C.S. Lewis

“We are half hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

-C.S. Lewis

Sola Scriptura?

How do we understand the hermeneutical community? With whom are we reading and understanding the Scriptures? What is TRUTH? What is the way of following Christ? Is our hermeneutical community only our Sunday School class, our local congregation, our conference, our denomination?

From Beyond Foundationalism, Grenz and Franke

Richard Lints notes three fundamental characteristics of contemporary evangelicalism that work against the appreciation and appropriation of tradition: the emphasis on inductive methods of Bible study, the pervasive parachurch or transdenominational orientation of the movement, and its 'ahistorical devotional piety.' In many evangelical contexts, the emphasis in Bible study is often primarily on the question of the meaning of the text for the individual reader.

Lints points out:

In banishing all mediators between the Bible and ourselves, we have let the Scriptures be ensnared in a web of subjectivism. Having rejected the aid of the community of interpreters throughout the history of Christendom, we have not succeeded in returning to the primitve gospel; we have simply managed to plunge ourselves back to the biases of our own individual situations.

Living by a Rule- Contemporary Monasticism

I have been thinking about what it would be like to live as a part of a monastic order. To live life by a rule that helps me live out my spiritual life and witness in intentional ways. One contemporary model of this is the Northumbria Community. http://www.northumbriacommunity.org/WhoWeAre/whoweareTheRule2.htm

What would it look like to affirm and embrace my own Anabaptist tradition, while at the same time re-connecting to the Great Tradition of the church? Can we from the Anabaptist tradition come to the great banqueting table of the global church throughout history and affirm the oneness of the Body of Christ. Must our self-understanding always begin with our distinctives--identity by differentiation, or can we affirm the wholeness of the church of Jesus throughout history.

Jesus told Peter that he would build his church and the gates of Hades would not stand against it. He instructed his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until they received the gift of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses to the inbreaking reality of the Kingdom. That eschatological vision of Jesus was to be realized as the church continued the work he had begun. It was not sealed in a textual reality, or in a time warp of when Jesus was on earth. The eschatological reign of God has been advancing throughout history, even as the church has been an imperfect sign many times.

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The Cry of the Church

Lord, have mercy on us.

Christ, have mercy on us.

Lord, have mercy on us.