What do people think of the 19th century Tractarian movement? These were the people that sought to say there are minimal or non-existent differences with the Catholic church, went to found monasteries, nunneries, etc, and in general sought to repudiate the previous several centuries of Anglican history?
Personally I believe unification of all Christian denominations would be a good thing, would it ever happen in our life time? Probably not... still not a bad ideal though.
I think the first steps are to actually know our where differences lie, which are of "things indiferent" but important and which are of little concern
Exactly... I believe the differences come from our interpretation of the scripture and this history of theology that surrounds that interpretation. We hear statements like ours is the only TRUE way, therefore, everyone else must be wrong.... Basically ego is what keeps us all divided IMHO.
Yes I know what you mean... I am active on another forum where religion is quite often discussed, argued, debunked and all sorts of things depending on whether you are a believe or a non-believer. Anyway one thing I quite often quote when things heat up a little is this quote from one of the Kryon (Spiritualist) publications: "The truth is the truth no matter what you, me or anyone else believes..."
I've written about the Tractarians on my blog: http://solideogloria10.blogspot.com/2012/02/english-high-church-tradition-part-i.html.
I am lucky because I get the option to attend the Eucharist during the week at the Cathedral which uses the contemporary Prayer Book for Australia, and All Saints which uses the Book of Common Prayer and is High Church.