When I first began reading this article I had to stop and think for a while. When she wrote: “He prays for unity among Christians,” I thought; wait a minute Jesus wasn’t praying for Christians. Especially since there weren’t any Christians! It was the Jews and the Gentiles and Christianity wasn’t even yet a thought. So I tore into John 17. I can see how she can theologically get the idea that it is Christianity, but I think that is too narrow-minded. Yes, Jesus does say: “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” In that I can see where you might get the notion of Christianity as the only thing spoken here, but Jesus came for us all. So I disagree with Marcia and I feel that really what is being discussed here is that Jesus is praying for the unity of all people (Christian, Jew, Gentile, etc.). I think that this article shouldn’t have been so narrowed, especially since the rest of our theological thoughts are very poignant. The notion of family here is one that we often forget. We are brothers and sisters in Christ and in God. Since we forget that we are all in a family bond in relation to God and the Holy Trinity, which is why we fight so much. I really appreciated Marcia’s look at family and what Jesus is doing in his prayer before his death. The prayer that she created afterwards was very strong. It could have been made stronger if she had included other religions into the fray, but overall it was good. I feel that the weakness of this piece, outside the one I have already discussed, was that it was so short. I wanted to hear more about her theological thoughts about family. I had two questions for the author: Are there any other biblical connections to John 17? How does the notion of family help build our theological understanding of what occurs at Calvary?

When I first began reading this article I had to stop and think for a while. When she wrote: “He prays for unity among Christians,” I thought; wait a minute Jesus wasn’t praying for Christians. Especially since there weren’t any Christians! It was the Jews and the Gentiles and Christianity wasn’t even yet a thought. So I tore into John 17. I can see how she can theologically get the idea that it is Christianity, but I think that is too narrow-minded. Yes, Jesus does say: “And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” In that I can see where you might get the notion of Christianity as the only thing spoken here, but Jesus came for us all. So I disagree with Marcia and I feel that really what is being discussed here is that Jesus is praying for the unity of all people (Christian, Jew, Gentile, etc.). I think that this article shouldn’t have been so narrowed, especially since the rest of our theological thoughts are very poignant. The notion of family here is one that we often forget. We are brothers and sisters in Christ and in God. Since we forget that we are all in a family bond in relation to God and the Holy Trinity, which is why we fight so much. I really appreciated Marcia’s look at family and what Jesus is doing in his prayer before his death. The prayer that she created afterwards was very strong. It could have been made stronger if she had included other religions into the fray, but overall it was good. I feel that the weakness of this piece, outside the one I have already discussed, was that it was so short. I wanted to hear more about her theological thoughts about family. I had two questions for the author: Are there any other biblical connections to John 17? How does the notion of family help build our theological understanding of what occurs at Calvary?