Categories: uncategorized
Date: 30 January 2006 11:36:04
It's really worrying me that we are all Christians, we all believe the main stuff - Jesus is the son of God - but that's about it really. But what about all the other stuff that we all disagree with. Once saved always saved, or not, baby baptism doesn't count, baby baptism does count, sprinkling doesn't count, be baptised in the name 'Jesus' or it doesn't count, bread and wine are a symbol, bread and wine are the actual body and blood of Jesus, women can do this, women can't do that.
We don't like church, let's start another one, and this one is going to be better than all the others 'cos we are going to read the bible and do exactly what it says. We're going to change things to make it right.
Radical Congruency reviewing a book called An introduction to Radical Orthodoxy" (I don't think it's about the Eastern Orthodox church) says this.
"the same can be said for all modern protestant theology. Christians at each point in history articulate their faith in ways that make sense to them and the world around them. At the same time, they critique the approaches that have come before them, and critique most severely those that have preceeded them most recently. I don't think it can be any other way, and I don't think any of this is necessarily bad."
However, it can result in a good deal of a) cultural captivity, and b) wasted energy. If each generation has to figure everything out afresh, rejecting the father's-Oldsmobile articulation of the faith, each generation is going to be equally bound to the culture of its day, and will fail to learn from its forerunners in the faith.
I feel like I'm just choosing one more version of Christianity (although admittedly one developed from the original 2000 year old version which always learns from it's forerunners in the faith). Where is truth?