That They May Be One: Facing Up to the Besetting Sin of Protestantism -- By: T. M. Moore

Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 13:1 (Winter 2004)
Article: That They May Be One: Facing Up to the Besetting Sin of Protestantism
Author: T. M. Moore


That They May Be One:
Facing Up to the Besetting Sin of Protestantism1

T. M. Moore

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word: that they may all be one, as thou, Father an in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.

John 17:20–21

All believers are united to Jesus Christ, their head, by His Spirit and by faith, and have fellowship with Him in His grace, suffering, death, resurrection, and glory. United to one another in love the saints have fellowship in each other’s gifts and grace and are obliged to perform those public and private duties which nourish their mutual good, both spiritually and physically.

—Westminster Confession of Faith, 26:1

We owe to our fellow Christians a special love… a special care, which takes precedence over our duty to help unbelievers (Galatians 6:10). Is there a special love we owe only to members of our own denominations and not to other Christians?. Although to ask such a question is virtually to answer it negatively, we often act as if it were true. Yes, there are legitimate obligations that we incur to our denominations in our membership vows. But the Christian Philadelphia, brotherly love, is for the church, not for one denomination above another.

—John Frame2

I had just finished a sermon exhorting our congregation to faith and boldness in taking up the challenge of a new stage in our ministry’s development, a sermon which I ended by quoting a wonderful prayer which Robert Van de Meyer attributes to St. Brendan (fl. ca. A.D. 560), which, tradition tells us, he offered just prior to departing in a leather boat with sixteen companions for points west across the uncharted sea.

The first person to approach me at the door was a minister of my denomination, who was visiting with us that day. I held out my hand to greet him, but he declined, looking first at my outstretched hand, and then, coming very close to my face, saying, “Couldn’t you find some worthy Reformed saint for your illustration? Did you have to use that Catholic?

Note the emphasis: Not a Protestant saint, but a Reformed one. For this pastor it would not have been sufficient merely to draw on an example from the Protestant heritage; it had to be Reformed. This anecdo...

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