Anglican defection - just another Church squabble

Now I don't want to go into the story in detail, I am sure if you don't already know about the story of three Anglican Bishops being ordained as Catholic Priests a quick web search will bring up the stories for you. What I want to talk about is the way that we view our Churches, The Church and the Body of Christ.

Surely I am not the only one who finds the way that this has been covered and the way people have reacted to it as possibly a little unchristian? I know that we are only human and that means that in anything we do there is going to be flaws in it, and from that comes disagreements and conflict. I also know that people can become offended very easily at times and especially so when religion is involved.

What seems to have been forgotten in this situation is that nothing really has changed. Ok the priests are now in the Catholic communion and not the Anglican communion, but they are human definitions. They still have the same Saviour, they still worship the same God, in all things that are important, i.e. the teachings of Christ, nothing has changed. I am not that naive to think that nothing has changed, certain things will be different and some things will have to change as part of the Church they are now a part of, but these are all human trappings that we have added on. And it is the human side of it that has caused this fracture in the first place, the question of do men have a monopoly on priesthood.

But I am not going to get into that question here, the point I want to make is that we often talk about the Churches. Plural? Are we getting this right? Surely there is no plural in it, surely we are all part of one Church, one Body of Christ. There are different denominations, different worship styles and we have some differing views on some things. But we are all followers of Christ, we are all born again Children of God, why do we insist on drawing lines in the sand, why do we look to our differences and not our similarities.

If you follow the teachings of Christ and accept Him as your Lord and Saviour then you are a part of His Body, a member in His Church. It does not matter which "Church" you belong to as they are all part of the Church of Christ. If you are Catholic, Protestant or Orthodox, if you are one of the many other denominations you are part of something much more than that "Church", you are part of The Church.

If we let divisions like this become big issues then we are setting ourselves up for failure. When we allow these issues to become points of conflict we open up doors for the enemy to come in and work towards our downfall. We are the Church of Christ in whatever way we worship, we are all brothers and sisters in Him, lets stand in a united front and show the enemy that we stand for Christ, that we will battle him on every front, and by Jesus' grace we will win.