Many Christians today find it difficult to see beyond the narrow confines of their own particular experience of Christianity. Religious myopia and centripetalism prevent us from experiencing and appreciating the full diversity of the body of Christ. Some evangelicals, for example, can hardly bring themselves to study, much less participate in, anything that smacks of being ecumenical. Reformed and Wesleyan believers routinely neglect and in some case even spurn one another. Dispensationalists and charismatics or Pentecostals find mutual cooperation almost impossible. Mainline and independent Bible churches eye one another with unveiled suspicion. The Low Church and the High Church would never be caught worshiping together. The rich tradition of black Christianity in America is a complete unknown to most white Christians. Likewise, most of us have remained ignorant of Eastern Orthodoxy, as if it were a rejected stepchild. If we are to follow the great imperative of our Lord, we must recall the admonition of Paul that such a situation ought not to be. The unity of the body of Christ is a necessity, not an option.
Daniel B. Clendenin, Eastern Orthodox Christianity: A Western Perspective (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1994), 20.
