C.S. Lewis, Garry Wills, Thomas Oden, and me

"Almost everything important has been already debated."

(1) The universal truth prevails over the particular (the whole is preferred to the part). 
(2) The older apostolic witness prevails over newer alleged general consent. 
(3) Conciliar actions and decisions prevail over faith-claims as yet untested by conciliar acts. 
(4) Where no conciliar rule avails, the most reliable consensual ancient authorities prevail over those less consensual over the generations. (As a general rule eight great doctors of the church are most referenced to chart ancient ecumenical consensual Christianity. From the east: Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus, and John Chrysostom. From the west: Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great.)

- Thomas Oden, The Rebirth of Orthodoxy: Signs of New Life in Christianity



Hook: you've been suckered into reading this because I mentioned C.S. Lewis.  Gotcha!

It's been decades since I last read Mere Christianity, but I remember that Lewis told readers that they would have to choose a church, and that his job wasn't to recommend a particular one.

This post is sort of about that, in a more practical way.

It used to be an evangelical curse to call someone a "mainline" Christian.  Back in the 80s, Mainline Christianity was more or less code for "people whose faith is dead" -- dead in the sense of James' epistle.  Denominations tended to be strongholds for distinctiveness, sometimes at the expense of "Mere" Christianity.

Fast forward to the 2010s.  Now there are evangelicals in all churches.  Now we have Methodists who evangelize, Lutherans who evangelize, Presbyterians who evangelize, and Roman Catholics who evangelize.  Here "evangelize" means to actively seek to tell unbelievers to put their faith in Christ, and encourage believers to live out their lives according to the principles taught by Christ and his apostles in the New Testament.

"Community" churches, "interdenominational" and "non-denominational" churches have sprung up everywhere, and instead of creating an even sharper devision among the denominations, it has created cross-fertilization.  Baptists and Anglicans meet in the community church and worship together -- but at the same time, Baptists and Anglicans go through the community church and, perhaps over a decade, end up at Anglican and Baptist churches.

And, contrary to popular predictions, instead of losing the Gospel, the Gospel spreads.

Everyone benefits when God is glorified.