Yes. This.

[tree_and_leaf]

You defend the Church best when you live out its values.

Comments

[carlanime.livejournal.com]

All of this is a welcome reminder that the Church is at its most impressive when it is least concerned with defending itself, and most concerned with preaching the gospel. Only those who care for gospel values more than they care for the Church will truly and surely defend the institution they love. There is a moral here for those of us in the C of E who are obsessed with defending our little patch of the Church. Let us live out the gospel, and let whatever happens to the Church happen.

There's something oddly courageous about that statement.

[tree_and_leaf]

Yes, there is. It's extremely difficult to let go like that, but I think it's necessary - those who lose their lives will save them, as someone-or-other said... But it's too easy to fall into habits of thinking your own corner of the church (or whatever - it applies to all kinds of communities, I think) is the one true faith, to be defended at any cost - not even consciously, but because it's easy to lose sight of the fact that the world, and for that matter God, is bigger and stranger than you think.