Gathering cattle

In today's gospel (John 17: 20-26) Jesus prays for all those who will believe in him (in the future) through the word to be spread by his disciples. His prayer is for the believers to have God's glory, to be one, to share in God's love, to be with Jesus, and to be a sign to the world.

In this same gospel he says that God loved him before the foundation of the world. Believing in this concept was the difference between St. Athanasius's orthodox Trinitarian view (see my earlier post on "Hero for today") and Arius's "one God" view. I think that Arius's followers eventually included Mohammad, leading to the Islamic battle cry "There is only one God and Mohammad is is his prophet!". Perhaps today's war on terror, the rise of the Aryan nation in Germany, and all of the Crusades can be traced back to the heated dispute between the two deacons of Alexandria?