John Scepanski

Christian Faith Moravian Church

DeForest, Wisconsi

My dear fellow Moravians all over the world,

 

I listened to the messages from the five-day gathering at Friedberg Moravian (visit audio library).  They were awesome and inspiring affirmations of the faith shared by most Moravians worldwide.  Our renewed Moravian Church is sound in its professed doctrines of almost 200 years.  Our Moravian Church is vigorous in its search for and confidence in sound doctrines based on scripture, as advised in The Ground of the Unity.  There is in the Moravian Church a solid majority core of believers in Christ as the one and only, once and for all time Savior of the world, who is the gateway provided by God for our entrance into heaven here on earth and when we die.

 

Now the big "however."  However, there are those of us Moravians in the apparent minority who do not believe that Jesus Christ is the one way to salvation.  There are those of us who believe that Jesus Christ is OUR way to salvation, our Christian way; but that there are other ways, too, to The Way-The Truth-The Life.  The Ground of the Unity encourages us to strive for new understanding of the Gospel.

 

As the world has become "globalized," some of us Moravians believe that we have found so many commonalities in most of the world's great religions that it is not God's will that we exclude our Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu, and other cousins from the brotherhood (siblinghood?) of believers. 

 

How is God different from Allah, Tao, or The One?  What's in a name?  God by any other name is God.  Others are guided down the narrow path to God by Mohammed, Lao Tzu, the Buddha, Shiva.  Others believe in a universal Higher Power that is greater than the sum of all the parts of the universe.  God by any other name is always God, and Christ or The Word is his prophet; be he Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, or any or more than one of the other "Christs" who have brought The Word to us from God.  "In the beginning was The Word...."  (John 1)  Who are we to subdivide The Word?

 

The ethical framework is the same too:  love, compassion, rejection of the world's governance.

 

I sincerely believe that the hope for world peace lies in our reconciliation with our faithful cousins all over the world.  Once we all realize that our scriptures all describe that same faith, albeit in different terms and images, we will end the co-option of our faiths by the Caesars and open the door for "His" kingdom to come.

 

                Sincerely and in love,

 

                     John Scepanski

                     Christian Faith Moravian Church

                     DeForest, Wisconsin, USA