The Ecclesiastical Copernican Revolution

It was a big deal when Copernicus realized (and taught) that the earth revolved around the sun, and not the other way around.

It was big news when Immanuel Kant united the formerly competing philosophical positions of Plato (rationalism), and Aristotle (empiricism).

But these insights are really somewhat “small potatoes” compared with the notion that Christians within different and divergent denominational camps—be they Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox—can and must be united around the Lord Jesus Christ, and His gospel of grace.

The Ecclesiastical Copernican Revolution (henceforth, “ECR”), works this way: The True Religion (or Puritanism) governs the field. All professing Christians that embrace the Christ of the gospel of grace, by faith alone, possess the kernel of the True Religion.

All doctrines, theologies, teachings, creeds, confessions, ideologies, etc., that accord most closely to and with the True Religion are, to the degree with which they correspond, more faithful. (And, to the degree that they diverge, less faithful.)

Some of the glories of the ECR are that there is now no reason to bicker amongst ourselves; or worse, to sit as judges of one another’s souls (a role fit only for Almighty God).

With ECR, there is much greater stock of grace, patience, compassion, and latitude that may be tapped into, as we pray for one another, and seek the best for each others’ souls.

May the ECR prove to be a blessing to the church—for our generation, and for all those that follow us.