Oh how we need one another! It has struck me lately that the shifts and stresses in contemporary church life are creating reactions and retrenchments, cries to return to the old ways without discerning that our approach to the old ways are precisely the problem. Liturgists want a more pure liturgy, and in the process exclude a greater number of worshippers. Social action Christians want more equality and justice, and in the process continue to open old sores and stir the same resentments. Evangelicals cry for more of the Word, not realizing that unless our use of the Word changes, legalism and division will continue to increase. And my own people, the charismatics, are yearning for another great renewal, unaware that renewals will not correct bad theology, nor will they change the fact that men live in a ritualistic world. It is as if each emphasis is stuck in its own history and trying to shout the old words more loudly to drown out the fear of the unknown world to come.
How sure we are of how God will move in history! And yet how can we not wish? I wish for a day when each emphasis shouts the word of its fellows more loudly than its own. I wish for a time when men look back to our day and call it the era of the Great Humility.
(Picture: Roman Church, San Juan, PR)
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