Poet Scott Cairns grew up in a congregation that describes as part of “a particularly brittle sort.” And yet, even amid fundamentalism that he internally resisted, Cairns understood the love of God to be profound. This belief grew even more as he was in college, reading the church fathers and ultimately finding his way to Eastern Orthodoxy.
Even still, Cairns looks back on his upbringing as a time that revealed to him a God who loved him deeply, empowering him to be “delicious free, unafraid, and welcoming.”
“If the church is understood to be the body of Christ, then it must be self-evident that all of its members—despite their differences—are members of that one body,” Cairns recently told CT. “So, yes, regardless of the familiar divisions—and the profoundly regrettable term denominations—the body of Christ is unalterably one. I also think that most historical divisions can be read as sequential diminishments of the faith.”
As we reflect on our faith stories and find ourselves in myriad church communities, may we be reminded that we are of one body that belongs to Christ.
