that it, like other parts of the world-wide church in similar circumstances has found it easy to revert to intra-faith denominational differences.

When Steve, Jeanne, Kathy and I attended the  city prayer gather on Pentecost, a national holiday in Romania, I looked out at the thousands of faces gathered and I thought wow, what a picture!    Pentecostals, Orthodox and Baptists. ethnic Germans, ethnic Hungarians, gypsies, all unified, yes all speaking different languages but praising the same God just like at the first Pentecost, all waking up the next morning going into their worlds with a message of unity under the one God of the universe, going out to their places of work wherever they may be with the goal in mind of making God’s existence known.

But what I experienced instead was unreconciled divisions, a tendency for Christians of different stripes go back each to their own enclave of ethnicity and faith practices.

ethnic Hungarians here
ethnic Romanians there
ethnic Germans somewhere else
men here, women there.
one church praying one way, another another way, the latter refusing to acknowledge the way of the former
Orthodox not trusting the Baptists and Pentecostals not trusting the Orthodox
the Orthodox remaining the unforgiven collaborators while the those who consider themselves the faithful still holding it
against them.
with reconciliation on hold.

                and we Americans Christians are exactly the same

Biblically there’s no escaping what Jesus wants, which is

                in the essentials unity,
                in the non-essentials liberty
                and in all things charity.  

And you and I have been given . . . . . well here’s how Paul puts it:  

“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation”      2 Corinthians 5:19 (NIV)  

We must be bridge builders with other Christians and never criticize Christians of other “stripes” if we want others to ever believe that Christianity is true.  Shock your world with your optimism, faith, joy and your unwavering love of other believers.

 
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