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LEADERSHIP LETTER ARCHIVES
A
MONTHLY READING FOR ALL ARC LEADERS
ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY
We are part of the church catholic, and we stand with, not apart from, this church universal which today and throughout the ages is that body of believers founded upon Jesus Christ and his atonement for our sins. Because the church is his creation, its history reveals a common doctrine of orthodox faith and practice. This orthodoxy is reflected in the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist, and in the church's common credal confessions which we also embrace, i.e., the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedonian Creed. Because these creeds reflect the clear teaching of Scripture, which is God's only written revelation, they provide the benchmark for orthodoxy today.
As part of the church catholic, we remain open and cordial toward all who name the name of Christ and share with us this commitment to orthodoxy as the basis for Christian faith, whether or not we hold in common with them other concerns for the church in our age. --ARC Common Concerns
Most evenings after the meal, we clear the dishes from the table and retire to the living room, drink hot tea or chocolate, wrap up in afghans and read from the Bible or another book. Last year we read Tolkien’s The Return of the King, Bruce Olson’s Bruchko (a missionary biography), Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (a wonderful novella about determination and perseverance) and the gospel of Luke among others. We’ve had some real bombs too! We’ve started some books that simply didn’t work, like Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory –wonderful book but it doesn’t read aloud so well. At any rate, a year or so ago I lent out Chesterton’s Orthodoxy to someone and lost track of it and purchased another copy. I also picked up 131 Christians You Should Get to Know put out by the Christian History Institute. Why 131, I don’t know, but that’s what we’re reading these days. It’s perfect—3 to 5 pages on the likes of Athanasius, Augustine, Francis of Assisi, Hudson Taylor, etc. In fact Athanasius and Augustine were the first two people our family got better acquainted with. I don’t know when the last time was that you thanked God for raising up these two faith heroes, but it’s not too late to start right now. These were fierce warriors for orthodoxy. Athanasius battled for decades against Arius and his heresy (fundamentally, a denial of the Incarnation) while Augustine went toe to toe with Pelagius over the issue of divine grace and freewill. These two men understood that “the faith” was a deposit that every successive age of leaders is called to guard, steward and pass on undamaged to the succeeding generation. They did this admirably and at great cost. How are we doing?
In the opening salvo of our Common Concerns we talk of our “commitment to orthodoxy as the basis for Christian faith.” I always tremble a bit as I preside over wedding vows. Before me is this rather handsome young couple often a bit overcome by emotion saying incredibly profound things to one another: “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death separates us.” And then they go on this great honeymoon. And then . . . the honeymoon is over and they must work out those vows every day in the face of their own sinfulness and in a world environment that, as Luther says, is “filled with devils.” Commitments can never be passive assents to principles – they must be aggressively embraced and enjoined. Particularly in the realm of eternal truth we must recognize the unrelenting assault that we will absorb in this present darkness.
Over the past three years at our Midwest and East Coast ARC Conferences we have addressed the Trinity (2001), the Incarnation (2002) and the Cross (2003). For sure, these are not “hot” seminar topics for our fussy postmodern disposition, but these are the truths we must rehearse if we will be faithful to the one who called Himself “the Truth” (Jn. 14:6). The Common Concerns piece states that “orthodoxy is reflected in the sacraments at baptism and the eucharist and in the church’s common creedal confessions which we also embrace, i.e. the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Chalcedonian Creed.” I would also encourage you to look at the Athanasian Creed which at first reading will seem like theological overkill but will also give a clear sense of the battle being fought.
And beyond all of this, dear friends, we must understand that we are not faithful when we merely teach the Trinity and the Incarnation and the Cross properly. We must be trinitarian, incarnational and cruciform in our personal discipleship and life together. And it’s not too hard. Hard? Yes. Too hard? No! A great cloud of witnesses has gone on before us, fought the fight, finished their leg of the race and passed the baton on to us. We must run this race marked out for us.
I hope that your celebration of the Incarnation has been wondrous. I hope that the angels show up at your worship services like they did 2000 years ago in the fields of Bethlehem. And I hope that all of you shepherds of the flock of God find your way again to the place of humble adoration and proclamation of the One who has come to save and the same who will come to take us to our eternal habitation.
In the praise of Jesus, Ned
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