Best of the week entry 3

Comes from Frank Turk (he who hung the moniker "theological malcontent" on me in an offhanded comment) writing for Pyromaniacs regarding appreciating other Christians, even ones we disagree with, because they are Christians. From He Was Glad:

With Augustine, I’d object strongly to his view of his the eucharist; with Aquinas, I’d object to his Platonism aristotelianism (thx, Bobby) and his extra-biblical musings; Calvin wants to baptize babies, and ultimately advocates for Presbyterian ecclesiology; Jerome was, well, Jerome – a monastic with a high view of Mary and a low view of marriage; Wesley – Arminianism; Billy Sunday & Billy Graham & Chuck Colson – the manner and mode of Ecumenism, up to and including a tacit disregard for the still-evident distinctions between Protestants and Catholics.

But here’s the thing: I think we are compelled to call all of these men Christians -- and I’m not speaking in some broad sociological sense, either. Some of them may be bad Christians – doctrinally bumfuzzled or worse: doctrinally indifferent. Some of them may be misguided – as I think Aquinas was – for intellectual or sociological reasons. But they are Christians.

Great stuff from Frank. Not everyone is interested in other Christians if they are not Calvinists, some people even question whether a leader in the church who is not a Calvinist is even a Christian. Frank gets the tone right here, we should be glad for other Christians because they were saved by the same God who saved us, they were adopted by the same God who adopted us and we are going to spend eternity worshiping the same God. No point in waiting until we die to be glad for other Christians