Visiting all the churches in town confirmed to me that we agree on much more than we disagree. Sometimes it's a matter of where we place our focus. If we focus on areas of agreement, then we will tend to look for and find areas of agreement. If we focus on areas of disagreement, then we will tend to look for and find areas of disagreement. Of course, it's a lot easier to focus on areas of agreement if they outnumber the areas of disagreement, and that is what I found reconfirmed as I visited all the churches.
I don't mean we should overlook areas of disagreements. What I mean is we should put those disagreements in some sort of context, and weigh them against all the areas of agreement. Otherwise, our focus quickly gets sidetracked to areas of disagreements, and we can quickly get lost in what tends to become an ensuing spiral. We tend to lose all perspective on what we did, or might otherwise, agree on. More importantly, we tend to lose all or any sense of unity and love.
A very large area of agreement which almost all orthodox Christian churches agree on are
the doctrines found in the Nicene Creed, which some traditions recite every Sunday (and others recite less often - and some not at all). If we focus on these areas of agreement, it tends to put our areas of disagreement in perspective. We don't tend to think of the Nicene Creed as a set of doctrines because it was written in simple manner but yet addresses profound areas of philosophical questions and problems, as well as address deep matters of doctrines such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and many other doctrinal matters. Though I don't have the time and space here to discuss it at length, I have posted about the Nicene Creed in my other blog (in four parts) - here are the links:
http://rudyrentzel.blogspot.com/2010/08/nicene-creed-intro.htmlA very large area of agreement which almost all orthodox Christian churches agree on are
the doctrines found in the Nicene Creed, which some traditions recite every Sunday (and others recite less often - and some not at all). If we focus on these areas of agreement, it tends to put our areas of disagreement in perspective. We don't tend to think of the Nicene Creed as a set of doctrines because it was written in simple manner but yet addresses profound areas of philosophical questions and problems, as well as address deep matters of doctrines such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and many other doctrinal matters. Though I don't have the time and space here to discuss it at length, I have posted about the Nicene Creed in my other blog (in four parts) - here are the links:
http://rudyrentzel.blogspot.com/2010/11/nicene-creed-part-1.html
http://rudyrentzel.blogspot.com/2010/11/nicene-creed-part-2.html
http://rudyrentzel.blogspot.com/2010/12/nicene-creed-part-3.html