Element 7: Wholeness Not Fragmentation

We renounce the spirit of self-sufficient autonomy, and are committed to a much more holistic approach which was the strength of the Celtic church. We encourage the ministry of Christian healing. We not only lay hands on the  sick and pray for their healing, we also "lay hands" on every part of God's world to bless it and recognize its right to wholeness in Christ.

The seventh element has the shortest description of any of the ten, yet of all the elements it is often the prime motivator for those who are drawn to the Aidan Way. The deeper our experience of God goes, the more dissatisfied Christians feel with the self-limiting nature of much of Christian churches. We are well aware of the secular/sacred dichotomy that has turned faith in Jesus from a life-transforming encounter to sort of personal hobby like model trains and bird watching. Stephen Carter's book, The Culture of Disbelief, addresses the dangers of such a dichotomy in pointing out that the civil rights movement that gained public attention and support in the  1960's was born of a conviction in the African-American community that the Lordship of Jesus Christ had inescapable implications for public life. Without that basis of faith, Carter posits that the gaining of full citizenship rights by African Americans might have been more violent, less effective and much longer in bearing fruit.

The secular/sacred dichotomy therefore has profound public effects that are a source of constant debate. The deeper divisions within the full breadth of Christian spirituality have effects that are just as powerful and  destructive, but whose connections with those effects are much less visible. The decline and decadence of Western Christianity as represented in the continuing fragmentation of the Body of Christ into nearly 30,000 denominations have more to do with this inner fragmentation than irresolvable disagreements on theology and order. When one group of Christians divide from another over issues of worship, the manifestation of spiritual gifts, or different approaches to engaging human cultures, systems and governments we see effects of this fragmentation.

The Biblical expectation of the cataclysmic end of creation with the ultimate consummation of all things in Jesus Christ has provided Christians with an excuse to avoid addressing this fragmentation. If the earth is to be  destroyed, why should we seek its healing today? We might also ask, since the human body's ultimate end is death and decay and our destiny in Christ is to be clothed with immortality, why should we seek the healing of human  beings through prayer or medicine? For that matter, why does not God immediately rapture each new Christian at the moment of his or her conversion? Apparently this life and this world in which we live, though ultimately transient,  has a purpose for God.

If that is true, then Christians of every nation, people and culture must seek the original wholeness of creation by all means until the end. This process begins by a renunciation of the illusion that we are somehow independent  creatures not affected by the creation of which we are a part nor by the society in which we live. This spirit of self-sufficient autonomy is represented by the Biblical story of Fall. Here the first humans believed the serpent's lie that we could escape the dependency of creation by the gaining of knowledge. When God is displaced from the center of the human heart then we each seek to ascend that throne. But try as we might, we cannot divinize ourselves. When restored to right relationship with God in Jesus Christ, our next step is to accept the reality of our humanity, utterly dependent upon God for all things and utterly inter-dependent with all creation including the whole human community.

Yet, as Paul lamented to the Romans, the old Adam does not give up easily. Let our will, our appetites, our ambitions be thwarted and our sinful claim to divinity rises again in indignation. Therefore, this renunciation is both  an event and a process. We must renounce the spirit of self-sufficient autonomy daily. Or as Jesus put it, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?" (Luke 9:23-25).

This process of renunciation is not, however, a negative activity. Each act of renunciation is step in our healing and the healing of creation. We therefore lay hands in prayer on the sick and the suffering, the broken and broken-hearted. We also extend this laying on of hands on the whole created order. This action is undertaken in a number of ways; through racial reconciliation, seeking the redemptive purpose God has planted in each culture and  place, working for the best of human justice, valuing and blessing the differing ways that God uses to connect with each redeemed soul.

It is no easy thing to take the seventh element of our Way and transform it into a spiritual discipline that provides substance and accountability. But if we are to make sense of the very idea of an Aidan Way, each of us, with our soul friend, must wrestle mightily with this element until it becomes a means of incarnating wholeness in our lives.