An Experience

I recently attended a seminar on the social, political, and economic climate of the early church – say the first two or three centuries. While I was certainly interested in the subject, as you know, I also was pleased that it was hosted by a Protestant church, one in the Reformed tradition. I do appreciate it when Protestants discuss something of church history that doesn’t skip from the apostle John to Augustine to Luther and Calvin and Zwingli then to Scofield.

The seminar was fine, much of it familiar to me and some of it new. But there were a couple of experiences that I find worth sharing.

First, the speaker was asked about the status of the Christian church in country X – country X being an Eastern European country, one that has had a long Eastern / Oriental Orthodox tradition (I am purposely being vague about details).

He replied: you know, most of the church has an Arminian theology; somehow our family found its way to the Calvinist, minority position.

That was it. Not a single mention of what is probably 90% plus of Christianity in that country, being Orthodoxy. Apparently, in the eyes of the speaker and most of the audience, that isn’t a Christian church.

Not at this event, but how often have I heard something like: I used to be Catholic, but now I am Christian.

Second: during lunch, at my table, someone brought up Jehovah’s Witnesses – a relative or some such converted to this. There was some talk amongst those of us at the table.

At one point I offered: Unless one is willing to do the work of understanding how Christology and the Trinity came to be understood by working through the earliest Church Fathers, the early Councils, the heresies of the time and how these were rebuffed, I find it arrogant to then come up with a Christology that was not brought to us through that process.

Others at the table paused for a moment. One of them said, you know, that’s a really good point.

Now, what I didn’t say, but perhaps one or two of them might think about later: what does this mean for those in the Reformed tradition?

My point is not that I find fault or heresy in the Reformed tradition. Every one of us likely has a list of places of disagreement with whatever tradition we have given ourselves to. My point also is not that the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Churches are completely clean on any of this either.

My point is one of dealing with arrogance in the Church – Church broadly speaking, not narrowly defined by “my” denomination or tradition. Arrogance when considering the Christian “cred” of a denomination / tradition other than “mine.”

Conclusion

Humility on many of these disagreements is needed – no, not all, as we can’t believe in all of the same things at the same time, but many. I have written before: if a denomination / tradition baptizes in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that the three are co-eternal, if it holds that Jesus Christ is somehow both God and man, that His death and resurrection in some manner makes us right with God…I have a difficult time suggesting that they are out of the club (so to speak).