Ut unum sint!

The day of confronatation finally arrived. Last Tuesday, the English Police had a discussion amongst ourselves on how to deal with a certain member's mistakes. He was willing to take half the penalty we had in mind. Personally, I don't care. As long as you learn your lesson, I am willing to overlook your crime and even let you off. As for the others, I cannot say the same. It's so hard, trying to balance Justice with Mercy. I wish things didn't have to come to this. This was another busy week, with the preparations for Open House. We had band performance at the atrium on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Moving the instruments from one end of the school to another was a real killer. The actual performance wasn't too bad, but I could have done better. Never mind, there will be more to come soon. The crowd was quite large, I hope they liked our music. I realise that the band is quite political, based on what I heard from my section people. Of course there's other happenings, but I shall not talk about them. I'd like to protect myself, thank you very much. But it's like, we can play music in harmony but not live in harmony? Such irony. Whatever man, I'll do my best to play my music, and you go play yours. If you see my MSN handle, it mentions "Week of Prayer for Christian Unity (18 January 2005 to 25 January 2005)" As such, we are to pray for Christian Unity. The division within Christianity is a grave scandal. Do you see how the outsiders continue to mock our faith? How long shall we let this continue? There has been much dialogue going on with the Mainstream Protestant groups and the Orthodox Church. Unfortunately, all this is being undermined by the Fundamentalist sect that are mushrooming all around the world. Ecumenism is slowing down. A few weeks ago Christopher, Clement and I were approached by a man from a certain sect. He wanted to share Christ with Clement, so we left the man to his own devices. Basically from what Clement said, the man was insinuating that Clement would be burning in hell if he did not believe. He also said something about Christopher being, "Your friend is walking with Christ." He said something about me too; being, "Your friend is also walking with Christ, but I'd go with Christopher if I were you." So this guy started talking about our usage of crucifixes, saying that it was a disrespect to Jesus and made him look bad. Foolish man! Don't you know that the Lutherans and the Anglicans use crucifixes too? Christopher said that his church had one. He's Lutheran by the way. Needless to say, Clement was extremely put off by the entire conversation. Sigh, it's harder for us to make him change his mind now. The Fundamentalists claim to focus on Holy Scripture so much that they have neglected Church History and the teachings of the Church Fathers. Other sects emphasise the gift of tongues, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The evilness comes in when they insist that if you don't have it, you are damned! Fundamentalism has given people a very bad impression of Christianity, but that's not the worst part. The bad example which we give also contributes to the problem. It is obvious that people will think badly of Christianity if we continue to lie, cheat and steal. Why do we continue to backstab despite having Christ as Saviour? It's sad that we are being called hypocrites, cultists and conmen. If we do not change our ways, we will be judged. Repent! The kingdom of God is at hand! Ut unum sint! That they may be one!