Christian unity elevates authentic and powerful salvation.

The fiery and abrasive Amos said many things his listeners did not want to hear! He was about as rugged as any individualist could be. Continually at odds with the power structures of his day, the prophet spoke directly, with no regard for those who tried to compromise his message.

Our Lord’s plea for his church to be One is not a way of reducing denominations and Christians to forms that are listless. Ecumenism, by its very nature, seeks integrity. Anything less cannot be his church. Salvation, understood primarily as a right relationship with God through Jesus the Christ, in a sense is the starting and ending point of all ecumenical endeavors. Amos, in our passage, perhaps like no other writer save Jesus, gives a succinct bluep…