A consensus is generally a very satisfactory thing to find. It is a common human aim. Consensus describes wide-spread agreement. ‘The consensus’ can form a foundation for an individual’s beliefs. Popular recently is the slogan ‘trust the science’, or follow the science. And many a person, trying to establish what they believe, don’t train to be a scientist, or claim to be one, but do their research (usually on the internet) to find what seems to be the consensus among scientists. What they learn determines what they believe and trust.
Far more
powerful than any consensus in any particular field, would be a ‘catholic consensus’. To establish that would
require finding out, not just what is held at the moment, but what has been
agreed over a long period of time, as well as among a vast majority or people
concerning a particular subject. Common
Law, ethics, or morality are examples of a universal consensus. For instance, one could establish that there
is a universal consensus that says ‘murder is bad’, or ‘caring for children is
good’.
A universal
consensus is a good place for one’s conscience to find refuge, too. ‘I may be wrong’ becomes a safe thing to say,
if one can then add ‘however the universal consensus is…’. This is because one is less likely to be
blamed for a mistaken notion if that idea can be proven to be part of a
universal consensus.
Because so
many generations of humanity have practiced religion, a universal consensus may
be found there, too, if people are willing to look for it. In the field of religious belief one may even
use the word ‘catholic’ to describe a universal consensus. Used to mean ‘universal’, ‘catholic’ could
even be used to describe a Jewish consensus.
One could find in Judaism a ‘catholic consensus’ that there is only one
true God. A raison d’etre is usually the
location for a religion’s catholic consensus.
Hence a
universal consensus may not be very difficult to find in religion. People being interested in that universal
consensus is quite a different matter.
Where individualism is prized, or innovation highly esteemed, universal
consensus has less attraction, supplanted as it is by opinions or new ideas, or
even special revelations.
In Christian
terms, the universal consensus is the unified voice of that 'great cloud of
witnesses' who live in Heaven and on Earth, as to what is true about God and
how He created us, and Redeemed us by His Son. The beliefs and practices of
most Christians who have ever lived, and who live now concerning how God worked
in the past, works now, and is worthy to be trusted and worshipped eternally is
where it is easy to find a consensus.
Having said
that, finding a universal consensus on a particular doctrine or practice is not
always a comfortable discovery. Take the
universal consensus among Christians that it is too late to add further books
to the Bible, and honour them as Holy Scripture. To defy that consensus, a Mormon has to
decide that a prophet like Joseph Smith (d.1844), or a ‘burning in the bosom’
trumps the catholic consensus of what Christians have believed across time, and
in all places, all ages, etc.
Beyond the
discomfort the universal consensus brings to cults and whacko sects, even many
stodgy established denominations – like my own – may find the catholic
consensus disconcerting in places. The
following is a list of practices and beliefs (in no particular order) that are
demonstrably part of the universal consensus among Christians that –
nevertheless - some denominations may find unsettling.
1.
Your
church should have ranks of clergy who wear quite elaborate vestments leading
worship services.
2.
Your
church’s worship services should be liturgical, usually consisting of an
outline of actions that are the same week by week.
3.
Your
church should believe that Jesus Christ has promised to offer His Body and
Blood under the forms of bread and wine for Christians to eat and drink at
every Sunday service.
4.
Your
church should use wine for the Blessed Sacrament displayed and distributed from
a chalice.
5.
Your
church should worship on Sundays.
6.
Your
church should keep the same seasons, feasts and festivals every year,
commemorating Christ, and honouring ‘saints’, the Blessed Virgin Mary among
them.
7.
Your
church members should make the sign of the cross as part of their
identification with the prayer and devotion of the Faith.
8.
Your
church should sing the Psalms in the Bible, as well as other hymns and
spiritual songs.
9.
Your
church should be decorated with symbols, statues, icons, paintings, sculptures,
windows, candles, crucifixes, and other things as teaching aids and aids to
worship.
10. Your church should baptise people of all
nations, and all ages – including infants.
11. Your church should read from the Bible,
preach sermons from the Bible, systematically, and devoutly, treating Holy
Scripture with great honour – even kissing its pages.
12. Your church should regard the place where
worship is taking place as sacred, with Christ Himself mysteriously present
where ‘two or three are gathered’ in His Name.
Now concerning
these dozen items listed above - easily established – as part of the universal
consensus among Christians of all times, I can honestly say they do not
represent my personal choices, my tastes, my preference, my style, my
anything. That is precisely the
point. One can react to them, in
submission or contempt, but one cannot claim to have invented them. Whether or not one adopts them reflects how
much one values the inheritance that has been conveyed from countless others
through the ages who have gone before.
Now some,
looking at this article, may ask, ‘What about Justification by Grace through
Faith’, and what about the definition of the Gospel, and the number of books in
the Bible? Aren’t those things more
important that whether there is a historical consensus on vestments?
The catholic
consensus has been described above in accurate, but broad terms, concerning the
historic and present global reaction to the core teachings of the Christian
faith. There is no question of the
importance of key elements of the Faith such as ordo salutis and the
canon of Scripture, but the twelve things listed above are there not because
they are more important, but because they are clearly agreed upon on a universal
scale.
That is what
needs to be recognised by Christians, whatever they believe.