Thursday, June 02, 2005
Challenging Modernity
One of the things that I am struck with more and more these days is the desire to "update" Christianity. I find myself stuck between the obvious historical evidence that Christianity has changed through the centuries and the utter hubris of assuming that we have any power at all to change something which is clearly meant to change us.
Among my frustrations in this area is the utter ignorance most people have of the great documents of our past. For example, in my denomination, the PCUSA, there are two primary books of grave importance -- the "Book of Order" and the "Book of Confessions." The later contains the great theological statments of our faith from the early creeds (Apostles and Nicene) to the "Confession of 1967" and the "Brief Statement of Faith" issued when northern and southern churches combined in the early 1980's.
There was a time when knowledge of those books was mandatory for ordained leadership positions in a congregation in our denomination, but no more. After all, it would be asking entirely too much of someone to actually read a book or two if they want to lead God's people.
Things like this are important to me because so many of the questions of our faith have been answered -- were answered in some cases centuries ago -- by people that were quite smart even though they wrote with quills on parchment instead of electrons on semi-conductors. And given that God has likely not changed in the intervening years, the answers they arrived at are likely to still be valid.
Thus I loved this post from Jollyblogger and linked by Adrian Warnock. David is working on a sermon on the very difficult Hebrews 6. His initial response to the questions raised by that passage is to quote the "Westminster Confession."
This confession is one of the genuine founding documents of the Presbyterian movement and is a fount of real wisdom. I am struck by how well it addresses the questions Hebrews 6 raises and I am grateful that there are at least some preachers left in the world that will refer to it, even if it is a few hundred years old.
Among my frustrations in this area is the utter ignorance most people have of the great documents of our past. For example, in my denomination, the PCUSA, there are two primary books of grave importance -- the "Book of Order" and the "Book of Confessions." The later contains the great theological statments of our faith from the early creeds (Apostles and Nicene) to the "Confession of 1967" and the "Brief Statement of Faith" issued when northern and southern churches combined in the early 1980's.
There was a time when knowledge of those books was mandatory for ordained leadership positions in a congregation in our denomination, but no more. After all, it would be asking entirely too much of someone to actually read a book or two if they want to lead God's people.
Things like this are important to me because so many of the questions of our faith have been answered -- were answered in some cases centuries ago -- by people that were quite smart even though they wrote with quills on parchment instead of electrons on semi-conductors. And given that God has likely not changed in the intervening years, the answers they arrived at are likely to still be valid.
Thus I loved this post from Jollyblogger and linked by Adrian Warnock. David is working on a sermon on the very difficult Hebrews 6. His initial response to the questions raised by that passage is to quote the "Westminster Confession."
This confession is one of the genuine founding documents of the Presbyterian movement and is a fount of real wisdom. I am struck by how well it addresses the questions Hebrews 6 raises and I am grateful that there are at least some preachers left in the world that will refer to it, even if it is a few hundred years old.
