http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2006/september/11.57.html
I'm really encouraged to see this statement from some in the evangelical world. Many Christian churches are too easily manipulated by political parties and ideologies (conservative and liberal) today. The Church can't be caught up in the zeitgeist.
One thing I've thought a lot about is what churches need to do to set themselves up for the long haul. Imagine what would happen if Christ doesn't return until the year 3500. What will your neighborhood Lutheran or evangelical church believe in 3006? Any guesses? Now, what will the Catholic and Orthodox churches believe in 3006? I have a pretty good idea.
My point is that the ancient churches have shown that Holy Tradition based on Holy Scripture is a combination that stands the test of time. So far we've made the transition from living under a pagan Roman Empire to the Dark Ages to Islamic rule to the Enlightenment to a totalitarian communist rule to the world of today. No doubt changes have occurred in liturgy, etc., but the core dogmas remain essentially the same. A Christian from the 4th century could feel pretty much at home in the Orthodox church I go to today. And I think that's pretty darn cool.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
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Check out:
Touchstone Magazine
Back & Forth to the Future
A Critical Symposium on A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future
http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=19-09-022-o
Some highlights:
"If one radically edits the past before appropriating it, then it is no longer the past that one is appropriating, but a version of the present."
"I wish I didn’t have the feeling, reading this document, that I was reading about the roll-out of a self-consciously “retro” new-model car, a sort of ecclesiastical PT Cruiser, which thinks itself “ancient” because it can play Gregorian chant on its sumptuous audio system."
"At the end of the day, the “Ancient/Future” Evangelicalism is a natural extension of American Evangelicalism’s besetting sins of faddishness and consumerism. That’s the reason it is fanned (as so many Evangelical winds of doctrine are) by publishing houses. This project comes to us just as Evangelicalism is in the throes of an infatuation with the so-called emerging church, which is also fueled by publishing houses (the sellers of youth ministry curricula) and which is also enamored simultaneously with postmodern cynicism, egalitarianism, doctrinal flexibility, and ancient-seeming worship...The emerging worshipers and the ancient futurists want to borrow some of the trappings of a time when Christianity was countercultural (dark rooms and candles simulating catacombs, for instance) while embracing primary aspects of contemporary cultural libertarianism (including feminism and pluralism)...The roots of Halloween, we’re told, date back to a time when villagers sought to ward off evil spirits, witches, and ghosts by mocking them with mimicry. A bloodthirsty demon would retreat, it was thought, when he saw someone dressed in ghoulish costume. When reading documents such as A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future, it is hard not to wonder whether this is not what’s going on among these Evangelicals: keeping the ancient Christian witness at bay by mocking it with mimicry."
"If real antagonism exists between Evangelicalism and ecclesial Christianity, then why do born-again Protestants who desire historically grounded expression of the faith remain Evangelical? Why not simply join one of the other communions that guard ancient Christianity? One suspects that the reason has something to do with the advantages of being rootless. Without an Evangelical identity, a born-again Protestant would have to choose one of those other traditions, join it, and reject the others. With an Evangelical identity, he can take the best from all Christian expressions without having to come under the discipline and restraint of a particular church’s ministry, authority, and tradition. If this is so, then the Evangelical future called for in this statement is more modern than ancient, because it is more voluntary than received, more liberated than restrained, more tolerant than exclusive. Without becoming part of a historic Christian communion, Evangelicalism’s ancient future will yield merely the trappings of antiquity minus its churchly substance."
"Throughout the Call, Protestants are blithely encouraged to leapfrog over 1,500 years of church history to recover some exceedingly vague and romantic model of the early Church. Although American Evangelicals are excoriated for their lack of historical consciousness (an argument one could certainly make), the statement’s own case is, in fact, strikingly ahistorical in its fanciful and selective invocation of the Church of the ancient Fathers."
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