In the Study

Abstract

"Human insight into the Christian message is inevitably partial and distorted. Churches and their theologians seize upon one doctrine and make it central to and regulative for a confessional position. A perspective, once adopted, opens one horizon but conceals another. So it is that one group stands upon the Resurrection and personal communion with a living Lord, while another stands upon the Atonement and appropriation of a redemption won; and if the Catholic is preoccupied with the reproduction of the gospel in the church, the Protestant stresses the finality of the work of the incarnate Son. Similiarly, East and West divide in the relative importance they attach to the problems of sin and guilt, of corruption and death; and if the West looks primarily to Calvary and Penteco~t, the East harks back to Bethlehem, to christology and incarnation. Can we, in our day, advance beyond this fragmentation of the gospel? Can we take up again the endless task of seeing things clear and seeing them whole? Can we reintegrate incarnation and atonement ? Even a measure of success would involve a closer approach not only to truth but also to ecumenical understanding."