The Shalom of Unity

Isn’t it about time we did away with our ‘tribes’?

In my formative years as a young Christian, travelling round, experiencing a variety of Christian expressions, from ultra-charismatic to super-reformed, one thing always puzzled me; how come God always seemed to adapt to the theology of the congregation?

In reformed churches, He was in the Bible readings, in the high churches He was in the sacraments, in the emergent churches He was in the love expressed between folk and in the charismatic churches He was in the never-ending prophecies, tongues and various manifestations. Each expression would emphasise theirs as the only authentic expression and it seem to make a lie out of Paul’s words in Romans 12:5, in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.