Dear Editor,
Most of the discussions around unity in faith and life for Christians currently revolves around ethical issues specially, in this season, to do with gender or indeed the teaching of the Holy Scriptures on male and female, as the divinely ordained context for marriage and sexual relations. Such attention to the ethical content of our faith is deserved, because after all Jesus did not mince words: ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them’ (John 14: 23).
Ironically, many of us boldly profess Christianity as our faith, and firmly declare its Biblical tenets as our foundation for ethics on all matters in public and private life. However, the stark reality is that, despite our declared spiritual and moral identity, our actual spiritual and moral formation have been shaped by a world which, as St John puts it in 1 John 5: 19, has been taken captive by the evil one. We could argue our heads off regarding how to live and maybe even win the argument. We could attain a high degree of moral decency, but remain at risk of losing touch with the life of God, as we feel good about gains we might be making in asserting our moral identity.
Our conservative moral stand could have its roots in cultural conviction rather than in the spiritual transformation that results from the realisation of a faith where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have taken residence and command in us. We need more attention on the upstream task of being captivated by the revelation that Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, who spoke through the prophets, has revealed the mystery of ‘Christ in us, the hope of glory’ (Col.1:27) who mercifully has not left us as orphans but has sent into our hearts the Spirit from whom we derive eternal comfort and new life for the lost around us and to the ends of the earth. When preaching in Samaria in Acts 8, Philip did not start by asserting Biblical demands, but the new life of the risen Lord, which in turn sparked a desire for repentance and holiness in the listeners. The same was the case for Paul in Ephesians and even in the proclamation of the word of God by Ezra in Nehemiah 8.
At this point in history, it’s obvious that ecclesiastic unity or even harmony have failed because institutional inertia remains a missional encumbrance and needs to be replaced by ‘organic’ global spiritual revival, of the light and life-generating presence of God across cultures, now electronically connected despite physical distances. The impact of this will be new life for a world that anticipates the Saviour’s return.
Yours sincerely,
Hamlet Kabushenga Mbabazi Bishop Emeritus, The Free Methodist Church in Uganda
