Tag Archive for emergining at Zeal For Truth

Tag Archive for 'emergining'

Changing Church: Part 3

Published by Bryan September 4, 2007 in General, Religion and Emerging Church. 15 Comments

Would someone from the church that existed in 400 AD recognize it today? What about someone from 1300 AD? 1700 AD? What would they think if they walked into a modern church service? If the language barrier was removed, could they understand what was happening in the service? Besides the practice, what would they think of the doctrine being preached? These kinds of questions make one stop and consider just how historic the Christian faith professed today actually is.

As more and more Christians begin to question how the society around them has influenced the faith that they believe, they begin to turn to resources that have not been affected by our current society to see the differences in the faith from one to the other. The most important of these resources is, of course, the scriptures themselves, but there also seems to be a growing interest in what the early church believed among evangelicals. Books such as Evangelicals and Tradition and the Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture are the first two examples that come to mind regarding evangelicals investigating this area of their history.

What will come of this new interest is hard to tell. One thing that should arise from it is a re-examination of doctrines that were at one time considered “too catholic” and laughed off by evangelicals. One of the easier early church fathers to read (therefore most likely to be read), and one that is likely the most respected among protestants, is Augustine. Yet, when evangelicals begin to read a work of his such as The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope and Love they will quickly realize that many of the beliefs he held to are vastly different from what evangelicals believe. His understanding of the church and the sacraments is not one that would be allowed to be taught in evangelical churches today. One will very quickly begin to question how someone so well respected in the church could believe in baptismal regeneration, and if a person such as he could make such a mistake (as evangelicals say he did), what kind of mistakes have been made in belief by evangelicals today who are not fit to be compared to Augustine?

The investigation of the early church is mainly an investigation of another Christian tradition. As evangelicals have explored other protestant traditions through ecumenical relationships, it seems they are now more willing to explore the early church through research and study. Although Luther had hard words sometimes for the early church fathers, he (and the other Reformers such as Calvin) were well aware of their beliefs and understood them quite well (look at who Calvin quotes in his Institutes all the time). More and more, evangelicals may wish to see how the faith that they hold to has been influenced by the culture we live in. By looking at the faith in a totally different culture, we will see many differences - but also much in common.

Changing Church Part. 2

Published by Bryan August 21, 2007 in Religion and Emerging Church. 9 Comments

The critique of the church that is the most broad in scope is that it has embraced a modern world view, divorcing itself from the way church has been done in the past. This critique goes beyond the idea that the church should minister to those in the culture around it by being relevant to that culture. It’s argument is that a large part of the North American church today has become to identify the church of modernity with the way church must be, and there can be no other.

An example may be helpful here. Someone may argue that, given the modern culture around us, the church should produce apologetic arguments based on science and rationality as that is the language and world view that the world around us understands. This would be a way of making the church relevant to the current culture. Another person however may go further and say that the only apologetic arguments that the church can use is those grounded on science and rationality and begin to read, understand, and identify only with a Christianity that fits within the rational and scientific understanding of Christianity. That would be identifying “The Church” as a modern church.

Often the line between the two practices is blurred. A practice may be adopted by a church because it best ministers to the community around them, but as the generation which adopted it begins to die out and the next generation takes over the church, the practice is maintained simply because that is what they have always understood church to be.

It is important, therefore, to look critically at the practices of local evangelical churches. Worship bands, alter calls, baby dedications, greeting time (the list could go on)…are all ways that various churches have sought to put biblical teachings into a specific cultural and philosophical world view; the modern world view. Arguments can be made for how biblical or unbiblical these practices are, however, that is not the point here. We must first recognize that these practices are a way that the church has sought to be relevant to a particular culture; the church should not hold these practices as the only way to do church.

As I noted in the first entry in this series, one of the ways advocated by some in the church to counter this identification with modernity is to revive practices from the pre-modern church. There is certainly some merit to this position. Reviving such practices will encourage the church to understand itself as neither pre-modern, modern, or post-modern, but as a universal object with different instantiations in different times. However, caution must be exercised not to begin to identify the church only with historical practices and rejected the modern church as it has done to the historical church.

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