...that I'm going to throw my two cents in, as well.
I shared in a previous post that I was at Urbana '96.* As I said in that post, "Sometimes I miss the unity I used to feel with my Evangelical brothers." When I was an Evangelical, I was ignorant of the true devastation the Great Schism and the Protestant "Reformation" have caused. I wasn't sure if Catholic and Orthodox Christians were actually Christians, so I viewed them as "targets for evagelization". Now that I'm Catholic and have a much better understanding of the nature of the Church, Church history, and, especially, Common-union, it hurts that there's so much division among Christians! It hurts! Sometimes, I cry over the un-community we've created. And remember, it's not just a split between Catholic and Orthodox. The Coptic and Armenian Churches broke off from the Church around 500A.D. The Protestant groups broke off in the 16th century and started fragmenting off from each other. The Old Catholic Church broke off from the Western Church in the 1800s, I believe, and we also have the SSPX, the McFeeny-ites, and other groups. The Orthodox Communion deals with "Old Calendarists" (the Orthodox version of the Catholic "rad Trad"). The Antiochan Orthodox communion broke off from the Orthodox Church in the 20th century. And let us not forget the heretical "Christian" cults: the Watchtower Society, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (which has also experienced schism), the Worldwide Church of God, etc. Let us fast, pray, and work to bring the heretics into the Truth, and let us fast, pray, and work to heal all the divisions within the mystical Body of Christ.
*Urbana home page link here.
*History of the Urbana Conventions here.
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