The Definition of a Soulwright

How do we establish the meaning of a thing that is still developing? This community is in process, fledgling, embryonic. Peering up and out with periscopes and telescopes is my tendency. To peer in with a microscope is a more troubling practice. Nevertheless, we must look into the coding of this organism so that we can better determine what kind of creature it is likely to become.

Our vision is one of ecumenism that’s catapulted by our own personal immersion in the spiritual disciplines. One of my buddies recently told me that he had to research the meaning of ecumenism; this was after many long conversations about the scheme of the Soulwrights’ endeavor. He was a Biblical Studies major. So, forgive me if I bore you with the following development, but I have learned not to take for granted that people know what I am talking about, strange as my language is already.

Ecumenism is that ongoing ministry that labors to see the Church under the same banner, meeting at the same Eucharistic table, worshipping the same Lord in practice as much as ideology. A soulwright is one who engages all 3 manifestations of the church that Jesus commissioned: their local home church, the surrounding congregations that make up the geographical church in their immediate vicinity, as well as the Church Universal that permeates the entire world. This is proper ecumenism.

We do not equivocate or pretend that the differences between us do not matter. However, we share in common the most shattering idea in the history of the world’s wisdom traditions: God made all the stuff and then He entered the stuff Himself, constrained Himself to it, became like us in every way, that He might make us like Himself in every way. Jesus is the living embodiment of that cosmos-establishing, empire-toppling worldview. His breath initiates the life of every child conceived even as it invigorates the spires of every house that worships Him. We are His people and He is our God. Do we not have much more in common than we have things that divide us?

If the various traditions that have sprung from Church History could be illustrated as a Venn Diagram, the centrality of overlap would be enormously greater than the fringe outlying sections of divergence. We would do better to spend our time there, at the center, rather than we have done for so many centuries, argue into infinity about our petty squabbles: how salvation occurs, what baptism should look like, what occurs during the Eucharist, when He will return. Isn’t it enough that we have been saved, baptized, and invited to join Him at the Table as we anxiously await His return?

I do not want to sway anyone’s commitment to the tradition they have inherited. Rather, I want Catholics to be good Catholics, Orthodox to be good Orthodox, Protestants to be good Protestants. Mostly, I would like to see them do a better job of extending hospitality to one another as they begin the practice of learning how to speak each other’s languages and look alongside each other’s perspectives. The world still needs us to be His hands and feet and mouthpieces – we will accomplish this work much better the more we come together.

So, the places where we will join will be in the spiritual disciplines. A soulwright throws their body hard after holiness. They exercise every part of their self, from bones to spirit, the entire soul is surrendered in ongoing, ever-increasing worship. Only in this liturgical rhythm of submission might we become the kinds of people that we know we should become, the very people He has commissioned us to become. Transformation does not happen by accident in a vacuum. We must present ourselves to these things even as we present ourselves to each other.

This is a centuries long endeavor, to be sure, unless the Holy Spirit were to do something amazing in our midst today. Well, perhaps we could say better that He will do something amazing and that it will require centuries for us to behold. Ecumenism reverse engineers from eschatology even as it projects from Jesus’s own prayers concerning the Church, so we simply begin the practice of such things today in expectation of the kind of solidarity we will have in the Consummation of the Ages.

In the context of the Body of Christ, soulwrights will come to function like the central nervous system. The many members and denominations will retain their distinctions in manner and appearance, but with soulwrights in their midst across all traditions, this Body would no longer be in contention with itself. The covenant-keeping people of God will find understanding, cooperation and restoration through the work of soulwrights. We will alleviate the self-wrought suffering of the Church too long assailed by denominations, and congregations too long detached from the Church.

Ecumenism and diligence; Church unity and spiritual formation. These are the primary markers of a soulwright. This is our calling, our commission, our ongoing work. Look out for us, should you have no interest in joining our efforts.

We are coming to a church near you.

-Wailer