Some thoughts on spirituality. I thi=
nk most of my readers are well aware that Divine Word University is a Ro=
man Catholic institution, operated by the Society of the Divine Word (an=
order of priests that is dedicated to missions work). Also, most of yo=
u know that we recently came from Indiana Wesleyan University, an instit=
ution within the Wesleyan Church. …
Make no doubt about=
it. These two denominations and spiritually speaking, these institions=
, are quite different in oh so many ways. Yet, in their own ways, each =
is devoted to the person of Jesus Christ and to developing better and mo=
re followers of Jesus on earth.
During our staff resumption wee=
k — that's when everyone returns from summer break, in anticipation=
of the students arriving next week — we had the usual daily sessions o=
f planning, listening to strategies, hearing the deans' plans for th=
eir faculties and so on. Each morning was started with a devotional, of=
fered by one of the clergy among the staff.
Our opening session=
was built around the scripture Mark 9:33-37, which=
is particularly appropriate when thinking of starting a new school year=
. (Look it up.) 😉 We have read scripture, sung, prayed, and partici=
pated in responsive liturgy during these start of the day devotionals.
Discussing this among ourselves, we think a good summary can be =
put this way. The Wesleyan point of view seems to be to explicitly stat=
e Jesus Christ is first in all we do. The Catholic point of view seems =
to assume that everything we do is founded on Jesus Christ, and sometime=
s this results in the explicit statement maybe sounding a little muted. =
Our previous institution's Vision statement opened with the words &=
quot;Indiana Wesleyan University is a Christ-centered academic instituti=
on…" whereas here the Vision statement concludes with the phrase=
"…in a Christian environment."
My point here is no=
t to get anyone from any one side to say which is better. The reason I =
write is in hopes of getting all to see that, across the denominations t=
here are many facets to Christianity. A friend and sister in Christ sai=
d once, Christians of all denominations as they get more mature tend to =
look a lot like one another. Also, someone has said we have so many den=
ominations because God is such a big God many of His followers see thing=
s from different points of view of each other. And the best way for the=
many people of the Church to get along with each other is to organize a=
mongst groups of like-minded fellow believers.
One of my favori=
te scripture passages is what I call "Paul's discourse on denom=
inations," found in 1 Corinthians 1:10-13.